Oops I forgot to write a title for this post. *retro-adds*

There are so many things to love about my life right now. Namely just Final Fantasy 13, which I got my hands on yesterday. I've only been playing like 5-6 hours, but so far I'm having a grand old time. People've complained about the upheaval of common jRPG tropes, such as the removal of towns and lack of open-ended exploring, but I'm not really minded it. I suppose I've always treated wide-open plains with some anxiety because I feel that unless I explore every nook and cranny then I've missed some essential gaming elements, so it always takes me awhile to complete any level. Right now I have the right amount of exploring to battles to story elements. But I'm also very early into the game.

I will say that the graphics are out of this world. Probably to be expected. But sometimes when it shifts into FMV mode I have to take a few seconds before I realise I'm not watching a normal game animation. The voice acting is great so far and the story is amazing. Very good. I'm interested as to why so many stories in our collective media seems to deal with fate and free will (I mean with LOST and Spiral also having such themes).

I'm currently exploring a level which is essentially an ocean that in the midst of what would be a turbulent storm have frozen into crystal .The result is an awe inspiring and eerie landscape of frozen waves and tunnels and other aquatic 'geology'. It's something that is totally inspiring and I love it. I feel like I'm watching through a living painting of the ancient Chinese/Japanese, you know where there's huge tumbling waves but obviously static 'cause it's a painting.

And I only have praise for the battle system. The upgrading system I've yet to full grasp, but that will come with time. But the whole notion of paradigm shift is really, really fun once you get into it. Can't wait until I have a full party and can finally play around with the paradigm arrangements.

And the other thing to love about life? The latest Lost episode. It is definitely one of the best episodes in the entire series. So it joins "The Substitute" into my all-time favourites list. I'm not sure where it sits. Last thing I would want is to make a flippant judgement based on recency bias. But how can a Ben centric NOT be genius? I nearly cried in this one ... hasn't happened for such a long time on Lost. (But then again, earlier today I nearly cried at the latest episode of Chuck :P)