Fire Emblem Fates? Same-sex marriage? Disgusting!

What terrible news to wake up to on a Wednesday morning. Same-sex marriage in my Fire Emblem? And I was so looking forward to the new Fire Emblem Fates games coming out, but now there’s no way I’m going to support a game with same-sex marriage. And you might say “Well just buy it and marry someone else, no one’s forcing you.” Unacceptable. I may be a fangirl but I’m a fangirl with Christian principles.

The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:23-24) Marriage is between a man and a woman, not a man-man or woman-woman, no matter what some government or referendum says. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever (Isaiah 40:8). What is wrong is wrong, I’m not just going to sidestep it and give my hard-earned money to a godless corporation catering to perverts and the depraved in society just for cheap publicity and an increase in their bottom line.

It doesn’t surprise me too much that Nintendo would make such an announcement. What makes me sad is all the voices of the fans who are actually happy with this kind of news. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20). But I guess it shouldn’t be such a surprise, because it’s just a fulfillment of what Paul wrote about in Romans 1. People and whole societies turn away from God and He gives them over to delusions and degrading passions. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them (Romans 1:32). Buying Fire Emblem Fates would be giving tacit approval to the writers who came up with this gimmick, so there’s no way I’m going to do that.

The whole of Romans 1 describes the present state of Western society to a T, so much so it’s like Paul was reading today’s headlines when he wrote it. For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart (Hebrews 4:12). That’s why it speaks to our lives even today. And how does it tell us to live in these days of depravity dolled up as “tolerance” and permissive “love”?

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age,while we wait for the blessed hope–the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. (Titus 2:11-14)

God says it, that settles it. I’m boycotting Fire Emblem Fates and if Nintendo persists in promoting immorality then I’m going to boycott the whole company eventually. Say no to ungodliness.

 

Final Fantasy Tactics A2

In keeping with the spirit of having fun in Japanese, I’ve been playing more and more games in Japanese. I recently finished Final Fantasy Tactics A2 for Nintendo DS, the sequel to the somewhat-okay Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. I wasn’t too great a fan of its predecessor, but I really liked Final Fantasy Tactics, so I decided to give it a shot.

Was it fun? Heck yeah. I made it all the way to the last boss then turned around and went right back into town so I could keep doing missions and having fun. When I got tired of that, I took my overlevelled self back and whupped the pathetic little boss into submission. Power Up 4 + MP Turbo + Grimoire Fragment + Nu Mou Illusionist + 2 Jugglers spamming Smile = Sayonara, boss.

If I had to find fault with FFTA2, it would be with two things. Firstly, the story is really trivial and unimportant. Boy gets tossed into strange world and the only way to go back home is to have lots of adventures. Boy takes to task like a fish to water, and spends 10+ years wandering around world having fun. There’s a bit of story in there with evil organizations and sealed monsters and stuff, but they’re obviously there out of obligation. No sense of urgency and no sense of purpose makes this game a bit on the “meh” side when all is said and done. Secondly the battles are too, too slow. Moving, turning, choosing an attack, executing the attack, your opponent doing the same, it all takes way too long. A simple 5 on 5 encounter can take upwards of 15 minutes if you’re not careful.

Lastly, did I learn any Japanese from it? Haha, I’ve long stopped evaluating material by that standard. If it’s fun, it’s fun, whether I learned something from it or not. But I don’t recall seeing any particularly unusual kanji or phrases I didn’t know. The language – and the whole game, in fact – appears to be tailored towards a slightly younger crowd, so it’s easy to understand, and they repeat themselves a lot to make sure you get it.

All in all it was a good experience, and now you know what I’ve been up to in all the weeks I haven’t been posting. 🙂 That’s all for today.

Quick note

I’m still studying Japanese…slowly. I’m going through a bit of a slump now where reading Japanese text has become a bit of a chore. It’s so easy to go the English route, especially when they contain the same information. To be honest there’s no Japanese website/news site/blog that really stands up to all that is available in English. Nothing…except Famitsu.com. Tokyo Game Show ’08, you’re my last hope!!

Hmm, at least I’m still watching the youtube clips. I’ve had it up to here with Gackt.

Quit playing Fire Emblem DS

Day and night time, rain and sunshine
I seek my dream everywhere
Day and night time, rain and sunshine
I seek my dream everywhere

I can’t get enough of that Chage & Aska 🙂

What I can and have gotten enough of is that stupid Fire Emblem DS. Okay, it’s not stupid. But it’s annoying. I’m on chapter 15, just a few steps left between me and the boss, and I’ve been stuck there for the past 2 weeks.  If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Somebody ALWAYS dies. Usually due to my carelessness, but we’ll gloss over that for now. Bartz has died, Gordon has died, Alan has died… it’s like they’re taking turns!

So finally I said, screw it all. No matter who dies next we’re moving on. Then I moved Oguma up to put the finishing touches on the boss –remind me again why I shouldn’t take a swordsman up against a general wielding a killer lance — and, as expected, CRITICAL. Instant death. And the criticals in the game are ugly and boring anyway, so I didn’t even get any pleasure out of watching that. And I was so angry I even forgot to swear in Japanese. GOSHDANGIT, YOU STUPID LITTLE PIECE OF —-ahem!

Anyway, there’s no way I could let Oguma stay dead. I mean, he’s Ogu-freaking-ma! So, reset #15. I’ll try again later tonight, when I’ve gotten over being pissed off at myself and at the game. And that’s all for today.

Fire Emblem: Shin Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Ken

So I’ve been playing this new Fire Emblem game that came out for Nintendo DS a few weeks ago and I’m already up to chapter 15. Goshdangit, Garnef, why didn’t you tell me you were planning to move? Bloody desert stages *grumble mumble grumble* Normal Mode is shockingly easy, though. The AI is really, really bad; they almost never attack .

I’m enjoying it, but more importantly I’m getting quite a lot out of it in the Japanese department. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t like interrupting my gaming sessions to write out sentences or look up kanji. What I’m doing for Fire Emblem Shin Ankoku blah blah (later known as Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon in the West), then, is reading all the dialogue out loud as I play. Being a remake of a NES game there isn’t that much dialogue to read anyway, but I try to sort of role play every single line, especially the bad guys parts and sort of get into the script, you know?

And what I’ve realized from this is, my pronunciation SUCKS! I can’t even hear myself properly but I can tell it sucks because it sounds all flat and monotone, and then I mean so say something but then it comes out completely differently… yah. It’s harder than it sounds. I think I’ll give a little more respect to voice actors now ^_^;;.

But what am I going to do about this sucky pronunciation? Getting more audio input definitely helps. I found it was easier to read stuff like “hatashite dou naru deshou ka” correctly because I’d heard that line so many times before. But I also think I should work more on output at the same time. You know how you talk to little babies, tell them to say “Papa” and then they babble and burble and finally come out with “Papa”? Yeah, like that, but not quite as cute. I need to find some audio to speak and repeat and to read out loud while checking my pronunciation. I already found this site with links to audio books and corresponding texts and am merrily downloading away even as I type. When I (eventually) get around to buying that mp3 player I started talking about 3 months ago, I’ll make sure it has a voice-recording option so I can tape myself as well. That’s my resolution for next week, by which time I should hopefully be done with Fire Emblem.

And that’s all for today.