LIVESTREAM UPDATE:

Bit of housecleaning: I’ll be working at the summer camp again, which means I’ll be unable to livestreams while up there.  Camp doesn’t start for another month, but I will be there this weekend for some preliminary work, so there will be no livestream this week.

Sorry about that!

I’m not sure how many “regular Friday streams” there will be before I’m gone, but I’ll let you know as soon as I can!

END LIVESTREAM UPDATE!

The Tales of Xillia run continues, and while I’ve felt that it’s been a totally solid game so far, some crazy stuff went down while playing this weekend that took the game to a new level of awesomeness.  In an attempt to avoid spoilers, all I can say is that Milla is the most compelling main character I’ve had the pleasure of playing as in the Tales series.

Which is totally weird, because Tales of Xillia has two main characters…

…and the other one sucks.

When starting a new game, the player has the choice between:

Milla – Introduced as the human incarnation of Maxwell, Lord of Spirits

or

Jude – Introduced as a medical student and total pushover

To be fair, we’re only halfway through the game so there’s plenty of time for Jude to get better, but so far all he’s done is let people walk all over him.  NPC’s and teammates alike constantly talk over him, undermine everything he says… he can’t even make decisions for himself: all he does is wait around for Milla to give orders.

I have zero idea why this guy is billed as a main character.

He’s the brute strength of Lloyd, the marginal healing of Regal, and the demeanor of Emil Castagnier.

It’s a shame really, those first two traits are positive but the third totally ruins everything.

That said, I’ve completely fallen in love with the game and can’t wait so see how it all plays out.

Also, the costume accessories… they are so wonderfully silly and I can’t get enough of them.  The world is falling into war and chaos, and our band of misfit heroes go from battle to battle wearing adorable bunny ears.  We rock.

Quick story involving last Friday’s livestream, from the Department of Self-Deprication:

After the doodle portion, we played a few games of Cards Against Humanity, which was really fun!  Jackie came in the room once we were playing, and noticed a card that said something to the effect of,

“A reference that only like two people would know.”

“Wow,” said Jackie, “that should be the name of your comic.”

I laughed pretty hard at that, and figured that you guys might get a kick out of it too.