Playstation 2 : Role Playing Games

I've always been a fan of role playing games and adventure games. From old titles like Bard's Tale for the PC up to the recent Kingdom Hearts 2, I've always tried appreciating role playing games as they've come and go. With adventure games I also loved and miss those games for the PC like King's Quest Series, Leisure Suit Larry Series, Dragonsphere, DeathGate, Gabriel Knight and a lot more. However in these kind of games I somehow have a hard time solving some puzzles since some of the puzzles' answers are those that I don't usually think of. I remember not being able to finish the DeathGate game and DragonSphere game for a long while before I was able to solve it. As for RPG games playing a game for the first time without knowing anything about the game would lead to a disaster if you don't try to explore and learn some basics first. Also keep having multiple saves of the game so that if you a hard time during the next part of your current save, you can go back to your previous save games. I remember almost restarting my game in Final Fantasy VII because I only had one saved game when I was gonna fight the boss in the Ancient's Ruins and my characters still sucked during that time (hey, it was my first time to play FFVII and the last Final Fantasy that I played before that was Final Fantasy 1). As different RPG titles have come and gone I'm currently hooked with Square-Enix's Final Fantasy Title Series (yes blame it on Final Fantasy VII why I got addicted to the series). The current title recently released is Final Fantasy XII (12), released last March 16, 2006. Considering the delays and controversies it went through during it's development, like the resignations of Hironobu Sakaguchi (the “father” of Final Fantasy) and Nobuo Uematsu (known composer of Final Fantasy scores), I was shocked that it got a perfect review at the Famitsu Gaming Magazine ( a very popular and critical game review magazine). So what's with the hype with Final Fantasy XII ? Upon learning that FF12 got a perfect review in Famitsu, I was tempted to buy a brand new game (1 week before the release date). However, due to financial reasons, I opt to wait for the price to go down to a much more affordable level, 4-6 months from now (I hope). Aside from financial reasons, currently I still have a lot of game backlog that I need to finish first. Reading reviews and looking at sample pictures from the game, I couldn't help but wish that I had enough cash and time at hand to be able to play the game.

I'll try to write something more about the game once I get my hands on it. But, til then I'll finish Digital Devil Saga 2 first :)

Foreign Exchange Rate

Since I'm living in a third world country and working in a first world one. I've been trying to keep track foreign exchange rates between the yen and dollar and the yen and the Philippine Peso. I kind of find it strange that the Philippine gov't keeps on blabbing that the Philippine Peso is strengthening and yet it doesn't reflect on the prices of goods and commodities in the Philippines. The prices of goods, commodities and services in my country keeps on rising. Call it inflation as you want, yet the gov't keeps on blabbing that the Philippine Peso is recovering against the U.S. Dollar (Current Dollar Peso Exchange rate is 1 USD = 51.14 PHP ) and yet the common people are the ones who are being burdened by the prices of local goods. So the question is what is really happening Mrs. President ? Are you really aware of that the masses are suffering or are you just plain stupid ? Is the Philippine Economy really recovering ? Sometimes I just wonder.... I was reading this article recently and I can say Japan is a bit devious in how their handling things right now, Bloomberg News. Considering Japan is an export based country (electronics, cars, etc.), japan relies on a lower value of the yen. I remember way back early 2004 when Japan's exchange rate was about almost 1 USD = 103 Yen, what japan did was selling trillions of yen so that its currency would depreciate. Considering the Philippines is a service based country, manufacturing (electronic parts and car parts), wouldn't it better too if the gov't lowered the value of the peso a bit and take control on the prices of commodities and goods. It would be also better if the gov't concentrate on peace and order in curbing the crime rate in the country so that the investors would be easily attracted to the country and generate more jobs for the people. Yet all I can see is that the gov't doesn't really care, most politicians are just lobbying and "politicking" in the sense that they don't even care about what is good for their country. What they care about is what is good for themselves and for their political party. The last news I heard about the impeachment case against the President of the Philippines was that it was quashed by her allies in the lower house. For what reason ? So that the investigation wouldn't push through. Now that is what you call Philippine politics at its best.