Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

I recently played through "Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney" and am currently re-playing it in French, because, you know, French! Anyway, I thought I'd share my thoughts on it with you guys.

The premise of the game is that the professor, Luke, Wright, and Maya all end up in a mysterious middle- age town named Labryinthia, and end up helping a young girl named Espella, who keeps being falsely accused of being a witch. I wasn't too crazy about this concept, because I'm not a big fan of witches and dark magic and stuff like that, but I still wanted to see the most epic attorney in the universe meet my favorite English gentleman, so I bought it and played it.

I enjoyed it more than I thought I would! I really enjoyed the witch trial aspect, where more than one person is testifying at once. The story, aside from the witches aspect, was compelling. And, of course, it was great to see Wright and Layton work together, and all the combined drama that follows the both of them!

The way that the two titular characters met bugged me, though. Whenever Wright and Maya were brought to the town (I'm just going to call it the town, because Labyrinthia is hard to spell), they lost their memories of being an attorney and his assistant, and those memories were replaced with fake ones, as if they had always lived there. Because of this, they were completely out of character for a time, and it felt awkward when Layton and Wright met for the first time. When I imagined their first meeting, I imagined a battle of wits, or at least a pointing contest, but instead, we have Nick and Maya bumbling around a bakery.

Once they recovered their memories, though, I enjoyed how the story went on. Luke and Maya are soooo entertaining together, what with Maya's teasing, and Luke's sensitive and defensive nature. I LOVED the dual pointing confrontations by Layton and Wright at the witch trials. Much epic! So fangirling! Very wow!

That all said, I think this game was falsely advertised. In the initial teasers I saw, it seemed as if Layton and Wright were going to be at odds at first. I gathered this from a clip where it seemed like Layton was questioning Nick's scruples. It also seemed implied, from the title. This would have been very compelling! Two heroes, at odds, then finally working together towards the truth! I was looking forward to this and seeing how it played out! But, sadly, no. *spoiler* Our heroes aren't pitted against each other until close to the end, and even then, it's an act on Layton's part.

One thing I appreciated about this game: NO PUZZLE LOCKS!! Usually, in Professor Layton games, at certain points, you can't progress in the plot until you have solved a prerequisite number of puzzles. For someone who plays the games for the plot, and the puzzles are a fun added bonus, this is very annoying. This game, however, does not have any blocks like that! I was so happy!!! Ironically, I also found it odd that there were less than half the regular number of puzzles in this game. I suppose that's because of the added trials, which you get awarded picarats for based on the number of penalties you get, but still.

Overall, I enjoyed this game. It brought the charm and action and drama I love from both series together, but still could have done some things better, like the AA character's VA's. ARG, they sounded corny! Sorry, VA's, but it's true. Aw, now I feel bad and hope none of the VA's from the game actually end up reading this on the slim chance that exists... Oh, well. Until next time!

Craziness

So, a lot of crazy stuff goes down in my French class. You already know about the time the table started moving when I tried to call my phone after I lost it. But, there's much more than that.

Today, a girl who sits next to me in  class raised her hand to answer a question. I noticed some red  spots on her grey jacket, and asked what was on it.

"KKK," The girl across from her answered.

"What?" The girl I actually had asked replied. In defense, the jacket was unzipped a little bit, and a part of it was folded over itself, so all you could see was the "K" of "KIPP" or whatever it actually said. no matter what, it was the joke of our table for the rest of the hour. After all, as I said, "It's not everyday you hear someone accusing a black person of being in the KKK." (Not racist, just a fact!!)

Along with this, several students have been dressing up for spirit week in anticipation of our school's rivalry game. One of  these students decided to creep around and peer into various classes.

Here's how it went down, in my : I was doing my workbook pages, when suddenly someone notices something and says to look at the door. All I see is a guy wearing this gas mask that looked like it was from World War II or something! It was CREEPY looking, so I screamed, while everyone else laughed- not at me, mind, at least until they found out that I had screamed.

Ego bruised, I left as the bell rang, and a friend of mine came out of the class across from mine approached me and talked about the guy.

"Who screamed?" She asked.

"Me..."

"OH MY GOSH, SORRY! YOU OK?"

I half laughed, half cried as I said "Yeah, I'm fine," as I bid her adieu and headed towards my bus.

So, yeah... the kids in my French class probably consider me the class goof now, but oh well.

That Type of a Tuesday

Hi, everyone! Sorry for the long absence. I will TRY to update every day, like a normal blogger would! Or, it might be weekly, or every other day, depending on my homework load. Speaking of homework, I want to tell you guys about the comedy of errors that was today.

First, I go to my English class with the project I had rushed to finish the night before (I know, procrastination at its finest) only to gather form observing my classmates' projects that I had misunderstood the instructions and had done the project wrong! I got an extension, luckily.

Next, I was in the school library for the hour I serve as an aide, where one of my jobs is putting laminate covers on the dust jackets of new arrivals. I tried to tear of a piece of book tape from the dispenser, and nicked my finger. Sighing, I told my teacher about it, and I got a bandage. I went back to covering books, reached for the book tape, and nicked another finger! ARG!!! Another bandage. Oh well. At least I got to see the new books and check them out before anyone else did :D

In my next class, I was fiddling with my bandages. I looked under them, and it looked like the bleeding had stopped, so I took them off. Little did I know, the next hour, when I was trying to write notes, my grip on the pencil caused the pencil to press against the cuts, which were sore!

I rather enjoyed the error that happened at lunch.I checked in with some friends, and we planned to meet back in the same room we were in to have lunch. Instead of leaving my bag and books there, I took them with me, just out of habit, not realizing until I had already started out.

So, I go through the lunch line, grab some food that you can get without needing a tray, and check out. Only then do I realize... Wait. my hands are full of food. How am I going to pick up my back pack? I juggled things a little bit, and managed to pick up my backpack. As I was walking down the hall, I was careful to walk slowly as to lessen the risk of dropping anything. That's when it happened.

This guy I like saw me struggling, and asked where I was going. I told him, and he offered to at least carry my books!! So, if nothing else, I involuntarily brought my backpack with me to the cafeteria to have an excuse for a cute boy to carry my books and walk with me for a bit :).

Then came the jokes of the day. Well, only one of them was joked about to my face, but I imagine that the other will be too, before long. The first happened in history class. My teacher asked someone to describe horizontal integration. I raised my hand. "It's like," I started "If there was a locally owned tire shop, say, Joe's Tires, and Firestone bought it. It's like that."

My teacher said that it was a good example, since horizontal integration is a big company buying smaller, similar businesses, but my classmates began to laugh. I couldn't imagine what they were laughing at, until my teacher later noticed a girl laughing about something different, and asked her what was so funny. This dude said "I'm still laughing about 'Joe's Tires,' that was just perfect."

I was glad to find out that the girl had been laughing about something else, or I might have melted into a puddle under the table. I was just trying to come up with a generic name for the example! Luckily, the period ended soon, and I headed to French. We were grading a paper, and I wondered what time it was (my teacher covers the clock in our classroom because she thinks it's an insult to count down the minutes until class is over), and reached for my phone. My hand met air when it went into the pocket of my bag where I kept my phone.

I dug around, but still couldn't find my phone. I looked around my seat to see if it had maybe fallen out, but no luck. My teacher let me go look for it. I went to my previous class, then the class I had eaten lunch in (where, when trying to call my phone to see if someone had picked it up, I accidentally called another high school) and the school office, to no avail. The final bell of the day rang, and I resigned myself to looking more tomorrow.

As I was heading back to French Class to get my things, a friend of mine said, "Your phone's in the room."

Apparently, my phone was under the paper we had been grading... This was discovered when it vibrated when I called it. My classmates noticed, "Uh, the table's moving." Embarrassed, I grabbed my things, and left, humorously embarrassed.

I can sort of laugh at these things now, so that's why I can talk about them. I bet I'll barely remember them come a week, or maybe even come tomorrow (wouldn't surprise me, since I have my bi-monthly appointment with my psychiatrist in the morning). And, if you can't laugh at yourself once in a while, who can you laugh at?

The Fault in Our Stars

Since my dad had some guy friends over today, my mom and I took the opportunity to have a girls' night. And what better to do on a girls' night, than to watch a chick flick?

My mom and I saw The Fault in Our Stars. It's about this girl with cancer who meets a boy supposedly in remission and falls in love. It was so much fun! It may be anti-girl of me to say, but I did not cry at all. I mean I was sad, or at least tried to be, but no water works came.

Here's my theory on why: the sad climax of the movie is maybe the last five to ten minutes of the movie. The rest of it is the cocky, hilarious guy, who isn't afraid to love a walking time bomb, and a girl who knows she's going to die, but ignores that fact because she's in love. What is not enjoyable about that? I was too happy by the end  to be sad.

And another thing: I think this story has been mis-interpreted. It supposedly is supposed to be a chick flick movie to eliminate the illusion that life is like it is in chick flicks, all happy and lovey dovey, and in a way, it succeeds. There is no doubt that you are kidding yourself if you believe that life is a chick flick, and everyone lives happily ever after, walking into the sunset with a sappy song in the background. I have learned that the hard way this year, as some of you may know.

But this movie also tries to go away from that. It focuses on pain sometimes: "Pain demands to be felt." And it does. And, just as Gus pointed out that we get to choose who we let hurt us, we can also choose how we react to pain. We can choose to completely shut down, which I almost thought the heartbroken character would do at the end, and which I have almost chosen, and we can also choose to do something with it, like Hazel's parents.

Instead of staying in their house and staring at walls, if Hazel died, they had decided instead to be counselors to other parents of kids with cancer, to help them through the same pain that they experienced. That seems pretty cool to me, and  a lot more productive than dwelling on your loss.

Something else I learned from this movie, and from my experiences this past year, is about pain itself. Sure, most of the time pain is the body's reaction to harm. But, I think of it a little differently now. Pain can also be a form of love, or an indication of it. If you feel pain when someone dies, it means you care about them. It does mean you're sad that someone's gone, but that is only because you are remembering all the happy times you had with them. If you didn't love the person who died, you wouldn't feel anything. It would just be another obituary in the paper that you skip over.

A lot of people suppress pain, to keep themselves from looking weak, or to spare others. I think that is the worst possible thing. While one of those reasons is selfless, the other is selfish, and denying yourself in the process. No one can help you if they don't know you hurt. They might even take your emotionlessness as not caring, and their perception of you could change. Also, pain, emotional or physical, only gets worse when not helped.

It's best to let out pain, and give up your pride. Once you get the pain out, what's left but the joy you had with the person you miss?

I don't think the fault is in our stars. The fault is in us. We deny ourselves and only hurt ourselves more, like this cardinal in the garden outside my shrink's office who never realizes that the bird he keeps attacking is only his reflection, and is only hurting himself. We choose the wrong way to react to pain sometimes.

But, in another way, this movie isn't about pain. It's about what you do with those emotions, and how you choose to let them define you. It's about how you live on through the pain, and still manage to find something to bring you joy, like how Hazel climbed all those steps in Anne Frank's house even though her lungs could barely handle it, and ended up loving what she saw, and getting her first kiss with Gus, and finally allowing herself to love even though she is afraid to hurt those she loves.

Going along with that, I think Gus was really admirable, that he knew he wouldn't live forever, and neither would Hazel, but he didn't let the fear of dying deny him the joy of loving Hazel, and being with her. I think a part of him knew that the joy he had with Hazel would always exceed any pain he would feel if she died. Isn't that the same about most things? You forget the pain, but remember the fun? Like how you scrape your knee falling off your bike. At first, it hurts a lot, and all you can think of is getting a bandage on it. But afterwards, once the pain subsides, at least in my experience, you laugh about how dumb it was that you fell, and how much fun you were having biking before that.

And does scraping your knee keep you from riding your bike ever again? For most people, no. They get back on and are just more careful. Just like I'm sure the main character of this story will love again, once the pain of their loss lessens.

So, that's it: don't hide pain, it's ok! It doesn't last forever, and it's not all you'll remember, so power through it. Never let potential temporary pain keep you from experiences that can bring you eternal joy. And, no matter how much you feel you lose, and that possibly you'll never get out of your slump, remember that you will, if you try.

So that's what I got from this movie. Thanks for reading