Yoga on Speed

Stranger of Sword City (Part 3)

Yeah! My team has reached Level 13 so will be able to class change. But should I place two party members in the infirmary to recover their lost life point/ heart. Maybe this is what I will do while level grind for the others (to a level so they can class change too):

* change Knight (Loki) to Cleric, then place him in infirmary, level 6;

* keep Dancer (Pixie) as is, then place her in infirmary, level 13;

* change Samurai (Diana) to Ninja, level 6;

* change Ranger (Orlando) to Wizard, level 6;

* keep Fighter (Godot) as is, level 13;

* keep Wizard (Saruman) as is, level 13 

This is such a major undertaking ^^

Cat Stretch

Okay, here is a yoga pose that, seriously, cured that annoying pinched nerve on my left shoulder/neck that has been there for many years. It's a pose that I now try to incorporate into my teaching/ classes. 

Quite an intense back bend there ...

It's a very, very deep spinal stretch (see photo). I obviously don't have the flexibility to go as deep as the lady above (you need to have quite a flexible spine to have the knees so close to the chest, which is pressed onto the ground). At the beginning, my chest could barely touch the floor without sliding my knees all the way back ... so I looked like I was just lying on the floor faced down. 

Gradually though, my knees got closer while keeping my chest down. But I had this issue, when my chest - and chin - are pressed on the ground, my left shoulder/neck area was SO tight (explains my pinched nerve?) that my left upper arm/elbow would lift off the ground and it took many, many breaths in the pose to finally lower it down without causing too much pain.

So I had that problem for awhile ... in the meantime, my to-go-to teacher gets us to do lots of back bending in his vinyasa sequence so my spine, especially middle and lower back, has gained much flexibility over the past six months. That must have helped. Now, I can have my knees slightly closer to my chest when I'm in this cat stretch -- I can feel the middle back arching a lot. So I do warm up with some back bending before knee, chest, chin down. 

But MOST amazingly, when I do cat stretch now, my left upper arm/elbow no longer lifts off the ground and there is NO pain around my left shoulder neck area, whether in or out of the pose. So, if I have to recommend any yoga pose for people who have very stiff shoulders, this would be the one! Try it out ... it's a great pose to relax in ... but remember to warm up first ^^ 

Stranger of Sword City (Part 2)

This turns out to be quite a fun and addictive game. And it's not available in Asia (!) so I had to download it from my UK PSN account. 

The beginning, with really sh*t equipment and low level, was tough. Two of my characters got KO-ed for no reason at all (like, falling down a hole? Doh!) ... but have grinded a little and I'm now okay even with the bosses. 

Stranger of Sword City is kinda like Tactics Ogre LUCT + Valhalla Knights in that it features a class & race system and that skills can be transferred over if you do class change(s). So a team member may start off with being a Knight and ends up as a Cleric. It's not something I tried with TO but it is a vital part of the overall game strategy for Stranger. The only thing is levelling up is quite slow in this game and you will need to reach a certain level to make the class change worthwhile (i.e. collecting some cool skills). 

I like the sprites of this game, very nice art.
This is lovely Diana, Samurai-turns-Ninja and
the best attacker on the team 

My initial team setup is: Knight/ Fighter/ Samurai in the front row and Wizard (my main)/ Ranger/ Dancer in the back row. My plan is to turn my Knight into a Cleric (so I'll have a tank healer LOL), Samurai to Ninja (latter have better stats and skills), Dancer to Cleric. I also have an option to turn the Ranger, practically an archer to Wizard cos the character's race is an elf. Thematically that makes sense. My dwarf Fighter is fine as he is and so is my main. I think my team will be quite balanced to have two hitter/tanks (Fighter and Ninja); mages (my main and archer); and healers (Knight and Dancer). I think I will have this setup ready before entering mid game ... heard the bosses there are quite hard.  

Will have to put Crisis Core down for now. Like X-2, I'm totally OP-ed in that game anyway and need to take a break from all that mission grinding ><

Stranger of Sword City

Oh, Here is what I recently posted on a forum re my latest progress in Crisis Core that I've been playing lately: 

So I'm advancing in Mission 9 (approaching 9-5-x) ... have decided to go as far as I could while potion lady is still available.

I'm not going for the perfect setup (for now) but maxing out VIT has helped a lot. So right this seems to be working okay: 

Darkness to inflict damage and lowering own HP when in break limit; Costly Punch; Curaga; Stop Blade for its (60) ATK stat (for Darkness); VIT UP++ and Zantetsuken. I'll fine tune this in the future but to migrate stats from one materia to another is not something I look forward to doing...>< 

As for accessories I have: Brutal, Adaman Bangle, Power Suit and Genji Shield. I am looking forward to getting the Ziedrich (to boost VIT AND SPR). Dunno if I need Genji Helmet (am not using much magic other than Curaga) but Genji Glove would be great to replace Brutal. Genji Amour I won't have until I move on with the story. 

Okay, will see if I have enough protection to take on the 9-5-x missions ... heard they are tough ><

But having just watched Warcraft, now I want to play a RPG with races and classes (!!) Stranger of Sword City seems like a good choice. It's a turn-based dungeon RPG and it's ... roguelike, which means it's a totally unforgiving game (Natural Doctrine and Curry God come to mind!!) But it has very interesting customisation so will check that out this afternoon. Time to revive one of my Vitas ^^

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII ~ Revisited

This is the first proper JRPG I ever played (back in 2008) -- and LOVED it ... even though it was in Japanese (the English version wasn't released yet). While I managed to get through a good part of the story/ game, I didn't finish it cos neither did I understand the ins and outs of RPGs then (doh!), nor what was really going on, well, not enough knowledge of the language to complete the game (I don't think I was strong enough to tackle either Genesis or Sephiroth).

Fast forward to present day; I'm quite an expert in the genre (having played so many since then) and -- hurrah -- the English version of the game has been out for years. I was actually given a copy but for some stupid reason, I sold it (after I gave my old PSP, Dissidia special edition, for the first generation Vita). I've always wanted to replay Crisis Core but it'd have meant getting myself and old PSP, which I didn't wan to do...

Until I saw an (unused) Crisis Core special/limited 10th anniversary bundled edition on sale on eBay (like, I had an OMG moment) and for around US$350 including shipment/postage ... which, seriously, is a bargain. Another seller offered the same thing for US$750 (!) but I noticed that has now been sold too. These editions are hard to come buy (even on eBay) so I ordered it straightaway ... I think it makes more sense to get a special edition than, say, get an ordinary (old) PSP and the game separately. Anyway, it wasn't all smooth sailing. When the game arrived - sure, it's spanking new as promised - but the battery had already expired (it was bloated, in fact) and after I bought a new battery for it, the screen kinda quickly died. Thankfully, this city being, well, this city, I could get that fixed pretty quickly (and hour!) so have been playing the game for a couple of days. The beauty of it wall is that I actually started playing the game some weeks ago, after a friend lent it to me, and I successfully transferred the (digital) save onto my new machine. So a happy ending!  

Now that I know how to play the game properly, I can beat that horrible axe-wielding Vajradhara monster quite quickly (boy, did that thing used to give me much grief!!!) by dodging and spamming Blizzaga *LOL*  I have also completed as many side missions (300+ in total) as poss. at this stage (Chapter 5, half way through the game) and got my Zack to Level 29. That's the thing, levelling in this game is all a bit random but I hope I'm just slightly over-levelled, while my "DMW" (digital mind wave) is in "sky high" at the moment, good to get back into story mode (to meet Cloud ~ yeah!) Doing the missions can be quite tedious, especially when you stumble into those random battles all the time >< but some of the items are quite worth it. But over all, I think I missed playing such a fun Final Fantasy game!!! I mean, FF X-2 was fun with the dressphere and stuff but I think by the time I unlocked all the mascots, I started to lose interest in the gameplay ... and the game is so full of missables that I just got tired following the YouTube playthrough. And it's in Japanese.

With Crisis Core, I like the randomness of that DMW wheel and its challenging battle system (non turn-based). Oh, this is Hajime Tabata's first PSP title and I've since played his Third Birthday as well as FF Type-0 ... I think he's quite a genius, always introducing something fun in his games. The story of Crisis Core is also excellent - great characters such as The Turks - so I'm really looking forward to completing the game this time round. And I think I'll just play this game on the special edition... it deserves to be special!!!  

Ao no Kiseki (Part 6)

Yes, truly incredible that I'm still playing this. There are some hidden Phantom Beasts hidden in the last chapter (second playthrough only) so I'll have to trudge through the entire game just to unlock them. Crazy. The completist in me just wouldn't let that go! Meanwhile, I'm also slowly making my way through Super Robot Wars Z3 Tengoku-hen, which is a great turn-based tactic/ strategy game but since everything is in Japanese I need to find out which robot does what best, through trial-and-error. And that is a laborious process. A friend will lend me his PSP and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII so this time I wanna finish that game (like, I really know how to play a RPG!)

[EDIT:]

Anyway, back to Ao, I just got the rarest fish in the game but it matters little now since I don't need that to exchange for any rare accessories... I have so much mira (dosh) now I can just buy it outright. And my team is pretty OP now. Lloyd has evasion close to 90 per cent, while Randy is another tank. Tio replaces Wazy as the mage and Ellie (now my fav) is the healer with many time tricks up her sleeves. The thing is it's getting quite tedious to speed skip all the dialogues I think I will take a break. Nightmare more in second playthrough is totally manageable...

Elsewhere, Have bought the Danger Hiptop Side id on eBay. I actually wanted to get this ages ago but wasn't sure it would work here since it's a dual band (850/1900 MHz) US phone. But I think my service provider actually offers 1900 so we'll see. It costs next to nothing now... and am surprised I could find it still on eBay!