Loot from Mandarake

Bought some stuffs from Mandarake this month which serves well as my own Christmas present. I bought myself Armor Plus Sol Tekkaman 1 and Riobot Orgun which i got for 60% worth of the original price not too bad i would say. I think i will not be ordering stuffs from Mandarake like i used to do since they won't ship SAL to Australia at least for a long time due to some new regulations. Luckily my order went through just few days before the rule comes in effect and shipped without problem. From a short glance of the items, Armor Sol Tekkaman 1 is meant to be paired with Sol Tekkaman 2 since it got some parts that need Sol Tekkaman 2's as well. I am abit sad with Riobot Orgun though because the figure is small compared to my Tekkaman Blade though it should be a great pairing for the Figma Tekkaman Blade but nevertheless articulation is very good. I will probably take a while to post reviews for these but you can anticipate something within 3 months.

Completed my Armor Plus Tekkaman series yay!

Valvrave the Liberator

人間をやめますか？

If Code Geass and Gundam Seed ever has a kid together Valvrave is likely to be the outcome, truly a mixed bag from the beginning until the end. I have marathoned the series from 2 weeks ago until the last episode of the second season that i watched today. I have expected the Valvrave to be disappointing as Sunrise doesn't make any good mecha anime anymore but i am rather sad the good mecha designs are wasted in some worst possible way. Valvrave just shows how High school hijinks and mecha does not mix really well and while the main character is Beta guy, he still got some redeemable factors with him whereas the main heroine represents every worst thing in the anime. Valvrave could have been a decent mecha series but unfortunately most of the aspects in the anime are ended prematurely thus the anime does not have any lasting impression that it could give and i feel the story direction is rather indecisive.

Nevertheless Valvrave still got some redeeming values which is why i said at the beginning it is a mixed bag, L-elf is rather well written character which unfortunately paired with Beta protagonist and the fist fight between them on 22nd episode is some of the best scene in the series. The Valvraves itself is rather good looking mecha and kinda remind me of Aquarion for some reason though i really feel the true power of each Valvraves are not shown in the anime. With how the 2nd season wrapped up it seems there is a possibility for continuity of the series but i am not too optimistic about that either. Nevertheless if Sunrise ever make another mecha series better they abandon the high school BS or else it will not be a good mecha title ever.

Legend of Galactic Heroes Quotes: Galactic Empire

In every age

In every place

The deeds of men 

Remains the same

 As promised from me few months ago, i present the Quotes of the LOGH casts as Christmas present from Realm of Darkness! I think this is the only series i bothered to do this thing to pay a respect for a great masterpiece that anime will unlikely ever see again. As i do my second run of LOGH, i write down the noteworthy quotes by episodes and in total i did like more than 9000 words of document from the quotes which just show something. At first i expect Free Planet Alliance side will have the greatest number of quotes because of Yang Wenli but as i progress through the Word document, in the end Galactic Empire got the highest amount of quotes with Reinhard came into equal number with Yang with each of them have 3 pages worth of quote. Also due to the nature of the quotes, you better watch the series first before treading into this post. Probably i missed some of the quotes but i think i do write down most of the good ones.

 You can check the Quotes for Free Planet Alliance characters here

 

Utawarerumono: The One being Sung

Another VN that i revisited from my past collection and this is probably the first proper post for the series for my blog. For those who don't know about the series, Utawarerumono is fantasy themed VN by Leaf with heavy Ainu influence and kemonomimi where the story revolves around amnesiac masked man named Hakuoro who will greatly change the fate of a war torn land. The VN got Strategy RPG element in it which is passable and i have some hard time pulling out full combos.

 I got into Utawarerumono from the anime first six years ago and then give the VN a run which should be in the first 10 VN i have read. Back then i played the VN halfway but in the end stopped halfway being distracted with other stuffs. I have to say i got really nostalgic with Utawarerumono with my second run and this is certainly one of the good VN title out there. My favorite part from Utawarerumono is the slice of life which i believe the main charm of the series and feels like a fleeting dream. While the VN is made around 2003, the quality is surprisingly very good and compared to the anime, VN is still better since some of the parts are more coherent. However Utawarerumono is one of the few VN that have good anime adaptation. What makes me prefer the VN version is that Hakuoro is more badass in the VN which you should see yourself. Recently i watched the special edition episode of the anime and the OVA which includes some of the slice of life scene from the VN that didn't make into the anime and that scene where Touka beat the hell out of Oboro is really hilarious. As for now i think i will give PSP version of Utawarerumono a run and hope there will be more news about Utawarerumono 2. I also hope Aquapazza got ported into Vita somehow and meanwhile have Eruruu singing Musou uta

Space Battleship Yamato 2199

No doubt this the best anime that Japan has airing from the past 2 or 3 years and i can see how the original series affect the anime industry back in the past. Marathoned the series after catching up to the latest episode of Valvrave which i will share my thoughts about it as well once the final episode come out. Anyway i will say Space battleship Yamato 2199 is a good reboot as a person who never watched the original series considering the series have solid story and characters who drive it. Along with the epic series opening it is good enough to make me interested to make the original series get into my watchlist.

The story of the series is basically about when Humanity face the brink of destruction as the Earth as they fought losing battle against Sentient Alien race called Garmillan and have the surface of the Earth become uninhabitable. During these darkest hour, mankind managed to create a powerful battleship called Yamato which is tasked to travel to distant planet Iskandar where the ruler of the planet promised a technology to restore the Earth back to its former self. However the journey will not be easy as the crews of Yamato will face alot of trials and attack by the Garmillan in order to reach Iskandar.

While Yamato itself is Scifi rather than mecha series, i can see how it have profound effects to series like Gundam due to theme of "One Ship become the hope of Humanity" which inspired ships like White Base, Macross or Nadesico and definitely Zentradi are definitely based from Garmillans(wonder if they will get Deculture if Yamato has Basara/Minmai on board). Okita Juzo, the captain of Yamato is one of most badass ship captain i have seen, because he shows how a man can overcome any odds with his willpower and probably he got auto iron-wall seishin every turn. My only complain with the series is that it lacks fleet to fleet battle which makes it less epic than LOGH and Hadou Cannon could be less broken and finally Desler should have been portrayed to be less reckless because he should be a Sympathetic villain. Otherwise Space Battleship Yamato is a very good anime and my personal favorite episode is the 9th one.

Max Factory 1/72 Dougram

Well it is abit late for a pre-release thread but there are things i want to talk about this Dougram kit. It has been more than a decade that Dougram got any kit treatment and thanks to Max Factory a new version of the kit is available for the nostalgic fan of the series. The kit will be released on this December with price around 3300 yen. The kit will be 1/72 scale which will be around the same height as HG kit and the proportion is really faithful to original Okawara proportion. Dougram is a prototype Combat Armor developed by anti earth government rebels in Deloyer to spearhead their revolution from oppressive rule of Earth. Dougram proved to be a very powerful Combat Armor as it outperforms most Combat Armor like Soltics and the cannon on its back capable to one shot any Combat Armor. Dougram itself is piloted by Crinn Cashim who is a son of prominent politician of Earth as he decided to fight for Deloyer's cause after seeing the atrocity that Earth done to Deloyer.

This i's what Dougram would roughly look like if the series air in the present and no doubt Randgrith from SRW is a homage to Dougram. As i discussed before, the main appeal of Dougram is not the mecha itself but the political intrigue which is something that you won't see on average mecha anime in 80s and i can guarantee it is comparable to LOGH. The conflict of the Deloyer also kind of remind me what Sirius uprising from LOGH will look like in mecha flavor considering they share same theme. Lastly while i doubt Max Factory will release all combat armor, i think Soltic would be a possible release and a mass produced dougram would be cool to see as well.

Warhammer 40k: Ultramarines movie

I never played the Warhammer 40k tabletop game but i do read the lores of the series which is massive and fascinating despite being over the top. So it has been more than 20 years that the 40k running as tabletop games and naturally being one of the biggest of its kind, they should have a movie adaptation which they got few years ago. So the first CGI movie of 40k features the poster boy of Space Marine which are Ultramarines AKA Ultrasmurfs not my favorite but probably the most well known Chapters in the public. The story is very straightforward, a group of Space Marines goes for their first real mission as fully fledged Space Marine where they are rescuing fellow Astartes from another chapter and things happens as they are facing Chaos Marines and a  Demon Prince in the mission and two of the Ultramarines will become heroes from this trial. If you are going to watch the movie, don't expect the animation quality is as good as Hollywood stuffs or even on par with Dawn of War CGI considering the animation quality of the movie is barebones expecially the background, though the power armor details of the marine are quite nice. I can't really say the movie represent 40k series as a whole really well since it only focus at Space Marine Vs Chaos and none of other major factions from 40k like Eldar or Ork that makes the 40k Verse massive show up at all. But still if you are Space Marine players i think you will like the movie but still this is not a good gateway to the series.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni

i

One of the longest VN series that i have read so far and most likely even longer than Clannad. While it is not my personal favorite VN, i can see why Umineko got so many hype over the net and i can say the quality of the VN is very high. Umineko is the second Naku koro ni series after Higurashi(which i should give a read) and the appeal of the series is the mystery itself. I use the tweak patch for Umineko which makes the PC VN got voice acting as well as redrawn sprite which gives the best experience of the Umineko journey. The VN series itself divided into 2 VN with 4 chapters and each chapters roughly will take 16-20 hours to read which just show how enormous Umineko as a series.

I won't dwell much about storyline but basically Umineko revolves around the mystery of incident in an island called Rokkenjima where all members of the members of renowned family of Ushiromiya disappeared in bizarre circumstances in 1986 during their family reunion. And the theme of the series is the fantasy interpretation of the incident which basically involve Witches and Magics. The 8 chapters of the Umineko represent possible scenarios of the incident and as the story goes on the world umineko is expanded steadily. And unlike most conventional VNs, there is no true interpretation of the Rokkenjima incident but each chapters hold some fragments of truth.

The main appeal of Umineko is the journey itself rather than the end destination. Expect lots of mind games throughout the VN and plenty of nasty twists here and there. Mystery fans will really enjoy this series but it is still good for normal VN readers as long as you don't try to dwell too much about some parts. Out of 8 Chapters of Umineko the 6th is my personal favorite as the mutual romance feelings of the protagonist and heroine finally reached to each other. Though personally i still find Umineko could help for some more romance for Battler and Beatrice. Lastly music of Umineko is really good and expect lots of good trance considering one of the major contributor for the music did some works on DJ Max. My suggestion if you are getting into umineko, savor it slowly because the journey through the series is one of a kind and i regretted that i marathon the VN in a week. There is also fighting game based on Umineko which is quite interesting though unfortunately my Laptop is pretty much dead to run the game.

N-Gage series

I have never talked about this before but i used to play N-Gage games alot and believes it was a good gaming platform. The ngage i referred about is the first generation one where Nokia tried to wrestle against Nintendo's portable market and in the end failed to do so and the 2nd gen Ngage is just a former shell of this once promising platform. The main reason why i believe Ngage failed is not because of the games which are actually better than your average GBA games but due to lack of exposures of the platform to the public, moreover the Ngage itself comes in the wrong time where 3G networks are not widely used and have rather weak specs which is a problem for mobile phone. Probably the release of NDS and PSP drove the nail into the coffin which is quite a sad thing to see. If Ngage were to compete against GBA, i think it will have some chance to survive but unfortunately the fate is cruel and proved otherwise. At this point i doubt Ngage will ever resurrect again considering the 2nd failure but with the recent acquisition by Microsoft, with proper planning i would say Nokia could possibly release a worthy platform of Mobile gaming.

 While not all Ngage games are really good, in this platform there are some hidden Gems that worth  playing. Here are some of those titles that i find to be great title

• Rifts: Promise of Power
• Pocket Kingdom
• Pathway to Glory
• Pathway to Glory: Ikusa Island
• High Seize
• Asphalt 2
• Ashen
• ONE
• Glimmerati

Out of those titles, Pathway to Glory is probably the most famous one but my personal favorite would be Pocket Kingdom and Rifts Promise of Power which i may discuss about it in the future. However the best thing this Platform is that it it my gateway some of the interesting series like Civilization, Warhammer 40k and Rifts.

I wished there were some emulators for Ngage for Android because those games represent the best moment of my mobile gaming and never released to other platform. It is rather sad to see that Nokia has abandoned this platform not once but twice and i wished they made these Ngage games available to their mobile phone.

Does anyone played Ngage before and what is your favorite title?

Super Robot Wars Masoukishin III: Pride of Justice

First of all i will apologize for bad quality pictures in advance since i am unable to take screenshots from my Vita for this game since it has protected lock for taking screenshots which is a dumb idea by Winkysoft/Bandai and it is a waste of those beautiful CGs. By far Pride of Justice is probably the weakest entry of Masoukishin series that i played mainly due to the gameplay issue and the storyline did not really progress anywhere and did not have the same appeal from the first game. Though as follower of Masoukishin fans i suppose the story is still passable.

There are couple of new additions from the previous series. The most noticeable changes from the previous game are that Fang and Rosary gets new attire to make them look less retro and in addition Antillas team got two new members joining their team. One is Remia who is Zash older sister and the other one is Treis a reverse trap who Gido rescued early in the first route split. Also each character now got their unique theme song which are mixed bag but some of them are quite decent. Finally each route got their own secrets and one combination attack for specific pair of characters which are really cool.

As always there are 3 routes in this game which are quite simple as you branch off early in the game when you got the first choice. Each route covers totally different story and focused on different characters. Pride of Justice route are divided into Fang, Eran and Tyutti which are ordered from easiest to hardest. The reason why Tyutti is the hardest one is because at the last stage you will fight around 20 Gatswo+ which got 40k HP each, a really hard stage by Masoukishin standard

The main issue of the gameplay is that the difficulty in Pride of Justice is much harder than any previous Masoukishin in a bad way. Probably this is one of the few game that the Grunt units are actually more threatening than the Boss unit itself. As you progress through the game the Grunt unit obviously gets stronger but that's not it, around middle of the game they can one shot your unupgraded units even if you block and around last 10 chapters some of them are able to kill your fully upgraded unit in 1-2 hits. To make it worse, the AI in this game is badly programmed since the enemy will only aim at your weakest unit non stop until they are dead and probably you will soft reset lots of times if you make silly mistakes. The most dangerous grunts in this game are the Nimbus which looks like FA Gundam and the Radat kingdom grunts and also the Pink Volkruss grunts. The difficulty spike is mainly due to Winky soft trying to push DLC mission which will gives you upgrade parts when you finish the games.

My suggestions if you are going to get this game is the same rule like previous series, always upgrade your Masoukishins since they will be your primary attacker especially Yanlong who can hit a whopping 100k damage with his Seiden Kafuu Seiun ken when it is fully upgraded along with Soul seishin. For each specific route you need to invest certain characters as they get quite powerful with their combination attacks. Lastly never invest on more than 10 units because by the end of the game non FUBd units are easily one shotted by the grunts.

I suppose the absurd difficulty along with bad DLC approach makes this niche SRW series even more unpopular which makes the preowned copy of the game are sold for dirt cheap in Japan. I think with Pride of Justice, Winkysoft need to reevaluate the direction they should go in particular the balance of their game. Personally i still find the game worth my money as i still clocked about 40 hours though i can't be bothered to get the Platinum trophy.

From this point on i will cover the story of each routes based from what i can comprehend and since it will be spoilerific by nature so tread on your own discretion.

MG Gundam X announced

Looks like another of my wish has been granted again yay! I have been waiting for a MG for Gundam X to come someday and at long last Bandai is eager enough to announce the release for it. Nothing much we know about the MG Gundam X other than it is scheduled to be released on January next year and will cost 3800 yen. I doubt the Divider unit is included in the MG kit and we will probably see a separate release for Gundam X Divider. I wonder if Air master or Leopard will got MG treatment as well but i hope it does because personally Gundam X series is one of my favorite AU Gundam titles other than G Gundam.

Osananajimi wa Daitouryou

Over past 2 weeks, I have been marathoning VNs to make up the time when i left the VN world for almost a year. This time i completed Osananajimi wa Daitouryou or My girlfriend is president which should have been My childhood friend is president if it is properly translated but had to admit the former title does rings better. I saw this VN for the first time when i lurked sankaku years ago where there is an article about VN with female Putin as one of the heroine and the bad guy is the Pope which is not the exact thing in the game but close enough. Basically the story is about a guy who suddenly find himself as a Vice president and his childhood friend is the President of Japan herself due to some interference by Aliens and things happen from there.

Overall Osananajimi wa Daitouryou is your run of the mill slice of life VN with Alien as the theme and tiny doses of politics. The story is nothing particularly special but it does redeem itself with tons of references from popular games and anime here and there. There are 4 routes in this game and the paths selections are quite simple compared to other VNs. While I don't really have particular favorite character for this VN, if i have to pick one i would say Ezekiel or more known as Ell is the most adorable one while Yukino, the main character childhood friend is probably my least favorite though she kind of resemble Sumika from Muvluv save for terrible cooking skill. Despite  Osananajimi wa Daitouryou is mediocre VN, by no means it is terrible but just don't expect anything outstanding from the reading experience. I may give fandisk a go as well just for a sake of completion.

Yami's completed VN List

 I am writing this post as a self reminder for the list Visual Novels that i have finished reading. With this i can see my mileage of the Journey through one of the biggest Genre of gaming in Japan that have produced some great works from time to time.

In no particular order

1. Snow Drop
2. Little my maid
3. Utawarerumono
4. Princess Waltz
5. Tsukihime
6. Kagetsu Tohya
7. Planetarian
8. Yume miru Kusuri
9. Shuffle!
10. Tears to Tiara
11. Ever 17
12. Saya no Uta
13. Kikokugai
14. Muvluv Extra/Unlimited
15. Muvluv Alternative
16. Muvluv Alt Chronicle 1
17. Muvluv Alt Chronicle 2
18. Muvluv Alt Chronicle 3
19. Zanma Taisei Demonbane
20. Kishin Hishou Demonbane
21. Edelweiss
22. Clannad
23. Rance 1
    
24. Rance 2
25. Rance 3
    
26. Rance 5D
27. Rance VI: Fall of Zeth 
    
28. Sengoku Rance 
29. Rance IX
    
30. Fate stay night
31. Katawa Shoujo
32. Chaos;Head
33. Umineko no naku koro ni
34. Umineko no naku koro ni Chiru
35. Osanajimi wa daitoryou
36. Hourglass of Summer
37. G Senjou no Maou
38. Hourglass of Summer
39. Cross Channel
40. Kara no Shoujo
41. Miku kiss ~mirai no kimi to, subete no uta ni
42. Danganronpa
43. Sakura Taisen
44. Sakura Taisen 2 
45. Sakura Taisen 3
46. Remember 11 
47. Hanachirasu
48. Private Nurse 
49. Konosuba: Judgment of this Greedy Game
50. Konosuba: Love for these Clothes of Desire
    

Yami's personal thoughts about Visual Novel

I think this is the time for me to discuss my own opinion about VNs as well as sharing some of my personal experience considering it has been 3 months after the poll that i put ended. But before that i just finished Miku Kisu - mirai no kimi to subete no uta ni which is a fanmade VN sold in comiket few years ago. As i expected this VN is not as good as the commercial VN in general but did quite good job in pandering Miku fans which unfortunately i am not. While i find the story cheesy, at least my perspective on Japanese VN broadened yet again.

So back to the topic, firstly from 33 polls from the polling that i put which for some reason reduced to 22 but anyway majority of the people who have polled at least play 1 VN title or more. I have played more than 30 VN titles up until now, which i don't know whether it is consider a lot or not but from this journey i have reached the conclusion that Visual Novels is one of the best medium for storytelling compared to other gaming genre. The first time i read a Visual Novel is when i was in grade 10 or 11 at high school which i did out of curiosity and that first title was Snow Drop which was mediocre but made me interested enough to keep going on. From there on i keep reading VN titles, some are really good some are mediocre and some are utterly terrible. But nevertheless i do find the experience of reading Visual Novels are really enjoyable. There are differing ways to judge a quality of Visual Novels, some people buy the VN just for the drawing but for me the most important thing for a VN is storyline without a doubt. From my observation the VN that have good storyline tend to have their story to be character driven because surprisingly Visual Novels allow some good character interactions in their medium.

There may have been general perception that VNs or Bishoujo games are only about pandering readers with pornographic material which are sad prejudice toward this gaming medium. While it is true majority of the Visual Novels will contain adult material as they are marketed toward young adults as main consumer base and it is inevitable for developers to put adult content as an incentive to attract the buyers. It is true that there are VNs that focused on adult content called Nukige which i have played some but tend to avoid them and 3D adult simulators like the ones from Illusion games perform better jobs. Anyway most of the VNs from my experience have good balance of story and adult contents. Nevertheless there are handful VN developers that make VN title with no adult content which their effort are commendable and back then Hirameki spearheaded to introduce VN Market to the west with these VNs but unfortunately they went down under (though i find it because they poorly execute the concepts and those interactive DVDs got too much problem). While most of the VNs are in japanese fortunately some of the good titles are translated and developers like Mangagamer try their best to bring more VN titles to the west.

Some of the VN titles that i considered to be good are Ever17 which got really good story especially toward the end, then Yume miru kusuri while i tend to avoid slice of life in general the writer of the script is something else and finally Saya no Uta, it is short but it got some twisted yet beautiful story at the same time. But probably you will prefer to touch these titles after reading couple of VNs in general. Phoenix Wright and Kyle Hyde Saga are quite good game titles as well if you are interested to get into reading VNs despite both of them are not really considered to be VN. As a closing word i will keep on reading VNs in the future and someday probably mastered good command of japanese to play the game in their original language and probably i am going to write another similar post like this in the future.

So what is your first Visual Novel and your favorite one?

Legend of Galactic Heroes 2nd run finished!

The Legend ends and history begins. 

I think it has been 3 or 4 years since i finished my first run of LoGH, could have done it faster but at least i really enjoy this series more than ever. From my second run i come to appreciate the 4th season more but the pinnacle of the series are still the 2nd and 3rd season without doubt.  It will take a while for me to finish the character quotes from the series but i will try my best not to procrastinate myself and i am planning the making the quotes segment divided into 2 parts, From this 3 years of time since i watched LoGH for the first time, no anime have been ever to reach the depth of the series when it comes to politics and philosophy which even make anime from nowadays a shameful display. Unfortunately the youtube videos of the series which the most accessible ones has been purged due to some stupid policies but if you really want to watch the series grab the torrent and Bluray treatment is the best.

Muvluv Alternative Chronicles 3

Since Muvluv Alternative Chronicles 4 is coming up i think i should write a coverage about Muvluv Alternatives Chronicles 3 but more like the TDA segment since i haven't read the 2nd story of Alt Chronicles 3. I will also cover some part of the story in TDA 01 from Alt Chronicles 2 since i haven't covered them in my previous posts and it doesn't make any sense if i jumped straight through TDA 02. Overall TDA 02 is really weak story and the action sequence is subpar compared to Alternative but hopefully Alt Chronicles 4 would be less disappointing.

Please consider that this post will contain some spoiler and tread with your own discretion.

Kara no Shoujo

Another skeleton in my VN closet cleared(no pun intended)! I have finished all possible route in the VN and this is one of the few VN that i bothered to look at the bad ends. Took me a day to complete the series and i guess Kara no Shoujo is one of the more depressing VN title i have touched so far. My first impression from the series is that it is very gory as i saw the CGs but it is not as bad as it looks in the end. The story takes place in Post War Japan in 50s where the main character is Tokisaki Reiji a former police turned detective where in the VN he is investigating bizarre murder case which involve young female being mutilated that reminds him of incident that costs his lover's death. The plot of the story revolves around a painting of a woman(more like dutchwife) in a large egg shell which her appearance greatly resembles with the main heroine.

Kara no Shoujo is considered to be mystery VN and it has some investigating feature like Phoenix Wright or Hotel Dusk but don't expect it is not complex as these titles. Music and CG drawing is very solid though i find the music is rather lighthearted despite the story can be considered to rather grimdark. As for the story of the VN itself, the mystery aspect is great and expect some good plot twists along with lots of tragic moments. The villains in the VN is some guy that remind me of Hannibal lecter and a sissy boy with oedipus complex but yeah KnS shows how twisted a human can be to reach a perfection for art. As for romance, it is not the focus of Kara no Shoujo and i would suggest not to get really attached with the heroines(still surprised no imouto route). Overall Kara no Shoujo is decent mystery VN but better turn away if you are expecting some happy endings from the series. For me the gore of the VN is actually not too bad since there are worse stuffs compared to Kara no Shoujo but i find the story is really tragic especially the saddest part is how the tragedy repeats itself, what is it? go read the VN. I heard Kara no Shoujo 2 is coming to the west soon probably around next year and i definitely will support the VN although i heard it will be a kick to the shin/salt to the wound/arrow to the knee wtv.

SRW OG Infinite Battle

I have been hoping a Gundam vs Gundam game with OG cast for years already and appears my dreams come sooner than expected! On November 28th this year, a new SRW game called SRW OG: Infinite Battles will be released for PS3. From the trailer that has been shown, there are 8 characters shown already and supposedly there will be 40 Playable units so most likely we will get to see all the units shown in the Ads cover. From what i see in the trailer, the game looks less promising since the gameplay appear to be sluggish especially the melee part but hope the game will be better than that. Since i don't have PS3 i won't be able to get a copy of the game but if it is ever coming to Vita, i will give my best to support the SRW series. I wonder how they will balance Super Robot units with the Real Robot one considering the Super Robots are 50m on average and some of them are capable to chop anything in two and will be any special team attacks with special unit? If you are ever going to play the game which unit that you wish to show up and will be maining? I would main Wildwurger with no doubt!

The Story of Philosophy

Seems like a totally random post for a rarely updated mecha blog but i can assure that i don't post this on a whim. Reading almost 700 pages book is quite a chore compared to reading manga but i managed to do it and learned something from this book. Will Durant's Story of Philosophy is really good gateway to western philosophy as it introduces several people who changed the shaped Western world with their ideas and thoughts. I had to appreciate Will Durant for his effort to bother analyzing lots of the Western Philosopher idea and summarize all of them to be still palatable while not overriding the original content. From the book, i am made to be interested in Schopenhauer's and Nietzsche's ideas which i will try to get their works to read but i guess i am going to get Plato's Republic along the way. However i find the British Philosopher's thoughts like Herbert Spencer and Francis Bacon is rather hard to be digested in my thought and probably need to give them another go. If you want to get into the ideas of Western Philosophy and have no idea where to start, this book is a good choice to go. I wonder if there is similar book like this for Chinese Philosophy which are another interesting field which probably i need to learn Mandarin to savor their works. Lastly i think i will also have a look at the Story of Civilization which is the least thing i can do as a tribute for this Author.

Cytus Chapter 7&8

Just few days ago Cytus got 2 chapters update and since i have the Lambda version got the updates for free. From my first impression after giving most of the songs a run i would say Chapter 8 is more solid than Chapter 7 overall. There are another batch of vocaloids as well but still can't beat the one in Project diva. I am still quite surprised that i get to see yet another DJ Max composer M2U who was major contributor to the former series and i am quite happy even though he only have one song at the moment. Both Chapter cost $5 in Itunes and if you can only afford one at the moment , once again i will recommend to get the Chapter 8 which really solid overall.

Last Window: Secret of Cape West

This is the sequel of Hotel Dusk that i covered before which is the part of Kyle Hyde saga, and unfortunately the last game made by Cing before they go down under. Nevertheless Last Window is really wonderful game if you like Graphic novel. Just like Hotel Dusk, once again you play as Kyle Hyde an Ex-cop turned Salesman exploring the building and interact with the objects and finding clues to progress through the story. This time, the story takes place at Kyle's apartment which used to be a Hotel and just one week before Kyle forced to leave as the apartment going to be demolished, he received mysterious letter to find something called Scarlet Star which the sender says will uncover the mystery behind his Father's death. As always the Noir style storyline is top notch and probably better than Hotel dusk though for some reason the later have some soft spot on me. As a part of Kyle Hyde Saga, Last Window uncover more of the Kyle's past while having common thing that ties it together with Hotel Dusk. While this is wishful thinking, i wished Kyle Hyde Saga would see some continuation as the whole series is still far from finished, it doesn't have to be Cing but some other developer would be able to continue this great series,

Wonderfest 2014

This year's wonderfest is not as interesting as previous years for me but at least i can always expect something from Kotobukiya. Other booths in the this year's wonderfest doesn't really pick my interest and i was hoping some MH or Dougram stuffs. From this years Wonderfest, Koto shown the non scale version of F-22 Raptor TSF which going to be the Infinities color scheme it seems. The kit will be released sometime next year but i expect it is going to be released around the same period like the EF-2000 Typhoon this year.

Also D-Style lineup got some solid addition as Kotobukiya added Votoms series to their lineup and we got the Scopedog, depending on the kit's popularity  i think we may get the fully armed version as well. SRW has been really slow this year but it seems there will be some model kit for Awakened version of Cybuster which first show up in Masoukishin 2 and  i will be looking forward to it. With this i think the other Masoukishin will have better chance to get their kits someday and i will wish Granveil will come first if it happens.  Like usual i will update this post if i find anything worth to add.

Cytus Lambda

Got this on Vita from PSMobile and it is quite promising Rhythm game which could be strong rival for DJ Max someday. Cytus has been around from last year starting on Iphone then to Android and finally landing on PS Mobile platform last month. The music in this game is either hit or miss but if you follow DJ Max series or like trance music in general you may like Cytus. The game is free to download but you can only play 10 at first and need to pay $13 for the rest of the songs. Gameplay is abit similar to DJ max technika but probably Cytus is played the opposite way of Technika and abit easier to get into. While it is not as hard as DJ Max, Cytus song with Level 6 onwards provide some decent challenges and currently i can't even beat the Level 9 one.

So far there 62 songs in Vita version of Cytus in which 10 of them are exclusive for Vita so far. Overall Quality of the songs are mixed some are really good but majority are rather mediocre but i am quite surprised that there are few Miku songs in this game. My main gripe over the songs is that the good parts in the song feels really short which i wished there is a really long version of it. My main reason to buy Cytus because i followed Tsukasa since DJ Max and his works happened to be featured in this game. However during my stay in the game i am quite fond of Persona's and Rabpit works which are pretty good. Finally compared to DJ Max, Cytus still falls short in terms of gameplay since it is still new but at least, i find the Song Charts is still better than Technika Tune which is the DJ Max game on Vita since that game had too much KPop rather than Trance. Supposedly the game will be kept updated as long as it is doing well and i hope next time The game will have Gallery mode.