God Eater 1/7 Kanon Daiba

I have been expecting another Figure from God Eater coming up after Alisa Amiella but certainly plum made rather interesting choice. I thought Sakuya or Soma would have a good chance to be the second figure but instead Kanon is the one who got it first. The figure is made by plum and will be released on July this year for roughly 8500 yen. In God Eater Burst, Kanon Daiba is one of the many NPC you can recruit to join your mission serving as Ranged Healer. Despite her cute appearance, she is really dangerous... especially for her allies which is openly stated in her character profile. The AI for her character is well known to shoot friendly fire on you and even blames that it is your fault for standing in her line of fire. While most of the time it is just plain annoying, waking up in front of Dyaus Pita or Susanno is probably the last thing you want from  from her friendly fire. Apparently Kanon will return to God Eater 2 and probably play bigger role compared to the prequel. I am still looking forward to God Eater 2 to reach US shore as soon as possible.

Hotel Dusk: Room 215

Another blast to the past as i cleared another backlog of mine. Cing may not be a well known company but all games that i have played from them are very strong in the storytelling aspect. . Taking place in 70s, Hotel Dusk is a detective game with Noir touch where you play as burnt-out former police detective named Kyle Hyde. As Kyle Hyde you explore the Hotel Dusk interact with other Hotel Guests which each of them have stories to be unraveled which pieces by pieces get closer to clues of the person that Kyle Hyde had been looking for since he retired his police job.  If you like Text-heavy adventure games with Visual Novel esque presentation, this is a really good not to be missed. While the gameplay maybe slightly annoying, i can assure you the story is rather mindblowing which is rather a rarity from japanese games. It is a shame such good company go under too early because they got some games with rather interesting story and unique gaming experience as well. Probably i will be playing Last Windows after this which is supposedly the sequel of this series.

Gasaraki

Have been watching this series bit by bit as i procrastinate on my LoGH 2nd run. Out of mecha series that i have watched, Gasaraki is one of the series that got least amount mecha action but nevertheless it is still quite interesting watch. While the mecha action definitely not enough, Gasaraki is one of the top contenders for the most realistic depiction of Real Robots which is no surprise considering Ryosuke Takahashi and Yutaka Izubuchi is involved in the production of the series. Also unlike most Sunrise stuff that i watched, Gasaraki got quite solid Political stuffs which some of them are thought provoking but average anime watcher probably would find it boring. The series discuss the growing concern of immigrants influx in developed countries and impact of Global economy on countries though it is not too deep considering the sensitive political context.

The main weakness of the series is that it tries to mix Japanese mysticism stuff with Sci-fi which doesn't turns out well in this case. I also think the main characters need some more personality and there are still some room to improve the romance part as well. Again despite the lacking of mecha action, the series got enough time to showcase what the mecha in the series could perform as its strength and weaknesses are clearly shown. Compared to other Sunrise series, Gasaraki is pretty much the polar opposite of Code Geass. If you like Scifi series like Ghost in the Shell you may take a look on this series which you could find interesting. In summary Gasaraki had really great characterization of Real Robots but not enough fireworks and some mind provoking political stuff along with difficult to comprehend Japanese mysticism. I wished the Raiden armor got some better plastic model.

Blade of the Immortal

After few years of following this series and read its last translated chapter, i think i could talk a little bit about a manga called Mugen no Junin or Blade of Immortal. This series goes quite a long way from 1994 until last year which concludes one of the unique samurai themed battle manga. Taking place somewhere in the middle of Tokugawa era,the story is basically about a Samurai who somehow gained immortality served as a girl's bodyguard on her quest of revenge in order to become mortal again. While the main character is immortal it doesn't mean he is instantly invincible as he faced some of the toughest warrior at his time and almost faced death despite his immortallity. While it is not as famous as Vagabond, Blade of Immortal is a very well made manga. One of its strongest point is the mangaka's drawing of the human anatomy which rather good especially in portraying the gory parts (which could be on par with Berserk if it got monsters). And despite story is not the strongest aspect of the series, it got some good characters especially one of the main antagonist who is rather cool guy. Personally i find the ending is abit lackluster but wraps up most of the stuff rather well and rather bittersweet. So if you like Vagabond you might be interested with this title despite it is slightly darker compared to the former one.

SRW Masoukishin 3 Lord of Elemental: Pride of Justice

With the release of Revelation of Evil God which continue the Masoukishin storyline after 15 years gap, i have been expecting the 3rd title for the series will be coming up to continue the series and it appears my expectation come earlier! Around yesterday there has been news circulating about the sequel and there is already a PV for it. The 3rd series of Masoukishin will be titled as Pride of Justice is scheduled to be released on 22nd of August on PS3 and Vita which is quite fast definitely and an Original SRW for Vita at last!

The game will follow the same format of the previous Masoukishin which use full scale sprites instead of SD and I suspect there will be branching storypaths just like previous series.There is not much news revealed at this point but the stories continues about Masaki's story as part of Antilas team fighting the cult of Volkruss. Some new addition for the game that i see from the PV is that the new casts from Masoukishin 2 got some upgrade for their Masoukis and Fang, formerly Masaki's Rival got new cosmetic changes along with his Masouki upgrade which could imply he will play more significant role this time compared to the prequel. It also appears that the Shutedonia twins will be usable party as well. I am really anticipating whether the other Masoukishin will get their possesion form in this game which i would be bit sad if they don't.

I will definitely get the Vita version since i am rather fond of Masoukishin series since i played the 1st and 2nd series on PSP last year. If you preorder the game apparently you will get some promo code for the Anime version of Valsione which is a plus.

You can check my coverage of the previous games here:

Masoukishin 1

Masoukishin 2

You can also watch the PV here

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate thoughts

I admit that i have been quite inactive in blogging from last year but last month is the record for me for being least productive on my blog. I blame it to monster hunter 3U which i spend quite alot of time to play from March until now and within this time i have reached HR8 as well as clearing all village quests. I also managed to make Gold Moon set from Gold Rathian which is awesome though i can't get the skills that i had on the same set back in Freedom Unite. With this mileage, i believe i can reviewing about this game.

Firstly about the rants, while MH3U probably has the most refined gameplay but content-wise it is still loses with Unite which at least bother to add more maps for the game. Underwater battle is the new feature from Tri series which is quite hit or miss but for me it is a miss. While i don't really have problem killing monsters underwater, i am never able to bring myself to like fighting underwater mainly because i cant fight freely compared to fighting on land and arguably Ceadeus is one of the main reasons i hate fighting underwater(can kill it under 15 minutes though). Aside from lacking of maps and underwater battle, my greatest disappointment for the game would be the weapon trees. Despite getting the same treatment of MHFU, MH3U is rather lacking in weapon branches. For instance if you want certain elemental weapon like Fire or Thunder you only practically have 2 or fewer choices to make and it is guaranteed one of the weapon branches require you to farm Rubies or Mantles in order to upgrade it. For Lance i am rather unhappy that there is only one decent Ice elemental Lance which barely did the job while the other usable option requires Awaken&Sharpness+1 to be used and even Gunlance doesn't have any usable Ice Gunlance at all(Lagombi's is terrible).

Aside from the rants i suppose the games plays just fine and it is still the best MH that has been out so far(until Vita got one at least). The Grank is still challenging but more balanced at the same time since not many OHKOs compared to FU. Poison and Slime Weapons are quite powerful in this game so you might consider to use them. While MH3U is great game i don't really think MH really fits on 3DS in the end.