Another VN that i managed to clear from my Backlog and at the same time adds to my list of Nitroplus title that i have finished(that makes the 4th one!). I have watched the anime before and now just like other VN that got Anime adaptation, i see how the former medium of the story proves itself to be superior. By far Demonbane probably is the longest Nitroplus VN that i have played as it takes roughly about 30 hours to finish all the route in Demonbane.
Another good Chinese history manga that i read recently which you can't judge by its cover! I stumble upon this manga when i was lurking at /a/ manga recommendation thread and it turns out Bokko is quite interesting read. Unlike most Chinese History manga which usually based on San Guo/3 Kingdoms Era, Bokko takes place in Ancient China era roughly before the rise of Qin Dynastywhen China was still divided into 7 states. The manga tells about the adventure of a man called Kakuri of Bokk clan which are renowned for their superior defense strategy in Siege. Throughout the story Kakuri offers cities help to defend against attackers while slowly uncovering conspiracies revolving around his clan which would change the future of China. What makes the manga particularly special is its richness of tactics and strategies which you will probably like if you are a fan of Sun Tzu's Art of War. Bokko shows some pretty sophisticated siege tactics which i didn't expect from China in that era. While the manga feels abit dragged on later half of the manga, i would recommend to read until the first siege ends since it is probably the best part that Bokko offers. Anyway if you read Sangokushi you will be also interested with Bokko
One of the Visual Novel i played recently and yesterday i finally managed to complete all routes for Katawa Shoujo. At first i have rather low expectation with Katawa Shoujo as i thought the production value of the game is rather low as it is a freeware VN. However this game able to prove otherwise and show that the Devs put really good effort for it. While Katawa Shoujo is still not comparable with best Selling Eroge, i can say KS story is better than some of the VNs that i have played before. In all aspects Katawa Shoujo meets all standard that any decent VN have but i would say KS does really good job with the story and music. You won't find any particular deep stuff from Katawa Shoujo but it offers really heartwarming story which it did a splendid job with it. While it is probably subjective, i really liked the music of the game which i am indifferent with it at first though slowly but sure i feel some attachment with the music especially the main menu theme.
Out of all 5 heroines of Katawa Shoujo, i would say all of them are equally good as they have distinct and interesting personality. I think it is just a matter of personal choice to determine which Heroines in KS are better than other. I don't really have any particular favorite but i think Rin is the most interesting heroine in KS(though her route's conclusion is kinda lacking) as her character can be described like a wind, "free and unattached with anything" and her personal disability doesn't prevent her to be one. Probably the main protagonist has the hardest time to make Rin open up her heart compared to others. Nevertheless i would recommend to play all of heroine routes in Katawa Shoujo as they complement to each other in some way. Lilly's or Hanako's route is probably the easiest one to get into which makes them the best choice for the first route. I started with Lilly's route then Shizune then Emi(Moe overdose) then Rin and finally Hanako though there are no particular order you need to play the VN. If you never played a Visual Novel before Katawa Shoujo is one of the better gateway to get into VN. Lastly I always find that if Katawa Shoujo gets some more refinement to match the ones like standard commercial VN, i think it probably managed to be one of the High Tier VN.
Remember the new design of Frame Arms introduced early this year? finally Kotobukiya just announced the release of the model with official name "Baselard" which its name derived from a certain type of dagger. The kit will be released at the end of this year with the price around 3500 yen. From what it looks Baselard is a light armored type mech which gives heroic-looking impression. While the mecha frame is similar to Exbrau/Valhawk, in terms of armaments it appears Takayuki Yanase intend to mirror Baselard with Cherudim Gundam to some extent as its weapon are stored at the back waist like Cherudim Shield Bits. Probably one of the best looking Frame Arms so far and there is a chance we may see some variants of the mecha for future lineup released by Kotobukiya
After i finished Gihren's Campaign, i am farming plenty of Intervention points for secret units until i got enough to unlock Gundam Unicorn. During the points farming, i managed to complete Amuro's and Char's CCA campaign which means i have played all available main campaigns in Shin Gihren. Overall the campaign is pretty interesting and i see some paralels of CCA Event. in Amuro's campaign it turns out that Londo Bell have to face Neo Zeon
for another Decisive battle in Sweet Water Colony even after they
managed to stop Axis descent to earth. Whereas for Char have to drop
Luna 2 to Earth to land decisive blow to EFSF as Axis drop is not
sufficient to force earthlings migrating to space.
The campaign's difficulty is not that bad considering the length of the campaign is
practically half of Gihren's or Revil's size. In CCA Campaign, both Amuro and
Char lacked of Ace pilots in disposal which some good units like Hi Nu
are wasted if you don't spend some points for extra pilots. Newtypes in this campaign are even more broken compared to OYW time as no Jegans or Geara
Doga will able to touch Amuro or Char once they pilot their Final unit. Moreover any MS with Funnel capability are pretty much make any grunt mincemeat as they are capable of post-movement MAP weapon which can ruin your day easily which i prefer to see them nerfed. The CCA campaign also feature some UC Gundam units though i think there will be more in the next installment which i would love to see more units for CCA Campaign (though last time i recalled EFSF doesn't got much units for CCA MSV). Lastly i finally managed to unlock Unicorn Gundam as playable unit which is pretty good though it can't last really long in NT-D mode.
I tend to avoid Slice of Life genre as much as possible as i am not that fond of Moe Pandering which are the usual content of the Genre. But recently i read Yokohama Shopping Trip or Yokohama Kaidashi Kiko and i pretty enjoyed the read. The story of this series revolves around a Female Robot called Alpha running a Coffee shop in rural area and her interaction with her customers and friends. This manga basically a definition of Slice of Life Genre and really Lighthearted. The drawing style of the Manga is pretty unique but what makes YKK interesting read is that it explores the theme of Humanity's Twillight in tranquil way as Nature gradually takes over Human's Civilization. I would say YKK is the ideal model for Slice of Life and whether you are a fan of the genre or not, you won't regret giving the manga a read.
If you ask me which Gundam games is the most unique, i would say MS Saga. Out of all Gundam Games that Bandai have released on PS2, This game is really makes itself different compared to others both good and bad. MS Saga is a classic turn based RPG with Gundam Theme where you pilot MS from multiple Gundam series fighting against generic bad guys. I have played this Games few years ago which i was halfway through the game but somehow i left the game unfinished. Last week i started playing MS Saga again and i still find the story and character design are terrible as always. However the gameplay is still pretty good and one of the few Gundam games that you can mix and match MS parts creating your own style of MS. This game also offer pretty hardcore difficulty since the enemies are really strong and makes you have to grind at some point. Currently i just got Hyaku Shiki and probably will get the Zeta Gundam really soon. I already got Marasai and this is what i can get closest to my Karaba version of Marasai.
From the recent Wonderfest this week, Kotobukiya announced several new lineups for their Muv-luv kits. First EF-2000 is finally confirmed to be released for next year along with Su-37 Terminator. Finally the Russian TSF get a Plamo treatment which adds more variety of Kotobukiya's lineup and if things go well probably more Russian TSF will be coming up(Berkut anyone?). Though i don't i will be getting the SU-37 since painting the kit would be a pain due to camo scheme. But i think will probably get the Typhoon since i get some good plans for it. Seeing the trends of the recent Muv-luv kit released by Koto, probably we will see more TSF featured in Total Eclipse released as a kit (perhaps ACTV or F-22 will be coming up?).
Also the 1/144 Muvluv lineup that Koto introduced is getting F-15E Strike Eagle which is unexpected, probably Kotobukiya decided to pull this move as it is less risky compared to releasing the kit in 1/100 scale due to lower cost. Takemikazuchi also get another variant as well, this time it is Type 00-A as a Japan Exclusive mail order stuff released same price as other Takemikazuchi and scheduled on november this year. The kit featured some extra parts that replicate the scene in Kashgar Hive where Ayamine in her heavily damaged Type 00-A ripped off a Grappler class head as a sign of not giving up the fight against BETA despite her TSF condition. Hopefully there will be more TSF kits released by Koto and i am still waiting for my YF-23.
For some reason after a year playing Gihren's greed i decided to play the game again, this time i use the infamous leader of Principality of Zeon with 240 IQ who is no other than Gihren Zabi. Just like Revil's campaign, Gihren's conquest of earth took few days to finish as the reins of all Zeon army is in your hand. Overall Gihren's route is more easier compared to Revil's as you won't face any nasty Mobile Armors like Big Zam or Braw Bro. Compared to EFSF, Zeon starts with much lower resources but arguably better tech tree as they get MS earlier than EFSF. Most of my base capture operation is quite a breeze except when i try to capture New Yark which is the 2nd base i capture. I didn't manage to capture the base fast enough as my Zaku II F and Zaku 1 are poor anti air units and Feddies 2 range bombers called Deep Rogs are slaughtering them and took 20 turns just to capture this base while others took 3 to 5 turns. One Advice for early game is that you try to make as much as anti air unit as possible from Dopps to Zaku II J with Magella as the majority force you will face early on are mostly Air units.
In this playthrough, i try to make Gihren as lawful as possible as i don't use Solar Ray or dropping colonies to earth(which is actually quite useful). I also managed to avoid Garma's death and make Ramba Ral succeed in capturing White Base by sending him Doms. This playthrough also makes me appreciate Zeon's MS more as i understand roles of MS Igloo units or why the weird Acquy Variants are created in the first place and also didn't expect Zaku comes in so many flavors(though most of them are pretty useless). Compared to EFSF, i find Zeon's Grunt and MA are far more superior as they are more powerful despite more costly. Also instead of Mass producing Gelgoogs, i decided to Mass Produce Gyan instead which proved to be really a beast in melee(i can have my revenge on GM Striker!) and High mobility Gyan variants are probably my favorite Zeon MS.
For Zeon's MS, there are couple of recommendations for some units to be mass produced as they are probably some of the better units for Zeon.
-Zaku Cannon
-Dom Cannon(once you get this you can replace your Zaku Cannon)
-Hildolfr(even in late game it still provide some nice artilery support)
-Rick Dom II(just use this unit as the your main backbone units on space)
-Desert Zaku(best Zaku Variant early on since it is able to scan and not totally helpless against air units)
-Any Zeon's MA(they are pretty much monsters)
-High Mobility Gyan(Any Feddy suits try to melee this guy will feel really sorry)
Recently i also managed to finish Garma's playthrough and unlike what i think, i didn't get his new life Zeon scenario in this game which would have been really awesome since Garma with ponytail is the best Zabi. Hopefully in the next installment of Gihren no Yabou we get that scenario again along with Zeta Gundam stuff.
Now, now! after Kaiyodo starting to craft some MH Merchandises, now it is Good Smile Company who is joining the party with their Nendoroids. As the first release, they decided to release Lagiacrus Blademaster which is the armor made from the flagship monster of MH Tri in Wii. The Figure will be released on November this year with price of 3600 yen. It seems Nintendo got some involvement with this release considering it is also a good timing to advertise MH4 for 3DS. But actually this is not the first time that Lagia Armor figure have been sculpted since Volks have released a limited figure for it as well. This is probably a good get for MH fans especially if you got the MH Monster Gashapon to pit the figure against. By the way Renne from Sora no Kiseki series also get full nendoroid treatment where it just got the petit version early this year.
Barely any WIP but anyway i just write a blog post to show my current progress of my MG Marasai. As you can see i almost finished the paint job of Marasai which i got the beam machine gun and the shield left to paint. If things went smoothly probably i can finish working on this kit before 23rd of this month which is the deadline of the GAF group build. As i said before the color scheme that i use for Marasai is for Karaba faction which you can figure out which MS color scheme based on.
While my backlog haven't got cleared yet, i decided to work on my MG Marasai as a part of GAF group build. In this group build i am going to repaint the Marasai as a part of the Group build requirement where i need to paint Marasai with other faction's color scheme other than original. In my case i will be painting Marasai in Karaba color scheme which is the Major opposing faction of Titans on Earth and the color scheme will resemble to one of the MS that Karaba uses. MG Marasai is really good kit in my opinion, while it has some minor problem with articulation, the inner frame quality is much better now. For the Group Build, i will be including Ballute System and LED which is the leftover from my Hyaku Shiki and 00 Designer's version lineup. The LED really makes the MG Marasai much better by several levels because the LED is used really well for this kit.
After Revoltech Rathalos announced few months ago and released recently, Kaiyodo decide to do follow-up of their Revoltech for Monster Hunter series. This time we get the Hunter action figure which is Rathalos Blademaster. The action figure will be released on September this year with 3200 price tag and Just like Rathalos, there will be also Azure version of the Rathalos Armor released in limited run. This version of Rathalos Blademaster is from MH Tri series which got pretty good skill in MHP3 where the armor gives you 50% chance of landing critical hit on enemies weakspot when it comes in a set. The action figure also comes with Rathalos Great Sword and SnS which are MH Tri version as well. I won't be getting this action figure since the Azure version is running out already though hopefully there will be more Hunter Action figure coming up. While i loved to see Lao Shan, Kushala or Teostra armor to get a cut, i think the newer MH armor will be prioritized first in which i will be gladly to get Rathian or Agnator armor.
Hmm in this month i think i managed to hoard pretty rare stuff compared to my past loots. I managed to get Vardant Toy by Megahouse and Armor Plus Tekkaman Rapier from Mandarake relatively cheap. Last time i also saw another spare Vardant and Brave Gohkin Linebarrel which is only 3500 yen though probably they are gone already. I also got Gespenst Mk-II and LBX Odin from Amiami which makes my backlog doesn't get any better though i will probably able to build the LBX relatively fast. If you are looking for Japanese hobby rare stuff, check Mandarake first before deciding to find it elsewhere
