Finished* Odin Sphere, and I’m a full fledged fan of Vanillaware now. Muramasa: The Demon Blade was a game I enjoyed thoroughly, though I rather wish it had a more involving story. OS is kind of the opposite – the gameplay isn’t as tight, fast, and just plain fun as Muramasa‘s, but the story set in the (lightly) Norse-inspired fantasy universe with 5 characters whose paths all intertwine is absolutely fantastic. And, of course, there’s the visuals. At this point I can safely say that, to me, nobody in the gaming industry makes 2D games that look better than Vanillaware’s. What I wouldn’t give for an HD versions of these games…

Going to have to get GrimGrimoire too, and really interested in whatever they’re working on next.

If it wasn’t for how much other stuff I’m already planning on buying (including the Momohime figure that is supposed to be released this month), I’d probably very seriously think about getting this Gwendolyn figure:

*: By which I mean I played through about 2 hours on PCSX2, then downloaded a PS3 virtual memory card save and watched 6+ hours of cutscenes for the story. Protip: game plays better on a PS3 (and, I assume, real PS2) than emulator… the character response to inputs is already less-than-immediate, and adding slightly more input lag when playing on emulator makes it even worse to the point of being extremely annoying.

This has turned from a personal blog to a personal review page… which is fine, but not quite what I was intending. So I guess I need to try updating this more frequently. It’s not the first time I’ve said this, but maybe this time it’ll actually happen!

For now, some random musings:

The new iPhone got announced at WWDC today. Nothing all that interesting or overwhelming, though the new ultra-high DPI screen is nice. I think I would still rather have an HTC EVO plus an iPod Touch for music though. But it’s nice that iPod Touch owners will get to upgrade to iOS for free this time. Speaking of which, that’s now the 3rd OS with that name, after Cisco’s router/switch OS and Nintendo’s Wii quasi-OS. But hey, the i is lower-case and that makes all the difference, right?

The NBA Finals are under way, and tied 1-1 after the 2 games in Los Angeles. Pau Gasol has played very well so far, and Andrew Bynum put in a terrific performance in game 2 as well. Kobe hasn’t been amazing in the series so far though, and Ray Allen’s lights-out 3PT shooting in game 2 (an NBA-record 8 threes) combined with Rondo’s triple-double to get them the win. Officiating has been pretty universally terrible, unfortunately. But Paul Pierce hasn’t played too well either, and KG just looks absolutely brutal on the court (which is unfortunate, as I still like KG a lot despite hating Boston). Lakers will have to win at least 1 in Boston (hopefully game 3), and hope they can hold court at home in games 6/7. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous, but this definitely is shaping up to be a good series.

There’s been so much buzz about conference re-alignment and expansion in college sports, much of it centered on the Big 12, that at this point it’s almost impossible to dismiss. Now, as a Longhorns fan I’m pretty content in knowing that however it shakes out, Texas will almost certainly be in a good position – being the biggest revenue generating athletic program in the country makes it the most desirable school for any conference. But the idea of being in a Pac-16, or even more outlandishly, in the Big 10/11/14/16 (or whatever it’ll end up being called) still takes some getting used to. And I can’t imagine what fans of the “lesser” schools are feeling. But the fact that something like this, which seemed so ridiculous back when it was written in February, is now very possible or even possibly likely, is amazing.

Most new anime coming out seem to be uninteresting. I put Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood on hold since it’s coming to an end and I figure I’ll just marathon through the 25 or so episodes from where I left off, so the only shows of this season that I care about are Kaichou wa Maid-sama, a decent silly romantic-comedy, and Angel Beats!, which has a few interesting characters. Also watching Arakawa Under The Bridge, but it’s actually gotten progressively less interesting as I watch more of it. The Maaya Sakamoto-voiced Nino-san is great, but doesn’t play as large a role in the story as I initially believed, and the rest of the cast are more just eccentric than interesting. Watched 1.11 and 2.22 of the Rebuild of Evangelion, and it’s great, but I’ll save that for a review post later.

Beat Super Mario Galaxy and one of the goals I set for myself in WipEout HD (will also talk about those in review post), and finding myself somewhat lacking in interest in playing anything else, despite a game of 3D Dot Game Heroes that I started and Super Mario Galaxy 2 waiting for me. Started playing Infinite Undiscovery, started regretting it almost immediately (even the intro FMV looks terrible – does anyone at Square know how to encode/compress video?), and lasted about 15 minutes before I quit – and will almost certainly never play again. Good use of $10! Then started Blue Dragon, and while it’s definitely a better game… Akira Toriyama character designs in 3D really doesn’t do it for me. Having a Japanese voice track is definitely nice, but the main character’s voice sounds anywhere between age 12 and 40, while the character looks about… 8. It’s just a weird experience. I might go back to it at some point later on, but I’m not counting on it. All this makes me wonder if the JRPG genre really is just dead to me. FFXIII is the first one I finished in ages, and none of the other current-generation JRPGs I’ve played (IU, BD, Eternal Sonata, etc.) I’ve gotten further than 5 hours in.

And finally, the lackluster support for ID3v2.4 is terribly annoying. Doesn’t get read properly by PS3 (boo), doesn’t get recognized by Windows Explorer (meh), and seems to often get corrupted when updated by iTunes (ugh). Mp3tag is a pretty nice piece of software that I’m using to clean up some tags, but it’s a very tedious process to use it to add lyrics. And all this because ID3v2.3 doesn’t support forward slashes in the artist field.

Yes, that time again. When I finally become not-lazy enough, or rather have enough that I’m in danger of forgetting about, that it’s finally time to write up some thoughts about stuff I’ve been watching or playing.

Anime

Bakemonogatari: I really wanted to wait until the web/DVD/BD-only episodes finish before reviewing, but I think I’ll just treat the initial TV-aired 12 episodes as its own entity. I really wasn’t all that familiar with the works of director Akiyuki Shinbou previously (only series of his I’ve seen was Maria†Holic), but BMG is definitely a showcase of his unique style. Animation is kind of uneven, and there are absolutely massive amounts of text that show up on screen for very short periods of time, making it a pretty hard watch at times (I often had to pause and go back to catch everything – heaven knows how someone watching it as a TV broadcast can possibly see it all). But the story and the characters more than make up for it. Araragi is a high school student who briefly turned into a vampire but has become (mostly) human again, and run into various girls who also have problems with the supernatural that he helps solve by bringing them to Oshino, and each subset/chapter of episodes deal with the ghost/apparition/spirit/what-have-you that’s plaguing a particular girl. What really elevates this series though, is one of those girls – the first heroine introduced, Hitagi Senjougahara. She is honestly one of the most fascinating anime characters in recent memory. From being a tsundere when she first meets Araragi to the cheerful girl who still mercilessly teases him at the end, she’s just a joy to watch anytime she’s on-screen. And the ending to the TV-aired episodes is probably the best of any romance series I’ve seen in the last few year, made all the better by the fantastic ending theme.
Verdict: 9/10.

Darker than BLACK: Waited until BD rips were out to watch this, and kicked myself for waiting so long. Set in a supernatural modern day world where some some people (Contractors) have gained superhuman powers albeit at the price of having to perform some rituals which are often painful or self-mutilating, it follows Hei, one such Contractor who’s working as an assassin known as “The Black Reaper”. There is actually a fairly wide cast of characters of importance, and they’re almost universally well done. Season 1 ends on a spectacular note, and while season 2 is also quite good, it does suffer a bit from it’s shorter length, where new characters (Contractors especially) seem to keep getting introduced for not much reason. Also, there is not nearly enough Yin in season 2. An OVA that bridges the two is still being released, hopefully that will shed more light. But overall, a good to great series. The opening theme to season 2 is also one of the best anime OPs I’ve ever heard.
Verdict: 8/10 for DTB: The Black Contractor, 7/10 for DTB: Gemini of the Meteor.

Kimi no Todoke: Nothing wrong with watching a little Shoujo now and then, is there? The main character is a girl for whom the description of “socially inept” would be generous, who of course is also the kindest girl you could ever meet. She then makes friends with some 2 other girls who are themselves somewhat outcasts, and meets, and captures the eye of, the most popular boy in class. They’re both way too dense to realize their feelings for each other in any reasonable timeframe, and too shy to even think about admitting it to each other, even after 25 episodes. So while it’s certainly got some questionable pacing, but characters and some of the situations that arise are indeed quite fun, and maybe the next season will offer more development (not counting on it though!).
Verdict: 7/10.

Summer Wars: From the director of Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo / The Girl Who Leapt Through Time comes this anime that’s kind of a cross between War Games and .hack. The animation is superb, the setting is quite imaginative, and the (main) characters are very likable. It won Animation of the Year at the Japan Academy Prize for 2010, and I can’t say it’s a bad choice. Very enjoyable.
Verdict: 9/10.

Games

Final Fantasy XIII: From the start on PS2 to the shift to using the “next-gen” Crystal Tools to the shocking news of becoming multi-platform, this game has been years in the making, and this year it finally was unleashed upon the world (outside Japan). The PS3 version is still obviously the superior one, and technically, it’s certainly nothing to sneeze at. The FMVs in 1080p look absolutely amazing, and the cut-scenes rendered in real-time using higher-quality models look so good that sometimes you may question if it’s not in fact pre-rendered CG. The music is excellent, especially the battle themes, even if the whole package isn’t quite up to the levels of the soundtracks of Chrono Cross or Final Fantasy VI (but then, what is?). The characters and story are about par for the JRPG course, though somehow a “token black guy” who has a baby Chocobo in his afro ends up being a well developed character – possibly the best of the protagonists, in fact. And the pacing is an issue that raises most people’s ire – slowly introducing game concepts is something I can get behind, but taking 25 hours to get to the point where you’re finally experiencing the entirety of game mechanics is admittedly pretty patience-wearing. But the battle system is really what makes the game for me. Limiting player control to only one character does feel restrictive at first, especially at the beginning when the deeper mechanics are not utilized, but once all the elements are in place, it’s fast-paced, strategic, and really limits the necessary of grinding… for experience at least. Unfortunately, obtaining gil (money) is pretty difficult, especially when trying to be a completionist in obtaining and upgrading all the weapons/accessories (which also has an associated trophy). And as I am nothing if not obsessive-compulsive when it comes to things like this, 100-some odd hours, 60+ of them after beating the game, passed before I was finally “finished”. Overall… I enjoyed it.
Verdict: 7/10. Definitely isn’t going to surpass FFVI, but I had fun, and when it comes down to it, that’s what matters. Now just to see if I can actually make myself finish any other JRPGs…

Heavy Rain: Touted as “interactive drama”, this has been on my radar for quite a while. Switching between 4 different characters, the story revolves around the search for the “Origami Killer” who targets young boys. At it’s core, the gameplay is movement with RE-style “tank” controls along with series of Quick Time Events. No, that doesn’t sound very promising at all, but surprisingly, it works pretty well. I still had some problems with the movement, especially when camera angle changes, but the QTEs are among the best I’ve ever seen in a game – the locations of the prompts work very well with the flow of game events, and the button actions required “fits” the action on screen. But the most important part of the game/experience is, of course the story and characters. Questionable voice-acting aside, the characters are pretty good, and the plot is gripping even if there are some holes. And in terms of emotional impact, this game features more grimace and shudder inducing scenes than almost any others I can think of, and that’s actually a positive. Those thoroughly uncomfortable events really brings the player/viewer into the story, and makes for some highly memorable moments. So as far as the drama aspects go, I would say it’s a success. Unfortunately, this is also probably the buggiest game I’ve played since the original The Witcher. Despite a 1.01 patch that was pushed out right at launch, freezes and crashes seemed to be quite common. I experienced several freezes, and the last one resulted in my progress being lost when the save file got deleted (which has even further increased my disdain for the most-hated feature of this console generation, locked save files). I was probably 70% through the game at that point, and it made me just put it down completely to play FFXIII instead. I eventually came back to finish HR, but even with the 1.02 patch, I still experienced a few freezes, though thankfully didn’t have the lost save problem again.
Verdict: 6/10. 6.5 is probably more accurate. If it wasn’t for the technical issues, this would probably be a 7, but despite the promise it shows, it’s still too rough in some areas to be considered great.

Mass Effect 2: Continuing on where Mass Effect 1 left off, Commander Shepard is back. New allies to gain (and some old ones), new enemies (and some old ones) to fight. Gone are planet-side missions with the terrible Mako driving segments and cookie-cutter buildings/enemies, along with an inventory management system so obtuse I had to use a spreadsheet to keep track of what I had, and the dialogue system gained more depth due to the new Paragon/Renegade interrupt actions, but not everything is a gain. The weapon and character upgrade system is simple to the point of being annoyingly restrictive, and whoever at BioWare came up with the planet scanning minigame for resources ought to be fired. But the story, characters (Tali and Garrus’ triumphant return are especially fantastic), and a whole lot more information on a wonderfully developed space opera setting makes up for all that. I’m not so sure I can still consider this game a RPG – a third-person cover-based shooter with some RPG-lite elements would probably be a lot more accurate. But either way, it’s still the best released-in-2010 game that I’ve played.
Verdict: 9/10. Absolutely cannot wait for the final installment of the trilogy, and will probably play through all the DLC available before then too.

A new year and decade is upon us. Too lazy to do any sort of looking back, so will just post another short-review update.

Anime

Asura Cryin’: The story is very slow to pick up, but it does become somewhat interesting… right before the first season ends.
Verdict: 6/10. Hopefully the second season will continue building on the story well.

Nyan Koi: Hapless guy in love with cute girl who also likes him but neither can tell each other, surrounded by other hot girls who like the guy. Yes, it’s another generic harem story. But wait, there’s a twist! The guy, unfortunately allergic to cats, is cursed by a cat deity, can understand cats talking, and must solve their problems. It sounds ridiculous (and it is), but the cat-related hijinks elevate this past the standard harem shows that litter the anime landscape. I enjoyed just about every episode, and am glad that a second season has been approved.
Verdict: 7/10.

Kara no Kyoukai: Satsujin Kousatsu (Go): The final installment in what is certainly the best multi-part anime I’ve seen in recent years. A bit on the long side and does feel like it could have been edited to be shorter, but the ending makes up for all of it an more. KnK 5 is still the best of the 7, but this is a close second.
Verdict: 9/10. Now where are the BD releases? I would buy and import those in a heartbeat.

Rosario + Vampire Capu2: Not sure how they managed it, but the sequel manages to be even worse than the first. Awakened Moka still looks good, but the new regular and semi-regular characters are just plain annoying, and it has even less character and plot progression.
Verdict: 5/10, and that’s being generous.

Seitokai no Ichizon: A student council that does absolutely nothing except play up character stereotypes and make 4th-wall-breaking references to other anime/games/manga, with 95% of it set inside the student council room. It’s kind of fun and enjoyable, but 12 episodes is probably enough, so it’s good it ended there.
Verdict: 6/10.

Games

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: I said that Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time will always be my favorite action-adventure-platformer when I played the first Uncharted. After playing the sequel, I’m no longer quite so sure. Uncharted 2 not only fixes almost all of the little problems that the first game had, it also takes just about everything that Drake’s Fortune did right, and improve upon it. The graphics and animation are probably the best ever seen in a console game, the soundtrack is fantastic, the combat system (both gunplay and melee) are much improved, and the story, characters, and pacing are absolutely stellar. From start to end, the game delivers “holy shit that was awesome” moments like few other, and what few faults it has (the characters’ eyes look slightly weird, final boss fight is not the most inspired, and needs more Sully) never comes close to detracting from the overall experience. Oh, and let’s not forget the multi-player elements. The gameplay mechanics with its focus on verticality translates very well into the MP modes, and the co-op mission modes are a complete blast, even if there’s only 3 of them.
Verdict: 10/10. This is arguably the best game of this generation, and without a doubt the best game I played in 2009.

Dragon Age: Origins: “145.2 hrs on record”. That’s the amount of time Steam shows me as having spent on this game, and I believe that actually excludes time spent playing in offline mode, which would make the actual total well over 150 hours. And that’s the most time I’ve put into a RPG, or, for that matter, any game (that isn’t World of WarCraft) since the PS1 era, encompassing 3 playthroughs of the entire story as well as all the Origin stories. I have somewhat of a love-hate relationship with most fantasy-setting stories, but the “dark fantasy” setting of DA:O worked for me here; yes, it’s supposed to be very similar to the A Song of Ice and Fire series of books, but I haven’t read more than part of the first book (if the series actually had an end in sight, I would!), so it’s fresh to me. And the main characters (companions) also were pretty well done, with Morrigan and Shale (aka HK-47v2) especially great – with her performance as Morrigan here and as Chloe in Uncharted 2, I’ve decided that every game needs a character voiced by Claudia Black. The dropoff in quality for the voice acting for some of the other characters are a bit jarring though – Anora’s is especially bad, and one particular player-character voice was so annoying that I wanted to find a mod to remove it. But overall, it’s a well-written story with some epic battle sequences, and one that I (obviously) enjoyed.
Verdict: 9/10. 8.5 would probably be more accurate, but we’ll round up.

Mass Effect: Finish one BioWare game, start on another. By most indications Mass Effect crafts a very nice setting for the story that will unfold through a trilogy, so I decided to finish the first game in anticipation of the sequel that’s coming out soon. And having finished it… I’m not completely sure what to think, honestly. The game can accurately be described more as a FPS than a RPG, which is unfortunate because it’s not a very good FPS. The game is a precursor to Dragon Age, and it shows. The dialogue system isn’t nearly as good, and the inventory/party management system is just completely terrible. I do think the Paragon/Renegade system is a better idea than the approval rating in DA:O though. The sidequests are also extremely lacking in variety – there’s only so many times you can land on a planet, drive around in a 6-wheel buggy with terrible driving physics, and then go into one of 3 types of buildings to kill every enemy inside before it gets repetitive and boring as hell. But, I’m playing it for the story, and I do tend to be a sucker for these sci-fi space operas, so I enjoyed it and will get Mass Effect 2 when it comes out.
Verdict: 8/10. Would be much lower if it wasn’t for the story and setting, but I have high hopes for the myriad of improvements supposedly in the sequel.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii: It’s a new 2D Mario game on a home console. The stages, the “story”, the secrets… there’s very little that’s new here, especially in the single player mode. Sure, there are a few new power-ups: Ice Flower is a great idea, and Propeller Suit is quite amazingly useful, but it’s still no Super Mario Bros. 3 (Tanooki Suit, Hammer Bros. Suit, Kuribo’s Shoe… will any game ever top it?), wall-jumps are possible (was that in the DS NSMB? I can’t remember), and there are now coins that move with the stage, but this is classic Mario through and through. And, you know, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s amazing platformer fun in a way that seemingly only 2D Mario games can be, and once again reminds why just about nobody else even bothers trying to compete with Nintendo (sorry, LittleBigPlanet, but this is how a platforming game is supposed to control). And lest anyone thinks it being a Wii game means it’s easy… think again. Collecting every Star Coin and every secret exit is definitely no cakewalk. There were many stages where I failed so many times trying to get all the coins that I got angry, but still wanted to try it one more time, because I know that it can be done if only I had timed my jump better. If that isn’t the mark of a great game, I don’t know what is. About the only criticism I can offer is that the Wiimote held sideways is not the most comfortable controller (especially with the “condom”, but even after removing it), and sometimes I do feel like the motion controls are not quite as consistently sensitive as I’d like it to be. But those are nitpicks, and even without having played it multi-player, it’s still a fantastic experience.
Verdict: 9/10. With millions of sales between this and the DS version, Nintendo has to make more 2D Marios, right?