Summer 2012 Anime List

TV

• Aruvu Rezuru: Kikai Jikake no Yousei-tachi
• Binbou-gami ga
• Campione!
• Chitose Get You!
• Chouyaku Hyakunin Isshu: Uta Koi
• Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai
• Dog Days’
• Ebiten: Kouritsu Ebisugawa Koukou Tenmon-B
• Hagure Yuusha no Estetica
• Hakuouki: Reimei-roku 
• Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita
• Joshiraku 
• Kingdom
• Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate
• Kokoro Connect 
• Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru! 
• Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon II
• La storia della Arcana Famiglia 
• Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse 
• Moyashimon Returns
• Natsuyuki Rendezvous 
• Oda Nobuna no Yabou
• Pokemon: Best Wishes Season 2
• Rinne no Lagrange Second Season 
• Robin with His 100 Friends Season 2
• Stitch! to Suna no Wakusei
• Sword Art Online 
• Tanken Driland 
• Tantei Opera Milky Holmes: Alternative ONE ~Kobayashi Opera to Gomai no Kaiga~
• Tari Tari 
• Yuru Yuri ♪♪

OVA

• Asa Made Jugyou Chu! (OVA)
• Code Geass: Nunnally in Wonderland (OVA)
• Corpse Party: Missing Footage (OAD)
• Dantalian no Shoka: Ibarahime (OAD)
• Hi no Youjin (OVA)
• Khronos Gear (OVA)
• Kimi no Iru Machi (OAD)
• Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: Finale (OVA)
• Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru: Futari no Elder (OVA)
• Rinne no Lagrange: Kamogawa Days (OVA)
• Sankarea (OAD) 
• Shijou Saikyou no Deshi Kenichi (OAD)
• Tales of Symphonia: Sekai Tougou Hen (OVA)
• Tight-rope (OVA)
• To Heart 2: Dungeon Travelers (OVA)

sources: fansubwiki/moetron

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There's really only one series that truly gets me exited the moment I read the news and then the summer list: MOYASHIMON RETURNS!!! Okay, there are others too, like Yuruyuri 2nd season, Hakuouki Reimeiroku and some other new series, but I'd definitely, positively won't ever miss Moyashimon. I probably wouldn't watch that much series this summer since I'd likely spent more times on dota and games (Atelier Meruru!). Nonetheless, one thing about Persona 4 anime that I didn't quite like is the fact that the ending is...normal. But apparently the upcoming movie will include the True End, and that is gonna be awesome. 

Tales of Grace F: marching toward the Platinum

I had to say that in the past 2 months I was so absorbed with Tales of Grace F that the majority of my free time were spent on this game, and hence giving me little time to play other games, watch anime (though I never missed Kuroko, Amnesia and Hyouka every week so far) or even DotA.  How do I describe it...ToGF is just too addictive that I couldn't help but wanting to finish the game asap, do most of the sidequests I could do, and then move on to the 2nd playthrough and enjoy all the reward I could get from the Grade Shop.

So So after completing the main game, I then spend some time completing the Lineage&Legacy chapter (damn the monsters in this chapter is crazy I couldn't quite keep up with them on Chaos), beat Fodra Queen, then reload back into the main game and complete Zhonecage dungeon. All in the last 2 weeks, but even then I still feel that there's quite a lot left for me to do. Such as....beating most of the end game bosses+Zhonecage on Chaos. Playing a second playthrough with lots of Grade Shop bonus. And most importantly...Platinum.

Currently I've completed 70% of the trophies available in the game. There's still 30% left, but they aren't really easy to obtain, at least not within the next few days/weeks. I need to complete all sidequests (curse you Weapon trait/nature); then beat the final bosses of main arc as well as Queen Fodra under 30 secs (possible on first playthrough, I just need to prepare my character better for the fight); then finish the last floor of Zhonecage and beat the boss, Solomus. That's all there is for my Platinum completion I guess. 

Now that I've finished the game, what kind of impression do I have about the game? Obviously a great one. The gameplay is fast, much faster than Vesperia, Abyss or Symphonia. The A and B-artes features made comboing much more fun, because you can chain a long combo, combining both type of artes as long as you have enough Capacity Chain (CC). The Accel mode available from the Future Arc made battles even more enjoyable, due to the fact that you can control when to activate it (unlike Eleth Burst). 

My character assessment:

• Asbel - I used him almost through the entire Adult Arc, and he's easy to combo, back and forth from A to B-artes. Aurora Lotus, too bad we got it so late in the game (unless you grind and grind and grind to lvl 100 quickly). A cool character but very dense when it come to love. I still prefer someone like Yuri Llowel though.

• Sophie - I used her almost through the entire Future Arc, because I kinda got bored with Asbel. Her A-arte combo was totally awesome. My fav B-arte combo: Gauntlet Blitz into Dualblade Spin. A pigtailed loli.

• Cheria - The main healer. I only use her when I want to revive a character, cuz her A-arte range was rather short, and her stronger B-artes (INDIGNITION!!!) take a long time to cast, unless I combo it with A-artes. The osana najimi type. I love using Rita Mordio's Magical Bee costume on her. If only I could get the DLC Natalia costume....

• Hubert - One of my favorite when it comes to racking up high combo count. He is the master at that. In fact, you can easily get 100+ combo by using him alone, provided that all your combo attacks managed to hit the enemy. His dualblade consist of sword, bow, guns, dualblade, damn it can turn into anything. Favorite Arte: Aerial Barrage (lol easiest skill for killing lots of enemies at once). The otouto. At first I kida dislike him, but over time his battle prowess proved that he is a must in my party.

• Pascal - the hybrid mage, or so I would say. Her weapon is a staff, but sometimes it can change into a pistol in battle. I rarely use her but she's a good crowd controller with her AOE spells. But she definitely needs some tanker in order to be more useful in battle, especially on Chaos. Oh, her Accel Mystic Arte is a LOL. The genius, Rita Mordio type, but without the tsundere trait, while also a crazy chick. Y'okay!

• Malik - I hate his bladerang A-arte. The backswing took quite a while to pull, so sometimes the enemies's attack might reach you before you can even start comboing. His B-arte spells are quite good though. The elderly in the party, he taught a lot of "unnecessary" stuff to Sophie lol.

• Richard - rarely used him since he's only available in Future Arc. More or less like Hubert+Malik combined, I'm not really a fan of spellcasting B-artes. Can't say too much about him, cuz he had major roles in the Adult Arc.

 Got a lot more in my mind to write about, but I guess I'll save it for the next entry.

Warriors Orochi 3 - crossover, and more crossover

Bought last April, I don't really have a plan to buy Warriors Orochi 3 because 1. I don't think I've played its prequel. 2. My gaming schedule is soo preoccupied by FFXIII-2, and then Tales of Grace F. And 3. The game's BD was so bloody expensive compared to other normal PS3 games. But in the end, I ended up buying the game because I thought I need a hack-and-slash game to play whenever I'm not playing Tales of Grace F, plus I've already completely finished with Sengoku Basara 3. So here it is, splashing RM200.00 for a copy of Warriors Orochi 3. 

As I've mentioned above,  I really don't remember whether I've ever played any of the series's previous installment. Most likely, I've never played them since WO1 and WO2 were released while I was still in Australia, and the only PS2 games I remembered ever bought/downloaded during those whole period are P4, Samurai Warriors Empire (or its sequel) and Front Mission 4.

Title:Warriors Orochi 3
Developer: Omega Force/Techmo Koei
Platform: PlayStation 3 (PS3), XBOX 360
Genre: Hack and Slash
Release date: March/April 2012

Despite having bought the game for more than 2 months already, I haven't really had the time to play the game at its fullest because, well, as you may have guessed, Tales of Grace F. Once in awhile, I did stop and play this game. So far, I'm roughly at the beginning of chapter 2, right after Kai and co joined the party. So with the little experience I had with the game, my thoughts on the game so far:

Gameplay

Overall I'd say the gameplay/basic mechanics was pretty much like those in Samurai Warriors/Dynasty Warriors series: normal and strong attacks; jump and aerial attacks, musou and ultimate musou attacks. 3 characters can be selected to battle a stage, and you can freely switch between them in the middle of battle. And all three of them can combile their musou attacks to unleash a devastating finisher that will likely kill any normal bosses. The normal soldiers were far too passive (most of them), though the bosses were pretty strong. The gameplay is definitely much simpler than Sengoku Basara in that the combo wasn't as complex and articulate, and there's probably dozens of characters in Warriors Orochi 3 that shares similar skillsets. Oh, did I say that there's around 150 characters that you can unlock and play in the whole game?

Hero selection

There's way too much characters to choose from in this game. 150 is a lot, currently I've only unlocked like 20-25 of them. The sheer number of character, however kinda made things less interesting for me, because I bet more than half of those characters have similar skillsets that doesn't make them any different than the others (except their musou/charge attack). Some characters did stand above the rest (eg Orochi X, Wukong etc), but I feel that far too many others are underwhelming.

Other features

Tea Party to raise affinity between characters; lots of unlockable stuff in extra menu; lots of stage in story mode; weapon tempering and upgrade; and Musou Battlefield that allow you to create a battlefield, and customize it any way you want and then shares it online. If I had more time with the game (which I believe I don't), I'd probably play around with this feature though.

All in all, I'd way that while Warriors Orochi 3 was a fun game to play and a good pick for me to kill time and play some short stages, the overall enjoyment I had in this game is less than what I had while playing series like Sengoku Basara 3. Maybe because I like the less serious tone adopted in SB3, or maybe because I like the unique characters and elaborate combos in SB3.  I know, these 2 are entirely different series with different approach and slightly different gamepla, but comparison between the two is inevitable. I bet I won't even had the time to try all 150 characters once I unlocked them.