Ga-Rei Sounyuuka & Image Song Shuu

Title: Ga-Rei Sounyuuka & Image Song Shuu - Yuri-mu Croquette Street Release Date: December 25, 2008

Tracklist:

1. Dark Side of the Light (~Shika Image~)
2. Paradise Lose (TV Size)
3. Koko Kara, Kore Kara. (Yomi to Kagura no Deai, Shinrai ni Musubitsuku Katei wo Image)
4. Unusual Days (Taisaku Shitsu no Nakama Tachi to no Tanoshii Jikan wo Image)
5. Reality awake (Tsuchimiya Kagura Image)
6. Eien -TOWA- (Isayama Mei Image)
7. Tamakui (Sesshouseki Image)
8. Distance point (Attouteki na Chikara Category A Kashita Yomi wo Image)
9. Blue Butterfly (Aoi Chou wo Image. Zetsubou Battle. Attouteki na Haiboku.)
10. Chinkon no Tabi he (Yomi no Kokoro wo Image)
11. AI (Tsuchimiya Kagura Melody)
12. if (Isayama Yomi Melody)
13. Reincarnation (Tsuchimiya Kagura Isayama Yomi Image)
14. Yume no Ashioto ga Kikoeru

direct download [here]

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Been a long time since I upload something. This is another Nipponsei release I've really waiting for. I marathon Ga Rei Zero yesterday and am quite joyous to hear my fav band Yousei Teikoku featured in episode 8 insert song when Mei and Yomi had a duel. And yeah, that song (Tamakui) is included in this release, I don't know how to describe my happiness for this XD And many other good songs too.

[PS2] Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

[SMT: Persona 4 on wiki]

6 days. The time I took to play Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 from start to finish, maxing all Social Link, doing virtually all quests and beat the extra bosses for the so-called True Ending. An okay bosses on Normal mode, but never been a threatening one. By the end of the day, the only thing I failed to finish in this game are some of the Quests (the book quiz at the bookstore and the final feed the cat, because I'm just too lazy to go to the riverbank everyday and feed it), some Personas (I finished the game at level 91, so I definitely was unable to fuse Lucifer) and a lil bit of items (which I don't really care). Nevertheless it has been a satisfactory 6 days playing this game, and with the game finally finished, I can finally resume playing some other games I put on hold. Namely, Infinite Undiscovery disc 2 and The Last Remnant.

I'm lazy to summarize the story. So here's wiki.

Persona 4 takes place in the fictional, rural Japanese city of Inaba, which lies among floodplains and has its own high school and shopping areas. The player discovers that a rumored place called "The Midnight Channel" is actually real. On rainy days, a person can look into any television set and observe events in the Midnight Channel. Those that have learned how to use Personas also have the ability to reach into any television set and enter the Midnight Channel directly, though they must be able to fit through the set's screen, and each set will lead to a different location in the Midnight Channel. The weather conditions inside the Midnight Channel are the opposite of what exists in Inaba. A persistent fog exists in the Midnight Channel that can make the characters nauseous if they look at it too long. However, after a long period of rain in Inaba, fog will set in, and will cause the fog in the Midnight Channel to disappear, making the Shadows that reside in it stronger and more dangerous to anyone that is ill-prepared to be there.

So that's it. Our silent heroes who has just transferred into the area suddenly found himself involved with the rumored Midnight Channel, and with the aid of his friends, tries to solve the mystery and seek the truth.

The gameplay of P4 is very similar to P3 so those who have played Persona 3 will definitely have no problem adapting to P4 gameplay. From the battle system, Social Links, Persona fusion, most of the things you find in P3 can be found in P4.

Just like P3, the game provides the freedom for player to choose what they want to do for their daily schedule. Go exploring the dungeon, meet the people to strengthen the relationship, do other things that can raise your trait, part time jobs for the money, S. Link and traits or just fishing for the lulz. While this seems to be good at the first glance, IMO this can also be very restrictive. I mean if a player care less about maxing traits and all Social Links, they are free to do whatever they want when they are not exploring the dungeon. But for those who pursue perfect traits and maxing all Social link, then everything need to be carefully considered beginning from the first day. From answering the questions given in classes and exams, things to do after school and midnight, and picking the right choice when doing the S. Link. Pick the wrong choice and you'll end up extending the time taken to level up the rank.

Social Links/Arcana has been one of the unique feature of Persona games. In P4, the system is improved even more. Previously all S. Links give is extra exp for the fused persona, and at max, enable the player to fuse the strongest persona of that particular arcana. This feature is still retained in P4, with additional feature on party member arcana (Magician, Chariot, Priestess, Emperor, Star and Fortune). Now, higher rank S. link provides some battle advantages to the allies rather than a simple persona fusion exp bonus. The higher the S. Link rank, the better abilities your allies gained. From rescuing the protagonist from mortal blow (which would definitely be a game over), doing a follow up attack, help a Downed allies, to enduring a fatal blow (I like his one a lot). Plus at max level, their persona will evolve (unlike P3 which evolve automatically) where most of them no longer have elemental weakness (except Yukiko, unfortunately). A reason to focus on maxing your allied S. Links first. But not a total priority. Balancing between Social Link and raising traits (Knowledge, Expression, Courage, Understanding and Diligence) is crucial in P4, even more than P3. This is because many of the in-game choices given when doing social links or quests require certain levels of trait.

Another unique feature of P4 is the effect of weather. From the sunny, cloudy and rain, they a have important impact to the game. Okay maybe there's not much difference between sunny and cloudy, but rainy days are definitely something that need to be considered in many things. Certain weather conditions give certain bonuses when doing persona fusion, so its definitely a good idea to pick ideal date when you are fusing the persona (preferably rainy days). Certain type of fish only appeared on certain weather (*coughguardiancough*) A long rain indicate that you need to rescue someone before the rain end, or else its game over. Many S. Link are not available during rainy days. Aiya's best lunch service (because it can raise 3 traits in a go) is also only available on rainy days.

And one more thing, since Dungeon exploration can only be done after school (unlike midnight in P3), this means our whole days cannot be spent on any other activities. After exploring, you would be too tired to do midnight activities (except snacking, if available) and will be forced to go to sleep early. Luckily, chances are you will only go to dungeon only ONCE in one or two months. This is because unlike P3, the character will not going to get fatigue no matter how long you spend the day exploring the dungeon, so you can use the time at its fullest to level up you character as much as you want. SP depletion might be a problem early game, but later once the fox joined into the TV, SP has never been a problem because the fox can fully heal your SP. It's friggin damn expensive at first (60 yen per SP, you calculate), but later once you did his Hermit Arcana quests, the price will drop (drop by 5 yen per rank), making it much cheaper. In fact, much much later in the game when Rise learns hp/sp recovery support, you really don't have the need to use the fox for sp heal anymore.

In short, like P3, visiting dungeon should only be done just once or twice per "case/dungeon", because if you visit too often, you'll lose the previous time you need to do things like S.Link and raising traits.

As for battle system, I think I don't have anything to comment because it's basically very similar to P3. Oh, except that Shuffle Time no longer provide the hp/sp/money bonus as it used to be in P3. Instead once in awhile there would be a 2nd Tarot Card that can provide various effects, depending on your LUCK. Cards that I love the most are Judgment (restore SP), Moon (bonus exp) and Temperance (bonus yen). Of course, it's disaster if I get reversed card especially for Judgement, but this is all about luck. And one more thing, all physical attacks in P4 have the same attribute (strike). No more pierce, slash etc etc regardless of weapons or skills.

One of the best thing about P4 that I love very much is the list of awesome seiyuu used in this game (but the english VA suck, seriously). Yukiko's Ami Koshimizu, Chie's Yui Horie and Rise's Rie Kugimiya. And Naoto's Paku Romi too. zomg how can I resist these. Thanks to rid88 I manage to get the UNDUB English version, I'm just so happy to be able to play the undub, with many of my favorite seiyuus featured XD

*all screenshots are properties of gamefaqs*

[XBOX 360] Tales of Vesperia

[Tales of vesperia on Wikipedia]

I've actually finished playing this game 2 weeks ago, but due to Persona 4 fever, somehow I become a busy man and decided to post this after I finished with P4.
I've finished my first playthrough of Tales of Vesperia, completing virtually all of the sidequests except a few, like the Monster Book, Item Collectors, Dog Maps and some character Titles. particularly Yuri's True Knight Title because I failed to do a SINGLE Secret Mission out of all 23 (DAMN YOU YEAGER). So now I'm playing my 2nd playthrough, in Unknown mode, with all bonuses from the Grade Shop (10x exp, skills, artes, gald, items, everything possible with those 18k+ Grade I earned thanks to Rita Grade farming method). Talk about easy way to go through Unknown mode. Well not exactly. It's only easy at this stage because of the uber equipment and skills I have carried from previous playthrough. The difficulty of the battles will rise exponentially after this, because the monster will keep on growing stronger while my equipment is practically remained unchanged.

Anyway, this is just the extension of my review from my previous quick look of Tales Vesperia [here]. Since Abyss and Vesperia are the only Mother Tales that I've played (damn you Namco, bring Symphonia eng.ver. to PS2/360 plx D:), my thoughts will mostly revolve around these 2 games.

First, lets look at the story of Vesperia. It starts a bit slow yet wonderfully done, cliche to many typical jrpg but still entertaining. But as the game went on to the 2nd, and then 3rd part, the plot quality somehow went downhill, with a lot of plotholes here and there. For this aspect, I have to admit that Abyss handled this matter far better than Vesperia. Character-wise, Vesperia are better (although Jade can singehandedly top all Vesperia Character, but as a whole I love Vesperia characters much much more than Abyss), but the way the plot of Vesperia is developed is poor imo. For example, why Raven was in the prison early in the game? What is this 'Flynn in danger" that Estelle talk about back then in the castle? Who the hell is Zagi and why he hold grudges against Flynn? All of these still lingered in my mind when I finished the game. Although I can somehow figure out the answer to some of them, I do hope the game would give a better explanation regarding these matters. Oh, and Rita's explanation about Blastia always made my head spinning @.@
Also, no villain in Vesperia is close enough to the awesomeness of the Six God generals in Abyss. Barbos? Zagi? Alexei? The final boss might be so, but the rest of the villains are pitiful, with little or no background history of their involvement to the main story. They appeared for a while to heat things up and once they are defeated, that's it, no more of their faces (except Zagi). Phail villains overall.
As for voice actors, Vesperia is definitely one of the best that featured the perfect English VA to match the characters. I especially love Estelle's cute and Rita's strong voice, which really match their personality.

Then to the in-game itself. As many other rpg, and Tales itself, Vesperia offered many sidequests for the players to explore. From the Colliseum battle, extra dungeons and bosses, costumes and many more. Unfortunately, many of these are easily missable unless you are really patient to go to each and every place everytime the story progress. Hence it is advisable to use a quick guide (kouli's quick chart is excellent for this), at least to make sure you do not miss any major sidequests.
On a minor note, unlike Abyss and many other Tales, non-costume titles in Vesperia offered nothing but a mere name. At least that’s how it is as of current, nobody has figure out what exactly Titles did in Vesperia. In Abyss and World for example, Titles give various field bonuses like Overlimit/hp/tp regen etc but this is not the case in Vesperia.

Then to the gameplay. This. Is what make Vesperia the better jrpg out there. And broken as well. As previously mentioned in my quick review, the gameplay featured Real Time Linear Motion which provide the player opportunities to move around the battlefield and kick ass with their attacks/battle skills. Good for people who prefer some button actions rather than sitting idly, choosing every single menu commands used in many conventional turn-based rpg. And the developer did a good job in improving the gameplay since Abyss. While in Abyss we're stuck with the common normal attacks - base - arcane/FoF Change, Vesperia added the value of Combo to the gameplay, although most of these combo (base to altered, altered to arcane and vice versa, double base, arcane and altered etc) are exclusively available for Yuri. The Overlimit Gauge is degenerated to only 1 gauge for the whole party (meaning no individual OL gauge anymore), but it is compensated by the ability to use artes without casting time, as previously mentioned in my review. So yeah, because of this Overlimit, Vesperia has some of the most broken/overpowered rpg characters in history. Rita's unlimited stunlock spells, Yuri's brutal combo, and Estelle's eternal invincibility. 200 man melee Colliseum is nothing for them.

All in all, Vesperia has been one of the best HD jrpg out there for 360, good enough to lure me to buy a 360 (which I would never dreamed off some times ago) just to play this game. The good feature about Tales series is the interactive gameplay and the humor they put throughout the story, making this an enjoyable game to play. So if you love other Tales series, Vesperia definitely is a must. I am once an FF fan before I discover the awesomeness of Tales series, and slowly transitioned myself from FF series (which went downhill especially FFXII) to Tales series.

*all screenshots are properties of gamespot*

Kiss x Sis OVA

[Kiss x Sis @ MAL]

A quick watch I took when I'm almost finished playing Persona 4 a few days ago. Kiss x Sis has been on my watchlist since the day I found out that the OVA was scheduled for Winter series, and finally as scheduled, the OVA has been released a few days ago, followed by the first sub by Anon soon after.

Talk about awesome twincest. That would rage me all over the place, wanting to be in the place of the main male chara, Keita. Due to his father married to a new mother, he end up having sisters (a twin, to add more to the rage meter) that love him so much that they would do whatever it takes to make Keita theirs (passionate morning kisses, panty flash, bath together, making a doll so that they can masturbate to their beloved otouto.. ehm...). Okay, I'm exaggerate...not. The OVA is just as dangerous as the manga, there's no sex, tits and vagoo. Just cockteasers.
I do enjoyed reading the manga (long time ago, before my HDD crash), and the same thing can be said for the anime. At least, the first half of the OVA did so. The 2nd half, which is similar to the early chapter of the manga, did change the mood a bit, although just temporarily. Seeing this as a mere 2 episodes OVA, I can't imagine what direction will the next episode headed to.

Nevertheless I do hope that someday Kiss x Sis will have their own TV series :3

er...tagged

[ tagged by mana again lawl ]

so here goes. random answer is random

01. three things that scares me
- failing my exam D:
- HDD crash
- pitch black darkness

02. three people who makes me laugh
- anon
- nub/troll
- Jason Lee

03. three things i hate
- early morning class in winter
- calculation -_-
- worm (I mean, those annelids)

04. three things i don't understand
- moonspeak
- people
- virus

05. three things i want to do before i die
- marry
- do all sorts of mischievous things :3
- go to mars

06. three things i can do
- study?
- games?
- animu?

07. three ways to describe my personality
- Kousaka (Genshiken)
- Yuri (Tales of Vesperia)
- erm....Ijuin (Team medical Dragon)

08. three things i can't do
- driving (rather, I can't take driving license!!!)
- stay awake for 24 hours straight
- finish a full 2L of Cola in a go

09. three person i wanna tag
- erm...seems like all the eprson that I want to tag in my mind has already been tagged...so I don't know who to tag.

roneriness

For the next 2 months, I'll be all alone at home, looking after the house (as if I'd do that lol). Last Tuesday, my housemate Haikal "the unfortunate 360 victim" took his flight to Malaysia. That make it 4 left at home. Yesterday Fawwaz "the partial freeloader" (jk, hope you don't take it seriously dude :3) also took his flight. And today the remaining 2 of my housemate,s Sirul the "versatile cooker" and Pocek the "footbalmaniac" left for their flight to Perth, then to Malaysia tomorrow...

huhu, such roneryness for the coming weeks. Good thing is, I'll be able to use the internet without worrying much about reaching the download quota. Bad thing is that I need to pay all the bills for the next 2 month with my own money (and then calculated later with my housemates) =.=

Tinker V2

The last time I post about my favorite Dota hero Tinker [here], it was based on the old version (6.48b and below). Time goes by and version changes, and this also brought the wind of change to the way Tinker is played in competitive level. Coming dota version 6.52e where blink dagger action no longer a viable option, the map has emphasized more and more on pushing/anti-pushes, as well as the ever-needed disables in the form of hero skills or items.

In short the basic Tinker build of manta-guinsoo-skadi-radiance-linkens-bot pioneered by virot2 has barely been used in high level play. 2 of the items still remain as the core of the new item build - BoT (Boot of Travel) and Guinsoo. The reason for this is obvious - monstrous mobility across the map and the possibility of perma-hexing the enemy.

With the increasing use of disabling heroes (Earthshaker/Lion/NA etc) and Guinsoo carrier (Queen of Pain/Puck/Pit Lord etc), BKB (Black King Bar) has been a very vital part of the revamped Tinker item build. Some versions ago the use of BKB is not viable because of the bug occurred while activating BKB consecutively (hence need to wait at least 1 second before activating the refreshed BKB), but this bug has been fixed some versions ago. This consequently made BKB a valuable item on tinker to counter all those chain disable. With Rearm, Tinker can stayed virtually perma-BKB-ed as long as he has the mana to support Rearm. In version 6.55, BKB duration has been nerfed after each usage, but even so BKB still remains as his core item because of its purpose - countering disable.

And the fourth core item is Shiva's Guard. This basically replace the core item of virot2 - Manta Style as pushing machine. While Manta Style provide the image to aggro and withstand creep damage, and allow Tinker to push forward without the need of allied creep, Shiva provide a better alterative because a combo of March-Shiva-Rearm-march-Shiva can easily clear a creep wave in an instant. Yes mana is still a problem with this way, but people will usually TP back to fountain after only 1 or 2 wave cleared, and TP back to any pushed line. This is because going too far pushing one lane alone posed higher risk of being ganked, and BKB is not an absolute guarantee to escape from the ganks. Not to mention, the slow from Shiva's Blast is quite helpful in teamfights.

So that's it, the revamped Tinker item build which synergizes with the need of the new map. The remaining 2 item slots are mostly bought based on situation. I've seen people go for Manta, Skadi or Linkens (ie the old virot2 style). It all depends on situation, because in the end, you can only fit 6 items in your inventory. And yes, this build costs a hell lot of gold, so it's not easy to build especially if the enemy went for a quick push and constant ganks. But hey, a good Tinker can easily farmed up to 500+ cs in a proper game, so in the right situation, farming all those items are not that hard. And one more thing, hotkeys for the numpads are very essential for this build.

....................................................................

replays showing the new Tinker build:

game 1: MYM Prime Defendind #11 playoff, Kingsurf vs DiamonZ
Watch how Yamateh singlehandedly march through DmZ players, and still able to survive :D

game 2: MGC 2008 semi final, Fnatic vs Cant
Fnatic manage to prolong the game long enough for Lakuci's Tinker to farm all his item, and push Cant on all side and carry them to victory.

game 3: F4F5 round 2: TPL vs Wicked
Wicked dominate the game for most of the part with excellent Kunkka play by U_nited. However Chu manage to turn the game around in favor of TPL. A Very long game.

ps: note that registeration is not required to download all those replays. Just click cancel.

Quick Glance: Tales of Vesperia & Infinite Undiscovery

So it's been about 2 week since I bought my xbox360. And all these time I only have 4 games to play around: Ace Combat 6/Beautiful Katamari which came preloaded with the 360 package, and Tales of Vesperia/Infinite Undiscovery, the games that made me want to buy 360. And in fact I even bought these games way before I bought my 360 :3

rambling aside, I thoroughly enjoyed my two weeks playing these 2 games, especially Tales of Vesperia. And within 1 or 2 days, I expect 2 more games which I've already ordered via PlayAsia to arrive at my home, namely Fifa09 and The Last Remnant.

Quick look: Tales of Vesperia

AWESOMENESS. That's the first thing that came out on my mind if I would describe ToV. I'm currently halfway through part 3 after the rise of the "tower", so I can say that I'm almost done with this game.

[Tales of vesperia on Wikipedia]

Story: The usual save-the-world theme in many other rpg. Just like Abyss, the plot manipulate various terms and elements to enhance the story. While we've seen Hyperresonance, Miasma, fonon, fonstone, Score etc in Abyss, in Vesperia we're introduced with terms like Blastia, Entelexeia, Aer and many terms that made up the backbone of the story. As for character, for sure I'd pick Vesperia characters any day than Abyss. With Estelle's cuteness, Rita's tsundereness and Judith's mature-ness, these trio beat even the best combo of Abyss girls :3 Oh not to mention, whenever you look at the main hero, Yuri and his childhood friend Flynn, you can't help but thinking that they are really similar to Lelouch and Suzaku (Code Geass). You got the point.

Gameplay: One of the better Tales gameplay. Sure I'd missed Field of Fonons in Abyss, but Vesperia gameplay make it up with even more fascinating features. The skill point will eventually enable you to chain combo your Artes from Base, Altered and Arcane interchangeably, creating various powerful combos (especially Yuri, the king of combo in Vesperia). Another new feature is the introduction of Fatal Strike (FS), which grants player extra bonus depending on the type of FS that appear. Think of this more or less like the Break Mode in Valkyrie Profile Silmeria, except that you didn't actually break the enemy parts, but rather you hit them with specific elements to trigger the FS. And the Overlimit in Vesperia is broken/overpowered. While it does no longer provide immunity to staggering as in other Tales, it enables you to chain Artes continuously with virtually zero casting time/delay. And what does this means? Imagine Rita (she's a Jade+Anise type mage) chain-combo AoE spells (Tidal Wave, Meteor Storm etc). This is why Rita is called the most broken character in Vesperia :D

Nevertheless, I expect to finish this game by the end of this weekend, or probably by next mid-week. I'm currently kinda addicted with material and Grade-grinding, coliseum battle, as well as the Nam Cobanda minigames (Poker lulz). And I'll probably replay this game later, just like Abyss :3

Quick look: Infinite Undiscovery

I only payed this game for like 2 or 3 days, then stopped temporarily because I want to concentrate on finishing Vesperia.

[Infinite Undiscovery in Wikipedia]

As a product of Tri-Ace, I definitely would want to get my hand on this game, regardless of their quality. Playing this game for the first few hours, I'm quite satisfied with the gameplay. The gameplay is similar to the free-field battle introduced in FFXII, but without those bullshit red and blue lines of course. I believe I have yet to explore many features of this game, so my brief review will just based on what I've explored so far. By the time I put this game on hold, I've completed the quest in Castle Prevant - that is right after Sigmund, Eugene etc joined the party and headed to Nolaan. In battle we can only control the main character afaic, that is Capell. The basis of battle is similar to Star Ocean, where player can attack with A (weak) and B (strong). Comboing A and B produces different end-combo tech - (think of this like the combo in Samurai Warrior). And of course the learned battle skill can be assigned to A and B button, like in Star Ocean. Other additional features is the introduction of "Connect", where player can interact with the assigned character in the party to do various jobs for them. In battle, they can shoot the enemies from afar (Aya ftw), or use specific magic. Connect can also be used in town, where Capell can link with any available character and speaks with the people in place of Capell.

Anyway, it might be another week before I'll resume playing this game. I think I need a HD monitor to play this game at its fullest, because playing using my current sdtv really hurts my eyes, particularly due to the game's rather small font. And the graphic would even be more awesome should I play this on HD.