First Impression: Persona 3 Portable

Since I've been wasting close to 2 hours everyday just being a sitting duck in the bus on the way to university and back home, I often spend those time playing PSP (if I'm not tied with any major assignment). Early this month, the english version of Persona 3 Portable (P3P), the enhanced remake of PS2 awesome rpg Persona 3 FES into PSP was released, and since I've just submitted my assignent a few weeks ago, I decided to try this game.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable is an enhanced remake of Persona 3 for the PlayStation Portable. Player would have the option to play as a female character. This selection alters some aspects of the story: the first Persona gained by the Protagonist, Orpheus, will have a different appearance; Igor's assistant in the Velvet Room, Elizabeth, can be replaced with a male equivalent named Theodore. The gender choice also alters some aspects of the Social Link stories. Persona 3 Portable only includes the story of the original Persona 3.

The game's revised battle system draws on elements added in Persona 3's successor, Persona 4. In combat, the player is able to directly control every character, as an alternative to utilizing the game's artificial intelligence. The ability to guard has been added, and allies will take fatal attacks for the Protagonist, preventing his or her death. Outside of Tartarus, instead of navigating the game world by directly controlling the Protagonist, the player guides an on-screen cursor around an area, allowing interaction with characters and objects. The game includes the voice acting of the original game, although characters are not shown in the world, instead being represented by on-screen portraits. Several cameos of characters from Persona 4 have been added to Persona 3 Portable, including Yukiko Amagi, a playable character from Persona 4.

Developers: Atlus
Platform: PlayStation Portable (PSP)
Genre: Tactical RPG
Release date: Nov 2009 (JP); July 2010 (ENG)

After playing for a few hours (at 16/6), I have to say that this Persona 3 remake was AWESOME. As said above, the game now allows you to pick either a male or female main character to begin the game. Picking male will essentially made you play the exact same Persona 3 FES story, while picking female protagonist will gave you some slight alteration in Social Links and dialogues, and gave new perspective to the players, or so the game stated. Since I've previously played Persona 3 on PS2, I decided to play P3P as female protagonist (don't mind being a les...omg).

Nevertheless, for some reason I can barely recall the difference between P3 and P4, and hence I don't really notice major changes in the gameplay of P3P. The gameplay was pretty similar to P3/P4 and players who have played these games will definitely have no problem adapting to P3P gameplay. One major thing I noticed is that we can heal inside Tartarus for MUCH cheaper price than in P4. Additionally, your party never seem to get tired until after you leave Tartarus, although they did complained that they're tired. Hence it's a really good bonus if I want to grind the hell out of the Tartarus for hours without worrying about fatigue. Elemental weakness, "One More", "All-Out-Attack", "Co-op Attack" remained pretty much the same.

Outside battle, we don't actually have sprites to represent your characters. Dialogue/scenes and town navigation follows what you often see in visual novel, where we move a pointer from one spot to another in order to go to a certain place while dialogues only features characters with changing facial expressions. Nice way to simplify things I'd say. Other than that, you can also choose who's going to be Igor's assistant in the Velvet Room - either the same Elizabeth in P3, or the male counterpart, Theodore. Being a female protagonist, I picked Theo and didn't regret my choice because he's really one amusing character, especially when he went to date with my female character around the town :3

Graphic wise, there's not much changes. Apart from visual novel-style cutscenes, the animation scenes were also changed into CG scenes. The same goes for musics/ost. For most of the part, it looks to me that P3P still retained the same bgm from P3, except maybe in a few part of the game. The intro was nice though.

Lastly, the Social Links. Picking a female main character slightly changed some of the Social Links (eg Hermit and Chariot). And like P4, you can even form Lovers relationship with several males.... including Akihiko, Junpei (!), Ken (!), Ryouji and Theo... damn I don't know if I should say "awsm" here. Nevertheless, I feel that Social Link ranking in P3P wasn't as significant as it used to be in P4 (I totally forgot what it did in P4 though), beside creating the final Persona. Anyway, Rio ♥

Overall, I have to say that I am very satisfied with P3p so far. Being ported to PSP doesn't mean the game was downgraded, and P3P certainly isn't, the addition of female character in fact even make things even more interesting. There seems to be a lot more to be offered in term of sidequest, new game plus etc, I am definitely looking forward to the rest of the contents (Yukiko cameo ftw). A DEFINITE MUST PLAY for Persona fans.


p/s - Kenji: "I like you as much as I like Ramen" I LOL'd

I named my female lead character as Mizuhara Haruka. I kinda lol when I found that one of the Social Link NPC also has the exact same last name. Coincidence much :p

The Impression Series: Spring 2010 anime; part 2

Was a bit late to put this post up because of so many reasons. Anyway part 2 of my Summer 2010 anime impression, continued from part 1 in this entry.



Mitsudomoe
MAL/Official Site
Number of episodes: 13
Studio Production: Bridge

Comments: Yabe Satoshi is a newly graduated school teacher and on his first job as middle school teacher, he was appointed to a certain class ruled by Marui triplets: Mitsuba, Futaba and Hitoha. So the story goes as he tries to cope with the triplet's "mischievous" deeds. This show seriously made me ROFL to the stomach, watching how Yabe, all with his funny Yoichii (Bakatesto) voice all over the place trying to deal with each of the triplet's unique personality. The sadistic and mature Mitsuba; the energetic and boobs-obsessed Futaba; and the quiet and mysterious (one way to say it) Hitoha. Hitoha really remind me of Minami Chiaki, bar the pervert part. The jokes really got me laughing almost non-stop while watching the show. So funny, yet so dirty, kinda like a combination of Hanamaru Youchien+Kodomo no Jikan. Simply put, a must watch for total laugh :3

verdict: 4.5 (must watch)




Legend of the Legendary Heroes
MAL/Official Site
Number of episodes: 26
Studio Production: ZEXCS

Comments: aka Densetsu Yuusha no Densetsu. Don't you think the title was a bit...cliche/old school? Anyway the series is about Raina Lute, a bearer of an incredibly powerful spell symbols called Alpha Stigma, together with a renowned swordwoman Ferris Eris, went on the journey in search of "Legendary" relics all over the continents, only to find that something even worse waiting for them. Totally love the fantasy setting. The animation was simple yet clean (but was ruined by the horrible subs though [pun intended]), and the spells animation was really great, they simply remind me to all the great time I had while playing Tales series. The way the plot was presented was also interesting, introducing a bit of the characters before going back to the past to show events leading to what the characters are at present. I am also quite intrigued with the characters, from the lazy ass Lute (the origin of his eyes), Alto's connection with Eris's brother and of course, Eris herself with all those huge sword she swings around (her background was interesting too).
p/s: Jun Fukuyama sure did a lot of series these days.

verdict: 4/5 (must watch)




Highschool of the Dead
MAL/Official Site
Number of episodes: 12
Studio Production: Madhouse Studios

Comments: Arguably the most overhyped (and initially oversubbed) show this season. I used to read a few chapters of the manga long ago before the HDD crash thingy, and I have to say I'm loving the theme of widespread disease turning people into zombie-like creatures, aka a more pandemic Resident Evil/Left 4 Dead apocalyptic pandemic. Ok enough of that. So far as my memory recalls, the plot doesn't deviate much from the original, but I wonder how much can they really fit into a 12-episodes anime. Animation-wise was average at best, while the animation production they still retained the fanservice featuring some ridiculously disproportionated figures for female characters, like those in Dragonaut... (wtf with the oversized and bouncing boobs). The OP was good, but the ED song was definitely my fav :3

verdict: 3.5/5 (watching)




Asobi ni Iku yo
MAL/Official Site
Number of episodes: 13
Studio Production: AIC PLUS+

Comments: Oh god more cats? Okay, not only cats, but aliens. One thing I like about the show is the mix of seriousness and harem fanservices. Girls with guns, secret organizations and actions involved with some crazy characters - a somewhat ignorant cat girls, a military-trained childhood friend and a classmate with superpowers. Too bad with all those unique girls, the main male character Kakazu Kio turned out to be a stereotype, ordinary character, I mean ffs that was uninteresting! Nice animation while nothing really unique about the plot, but at least this show got me sitting for a few more episodes.

Verdict: 3/5 (watching...a bit more)




Amagami
MAL/Official Site
Number of episodes: 26
Studio Production: AIC

Comments: Amagami SS basically tells the story of Tachibana Junichi who meet several interesting girls during his high school life and has a chance to date each of them, in an independent arc. Simply put, the anime version of your typical dating sim game. Might not be the cup of some people, but I definitely love the show because I find love story in each of girl's arc wasn't really typical of the normal school romance you often see in shoujo mangas. Starting with the lively Morishima arc (a kiss to the back of the knee, wth), and most probably ended with (imo) the most interesting arc, Ayatsuji Tsukasa, I am actually looking forward to each episode lol. Great animation and girl-specific ED too.

verdict: 4/5 (must watch)



not making into the list:

• Sekirei Pure Engagement - since I've read a lot of the manga a long time ago, for some reason I really didn't feel any sort of anticipation from the anime.

• Shukufuku no Campanella - wow, ARIA much. Not really caught my interest with all the generic harmony feeling in each episodes.

• Sengoku Basara 2 - more of a case "Sub-fucking WHAR" seriously 450mb+ per episode is killing my quota. Ok recently a more tolerable sub was released, but I don't feel like adding more title to the already expanded list of mine -_-

p/s: It's kinda disappointing that many of the series so far are lacking decent fansubber, while some subbers are simply affected by the new season syndrome and subbing for the lulz.

Valkyria Chronicles - a tale of Valkyrur

Valkyria Chronicle the game was released way back in 2008 and one of the reason that attract me to ps3, but due to the lack of any other interesting title, I decided not to buy a ps3 until early this year. Later in Spring 2009, the game was adapted into the anime of the same title. At first I was planning to play the game first before the anime was aired (Spring 2009), but since I decided not to buy a ps3 at that time, I then proceed with the anime - which eventually I vote to be one of the best series I watched in 2009. Having watched the anime, I have to say I am quite impressed with the overall setting and graphic used, hence making me quite curious about the game. Though, it was not until a few weeks ago that I finally managed to try the game.

Valkyria Chronicles, known in Japan as Battlefield Valkyria: Gallian Chronicles (戦場のヴァルキュリア -Gallian Chronicles-, Senjō no Varukyuria -Gallian Chronicles-), is a tactical role-playing game published by Sega, developed by their Sega WOW division exclusively for the PlayStation 3. It was released in Japan on April 24, 2008. A European version was then released on October 31, 2008, followed by a North American version released on November 4, 2008. The success of the game spawned multiple manga titles, a televised anime series, and most recently the development of a sequel, Valkyria Chronicles 2.

The game is set in Europa, a fictional version of World War II Europe, in 1935. Because of its abundance of Ragnite ore, which can be refined into a powerful fuel, the neutral nation of Gallia comes under attack from the East Europan Imperial Alliance, which is itself engaged in a war with the Atlantic Federation. Players take control of a militia squad of Gallian nationals, dedicated to repelling the invasion. The game's visuals, which utilize SEGA's CANVAS graphics engine, resemble a watercolor painting in motion.

Developers: SEGA WOW
Platform: PlayStation 3
Genre: RPG
Release date: April 2008

Hence, here's my impression toward the game so far:

I am currently at about chapter 7, when Welkin and squad 7 proceed to the desert and investigate the remaining of the Valkyria ruin. Since I've watched the anime, most of the plot so far doesn't surprise me because almost all of the scenes I saw so far were covered in the anime, except a few little journalistic mini-chapters from the Ellie. But yeah, overall I love the plot of Valkyria Chronicle, and its good to see that the anime plot remained faithful to the game.

The gameplay - Valkyria Chronicle employed a mix of tactical strategy with turned based action, what they called BLiTZ (Battle of Live Tactical Zones) system. To simplify, we are the commander of Squad 7 - Welkin Gunther in battle. Battles were divided into player and enemy phase, and during each phase, we are given limited amount of action, which we can use to move our units around the field. Sometimes we can take up to 9 units to the battlefield. Once we pick a unit, the game switched to 'Target Mode" where we specifically control the character's movement and actions, again, limited by AP (Action points). Then the rest is simple, relatively speaking - kill all enemies, capture the base. I could say that the basic of the gameplay was similar to Eternal Sonata or Resonance of Fate, except the strategical department. There are many specialised units to be picked, from the fragile but mobile Scout (Alicia and Welkin are in this category), the heavily armed Shocktrooper (Rosy), tank killer Lancer (Largo), Engineer who can repair the tank (no, not Isara though), and long range Sniper. It's all up to you to decide who to take in each mission, as each class have their pros and cons. Overall, I would say that the gameplay was pretty fun, albeit can be challenging.

demo of how the gameplay looks like. We can also switch the voice into Japanese or English version :3

As for battle difficulty, I personally thought the battle wasn't hard, but to get an A rank is a pain. Most of the time, you really need to prepare what kind of approach you want to take heading into the battle. Taking a sniper for example is risky because at low level they have a high chance of missing a headshot. Some classes also have limited mobility, so if you want to raid huge battlefield, they often lag behind if you bring them in the first place. Hence, it's quite normal to get a B or C rank in most of the story mission, and to get an A rank, you almost certainly need to skip killing many enemies and head straight to the checkpoint.

Initially we only have Welkin, Alicia, Rosie and Largo as the main crews in Squad 7 (Isara participate as Edelweiss driver, just like in the anime), then we have to go to the headquarter to recruit more, up to 20 units in the squad. I personally tried to recruit so that I have the exact same characters as in the anime, unfortunately some of the characters weren't available until middle/late in the game. Yes, I'm talking about you, Edy Nelson :/

Outside of battle, there aren't many things you can do. The plot proceed as a chapters, so its mostly graphical scene of characters with dialogue. Oh talking about the graphic, did I mention that it was amazing? It was very artistic with the way they make it looked like some animated water color paintings. The characters were also nicely designed. The european WWI setting was also appealing and easy to watch, featuring classical war machinery and weapons. Other things outside of battle - visiting the headquarters for training, go to cemetery or upgrade weapons, and skirmish which increase your outcome/experience outside of plot-based battles.

oh, there's also the bit about Valkyriur, but I guess at this point where I'm at in the game, it only matters in the anime :3 Looking forward to how they're actually involved in the battle.

Overall, I thought Valkyria Chronicle is quite a fun game to play with they way the game was presented - neat graphic, good blend of strategy-real time rpg, interesting characters and plot. The whole concept of the game remind me to the old days of playing eroge like Utawarerumono and Tears to Tiara. For now, finishing this game takes priority in my list before I continue with others like Demon's Soul or WKC.

*listening to Kanashimi Rensa~

The Impression Series: Spring 2010 anime; part 1

Time for this kind of post. New season syndrome doesn't affect me much this season, just like previous season, and the season before, and before...Anyway I was thinking of posting my sumemr anime impression last week, but with all the uni assignments going while there's also numerous dota-related things I need to focus, I finally got the time to write this entry. Things I watched, dropped and will probably continue to watch this summer, in reverse order:

Shiki
MAL/Official Site
Number of episodes: 22
Studio Production: Daume

Comments: Earlier in the Summer 2010 list entry I did make a comment stating how I'm kinda anticipating this show, and thus far it didn't disappoint my expectation. The art was mediocre at best (the same applied to the manga too), but I really like the thrilling, Higurashi-style approach. Sotoba village, an isolated settlement surrounded by mountain suddenly faced strange phenomenon when the villagers, especially elders died mysteriously in heat of the summer. Then rise the protagonist, Natsuno who just moved into the village from city, and with things going around, he decided to solve the mysteries behind this strange occurrence. Sounds familiar, huh? Nevertheless, I am in no way expecting this show to give the same impression as Higurashi, I am just expecting good horror/thriller from the series.
p/s: Gackt as seiyuu, lolwhut.

verdict: 4.5/5 (must watch)




Seitokai Yakuindomo
MAL/Official Site
Number of episodes: 13
Studio Production: GoHands

Comments: The title alone just remind me of a very similar show from last year that made me facepalm till the very end, hence I initially doesn't have much expectation toward this one. But thank goodness this show doesn't went downhill, at least not yet. Seitokai Yakuindomo is about...well...everyday's random life at the student council, and there you have similar things you saw in Seitokai no Ichizon, except that there's more things to my liking in Yakuindomo compared to Ichizon. Especially the ecchi jokes, which so far didn't get lame as the episode went on. There's really nothing spectacular about the series, but the jokes are quite funny, or should I say it's the type of joke that I would LOL to. Amakusa the president really made me laugh with all her perverted thoughts :3

p/s: At a glance, the animation really remind me of Princess Lover. Well, given the studio production and Character Designer, I guess it's no surprise.
verdict: 4/5 (definite watch)




Seikimatsu Occult gakuin
MAL/Official Site
Number of episodes: 13
Studio Production: A-1 Pictures Inc.

Comments: Year 1999, a man came from the future (2010) claiming that the world is ruled by the aliens in 2012, and hence he need to go back to the past and search for the key to save future humanity. There exist a girl named Maya (who apparently really, really hate occult), the daughter of the deceased Occult Gakuin's headmaster, and together with this man from the future named Uchida, they combined force to seek for the keys. While at that, the people at the occult school also had their own agenda.... The animation was pretty neat, and some of the bgms early in the episodes are quite memorable. Nice story so far with the blend of some "horrors", magics and occult stuff, and I certainly love some of the humours. Interesting characters employed in Maya, and to some extent, Bunmei. Nostradamus Prophecies, eh.

verdict: 3.5/5 (Watching)




Ookami-san to Shichinin no Nakamatachi
MAL/Official Site
Number of episodes: 13
Studio Production: J.C Staff

Comments: "The series parodies many famous fairy tales, either with puns relating to names or fairy tale themes being used in creative and funny ways." Pretty much summed up the series. The story mainly tells about Otogi Bank, a school club consisting of some odd peoples that helped student to solve their problem by doing various dangerous jobs. I thoughts the plot was average at best, but they way they adopted popular fairy tales ("The Ant and the Grasshopper", "Snow White", "Cinderella" etc) into almost every inches of the story made the series quite unique, coupled with some interesting characters like the the wild, flat-chested main character Ryouko (obviously) and scopophobic Ryoushi. With "Kuroko" as the narrator, you can't get any funnier than that. And coming from J.C. Staff, the animation quality is pretty much guaranteed.

verdict: 3/5 (Watching)




Nurarihyon no Mago
MAL/Official Site
Number of episodes: 24
Studio Production: DEEN

Comments: Rikuo, a boy with 1/4 youkai blood in his vein is destined to be the third heir of Nara, a famous youkai clan. He desperately insist that he want to lead a normal human life, but despite that he can unconsciously transform into his fearsome, true youkai form. This series kinda remind me to Wagaya no Oinari-sama. The mix of seriousness and comedies in a world where human and spirits existed, while the ED sequence featured some dancing, Wagaya-esque style. Er..you know what I mean. Talk about animation, I thought it was typical of DEEN - sometimes they can produce something awsm (read: Hakuouki) and while others can be terrible (read: Giant Killing), but Nurarihyon no Mago, imo is in between of the two. Lots of known seiyuus involved too (Jun Fukuyama sure did a lot this season). Yui Horie as yuki onna can only made things better :3 Nevertheless, I do find myself enjoying the show.

verdict: 3/5 (Watching)


That's it for part 1. Part 2 coming this weekend, perhaps.

Demon Soul - a prologue...very

After finishing my essay assignment last week, I'm thinking to switch to another game instead of the one that I currently played (Valkyria Chronicles). There's several options to choose, but eventually I decided to try Demon Soul, since I've been informed about how great the game is by my housemate, while Rid also asked to play. Hence, I spent a few hours to try the game (game owner is the said housemate of mine).

Developers: From Software, SCE Japan Studio
Platform: PlayStation 3
Genre: RPG
Release date: February 5, 2009

Well one sentence to describe how I feel after playing about 3 hours into the game: "awesome but somehow frustrating". Why?

Demon's Souls (デモンズソウル) is a fantasy action role-playing video game developed primarily by From Software (with assistance from SCE Japan Studio) exclusively for the PlayStation 3. It was released in Japan on February 5, 2009 and published by Sony Computer Entertainment; in North America on October 7, 2009 and published by Atlus and in Europe on June 25, 2010 and published by Namco Bandai.

Set in a dark fantasy medieval Europe-inspired world, players take control of a custom hero who has journeyed to the fictional kingdom of Boletaria, which is being ravaged by an accursed fog that brings forth demons that feast on the souls of mortals. The game has been described as a spiritual successor to the King's Field series,[4] a previous series of games from the same developer. The gameplay involves a character creation system with emphasis on gathering loot through combat with enemies in a non-linear series of varied locations. It also has a unique online multiplayer system integrated into the single-player where players can leave useful messages and warnings for other players' game worlds.

Upon its release in Japan and North America, Demon's Souls was met with a positive response from critics, winning numerous awards. Praised for its dark fantasy art design, variation in combat choice and integrated online multiplayer, the game is particularly notable for its high difficulty level with many critics praising it as a genuine challenge.

I think the above quote from Wikipedia pretty much summed up my impression toward the game so far.

• Really nice graphic. Not the best for a ps3 game, but was appealing enough for me. Remember PS2's Shadow of Colossus? I remember the graphic was awesome during those era, and Demon Soul brought me those memories again.There are some flaws in the graphic, but overall I'm pretty impressed with it.
  

• One thing I like about the game is the realistic environmental interactions. You hit a wood and they broke. You slash a stone wall and you'd pretty much get repelled. Very realistic.

• The combat system was cool, although it took me time to get accustomed with the default key. Your attack combo is limited by your stamina gauge, and in certain place with limited place, you need to be careful with your weapon of choice because you definitely don't want your spear to get stuck in the middle of narrow hallway.
  

• Great customization. I haven't reach that far into the game to comment much about this aspect, but so far I'm pretty satisfied with the customization in the game. In the beginning they give us several class to choose, ranging from your average tanky, nimble and magic classes with several weapons available to wield. Then later in the game, your options widened vastly with much more weapons and skills for you to customized.
  

• Nice online features. OK I admit I haven't reach that stage yet...
  

• Now the rather"bad" thing about the game. It's extremely challenging and sometimes make you frustrated. Seriously. You upgrade your character stats, weapon etc by using "souls" that you amass by killing them demons. But if you die, all your hard earned souls are gone. Well you have one chance to reclaim all the collected souls, but all the enemies you killed were also revived... To make things worse, you can't pause in the middle of the battle so you really need to always be prepared. Challenging, in a way. But the difficulty is not limited to that, of course. Well, good thing there's this "trick" that you can use to avoid unnecessary death.
  

• Demon Soul online community sucks. Or so I heard. At low level/stage, it's easy to find good players to help you out to pass the challenge, but as you go further, you'll find more and more douchebag that love to PK you, depending on your luck. And dying in Demon Soul "is" a big deal.
  

That's all I could comment about the game. I have to say overall the game was quite awesome and fun to play, and there'll even more exciting features to greet me once I reach further stages of the game (sign of other player's death, online chat etc). But for now I want to focus finishing Valkyria Chronicle first before I can continue with this game :3

[dota] Clan Wars & Counterpushing

Can't think of any good title, so bear with it. I was planning to post this on Monday, but school assignment kept me busy from writing this down and since it was requested by a certain Cybergamer people, I decided to take some time to post it.

Anyway here's the thing. Last weekend we had a hard time gathering enough people for a game, because some went home to M'sia, some went for a travel to places like Tasmania, while others simply went missing. So some that remained decided to play public game...but due to some difficulty (well, public game, you know the gist), we decided to go to unofficial garena clan war room for Oceanea region, in MCC room. In an instant, we found people who are looking for 5 for a clan war, and we decided to accept it. In total, we played 3 games, but I'm more interested to comment about the first game, which was probably our first ever unofficial Clan War (against non-Malaysian ofc).

We never really come prepared for this game - we didn't even know that we're going to play -cm mode, and who's going to be the captain for picking. So the unfortunate man, cipantapeer who happened to sit on Green (or whatever the top color is) spot become the captain, and the game proceed.

Warcraft version: 1.24e
more replay info and download: [HERE]

This game is interesting (at least for us) because it was our first clan war against another team, and second, we succesfully draft a counter against sentinel's push strat. Looking at the bans and pick sequence, it was clear what sentinel planning with the likes of Enigma, Pugna being picked, while Earthshaker was banned. We however decided to go with the usual pick before decided to counterpush with our final 2 picks: Undying and Rhasta.

The game went as expected: sentinel went all mid and push, and got their first tower within a few minutes. But the key here is Undying - his Tombstone totally ruin sentinel's push strategy. This gave us a chance to defend against the push, while giving Sven some free farm and levels at top lane. To make it short, sentinel eventually went outlevelled and outfarmed because their attempted push strategy failed. GG calls from the sentinel.

But the next 2 games were total disaster - sentinel went for the usual carry/gank strat and we got totally outplayed, even worse than EHOME stomping every teams in eswc. Simply put, the skill gap and coordination was far too wide between both team, plus we didn't really pick heroes that we're comfortable with. I guess there is no need to post those replay, right...


moral of the story:

• Push strat is easily counterable - providing you ban/pick the right hero. Sentinel's mistake is that they forgot to ban undying, but then if they ban undying, it would be a clear indicator of a push strat.

• In a clan war, pick heroes that you're comfortable with. Don't just pick BM, VS, Lion, PL etc just because they're imba. i.e. don't pick for the sake of picking...

p/s: I remember seeing a player named paulxu back then when Garena was still in beta phase. And if my memory is right, he is also a former member of MCC team that qualified for Farm4Fame and once beat the old Kingsurf.int. Tough luck meeting this team -_-

p/s2: you'll also know you're in trouble when you face a player with YaphetS in his id : (

Tales of Agriculture: 3D

aka Moyashimon Live Action. I totally forgot that the live action of Moyashimon, one of the few series that sparks my interest in anime back then in 2007, is due to be aired this month.

The returning characters. Prof Itsuki, Oikawa, Mutou, Hasegawa, Sawaki, Kei, Misato and Kawahama. "He" doesn't look like trap, looking from afar o_0

Watching episode 1, I was really excited seeing that all main characters are featured in the live action. The microbes are cutely designed, pretty much the same microbes you saw in the anime/manga, but in 3D. Most characters so far are also played nicely by the actors/actress. Sawaki looks better than his anime/manga version; Prof Itsuki stil with his weird interest; Hasegawa with her usual high temper; and the two seniors with their usual madness over wine /sake. The life at an agriculture university is crazy, though it was totally different than what I experience in my working place, which is also in agriculture department of the university) The OP song never show the usual Kei, and looking at the OP scene, I wonder if we will see Kei as the trap right from the start.

Nevertheless, although I rarely watch j-drama, this one definitely is in my list, can't wait for the rest of the characters to show up :3

p/s: I'm not sure if putting this under Anime tag is right -_-

ESWC 2010 Day 3: Asian Pride Prevails

Continuing from Day 2, DotA division of ESWC 2010 continued with the playoff. To summarize the previous day, EHOME had already beaten Nirvana.int while DTS beat MYM in the Winner bracket semi final. Today, the winner bracket final, as well as a loser bracket games were played, followed by the Grand Final to determine who is the best dota team in the world. After "intense" games played, the winner was finally decided:

Tournament Result: Click to view

Final Standings:

1. EHOME (China) - $14000
2. DTS (Russia/Ukraine) $7000
3. MYM (Denmark) $3500

Links:

• ESWC Official site
• ESWC Live update
• Coverage: Gosugamers
• Coverage: Playdota
• Zeyall's live update on Twitter
• stream on Waaaghtv
• livestream shoutcast by Madmordigan/Tobi
• replays on Gosugamers

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: SPOILER ALERT ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Man, what a tournament has it been. The day start off with loser braket game between MYM and Nirvana.int. MYM has previously beat Nirvana convincingly in the Group Stage, and they managed to repeat the same feat in this playoff, and thus effectively ended Nirvana's dream in ESWC 2010. Looking at the pick, I would say it was a total outpick by Nirvana. Lack of disables while relying solely on Drow for hard carry, against the push power of Brood and Necrolyte is a total mistake. Just like their previous encounter in group stage, Nirvana is trying hard to turtle but in the end the pressure from MYM was too much for them to handle. Overall It's not really a spectacular game to watch and pretty much one-sided. I wonder why didn't Puppey do the pick for Nirvana (Fear was the one doing the picks).

The day followed with Winner bracket game between EHOME and DTS. With DTS's abundant LAN experience, many thought DTS would be the team that could end EHOME's winning streak in ESWC. But they thought wrong. DTS never looked like the team that won ASUS a few month back. It was a total rape, one-sided, total outplay by EHOME. DTS's play was really awful that they even failed to kill a low hp CM (at river), and instead getting killed. One-sided, but this game was better for watching than Nirvana-MYM if you want to look for a perfect teamwork. I wonder if DTS was also getting mindfucked in the picking phase, like many other team in the tournament felt when they face EHOME (AEON, Nirvana and LOST had already feel the mindfuck).

With DTS's defeat in the winning bracket final, they went into the loser bracket facing MYM whom earlier beat Nirvana. It was a replay to forget though, as DTS easily send MYM packing home. There's nothing much that I can comment about this game, except lines like "poor sf for getting swapped many times and died needlessly", and "wow, another strength hero with Urn! I gotta try this". The pick was kinda balanced, but MYM was simply outplayed.

With that, DTS proceed to the Grand Final of ESWC 2010, facing EHOME whom they lost miserably a few hours earlier. Coming from loser bracket, DTS had one game disadvantage and hence need to win 2 games against EHOME in order to clinch the Championship. Which normally is virtually IMPOSSIBLE to do. EHOME was unbeaten in the WHOLE tournament (and even ended most games within 30 minutes), so asking DTS to beat them twice is like asking Malaysia football team to win 2014 World Cup. This game actually send me nuts because the stream was not available (WTV site overloaded with visitors) until when the game almost ended. Better than nothing I guess. In the end I still managed to catch up with the live stream, and guess what did I saw? Yet another rape. DTS try to beat EHOME in EHOME's game - the 3-carry strats but failed miserably. Dendi playing SF, what the efffff? Picking Razor was rather innovative, but it clearly was not going to work against EHOME's massive chain stun. Leaving Lion and VS to EHOME is simply like asking for an anal. DTS got Drow and WD, but heck, EHOME got Medusa, the "imba hero that can farm 700-1000 creeps" easily. Coupled with Kunkka, ES, VS and Lion's stun, there's no way for DTS to stand a chance.


Final note: Overall, I would say that ESWC 2010 gives better impression than ESWC 2008. More team participates, the formats was better and the coverage was good. The bad thing is that some games wasn't streamed properly, and even the Grand Final was late because the server overload. I'm also a bit disappointed that some teams failed to live up to their expectations, in particular AEON and Nirvana.my. It looks like after losing against DTS, AEON totally lost focus (mindfucked) int he rest of their games. In the end, only MYM remained as the only top team who never face EHOME, and hence spared from being taken of their virginity by EHOME. On a side note, EHOME's victory proved that Asian (or rather, CHINESE) Dota is one step ahead of the rest of the world. The skill gap was too large. Undefeated, they easily crush all teams they faced without giving a slight chance for come back. They really are a proper dota team. Imagine when you have monthly salary, then having a team manager/coach who are willing to run around and note down other team's bans/picks then discuss them with the team. That's what true scouting was.

Congratulations for EHOME for winning ESWC 2010. I hope DotA will be back in ESWC 2011.



edit: I found one interesting EHOME facts from this ESWC, credit to the people at gosugamers:

EHOME stats in ESWC - Click to View

List of heroes used by EHOME:

• VS x 5
• WD x 4
• DR x 3
• SF x 3
• Rhasta x 2
• Necro
• THD
• Medusa x 4
• Lion x 6
• ES x 2
• Morphling
• BM x 2
• CM x 3
• Sven x 2
• Storm x 2
• Visage
• Kunkka x 2
• Doom

YOU JUST CANT BAN ENOUGH AGAINST EHOME


Kills / Deaths:

• Nirvana.my vs EHOME 5 : 19
• EHOME vs TEG 25 : 17
• Tribal.fr vs EHOME 8 : 28
• AEON vs EHOME 3 : 22
• EHOME vs Nv.GiGa.int 25 : 4
• DTS vs EHOME 11 : 41
• EHOME vs LOST 40 : 11
• EHOME vs DTS 29 : 6
• EHOME vs DTS 29 : 7

EHOME vs WORLD 258 : 72

Too troublesome to do tower count or creep count but the kill ratio alone is gay enough... 3.583:1 GG icefrogbalance

Other stats:

• EH kills: AAA 68，X67，J 44，820 41KILLS，357 38kills
• the 6 game AAA being main Carry, he has 1726 creeps while the opponent has a total of 2393 creeps.

ESWC 2010: Day 2 Summary

Friday July 2nd. ESWC 2010 Paris concluded its second day of the tournament. For Defense of the Ancients (DotA), all 2nd Phase of Group stage matches were played, along with the semi finals of the winner bracket. With 8 strong teams remained from previous day, this promised some of the best games in Group Stage 2nd Phase.

The result of Phase 2 of Group Stage:

MYM/Nirvana.int from group 1, and EHOME/DTS from group 2 advance into the playoff, which consist of Winner and Loser Bracket. The semi finals of the winner bracket has been played, and the remaining games will be continued tomorrow, supposedly the final day of the tournament. The Grand Final will be played at 6pm GMT+1.

Links:

• ESWC Official site
• ESWC Live update
• Coverage: Gosugamers
• Coverage: Playdota
• Zeyall's live update on Twitter
• stream on Waaaghtv
• livestream shoutcast by Madmordigan/Tobi
• replays on Gosugamers

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A lot of games have been played today, and I managed to catch a few games live on Waaghtv, while others via replay. I'm still disappointed that not all games were streamed on Waaaghtv, especially EHOME's two games in the Group 2 against DTS and LOST. Hopefully the replays would be released by the time I woke up next morning :) So as usual, my thoughts about day 2:

• There are a bit of tournament surprise today. AEON which has been touted as the team to win the ESWC (after EHOME), failed to win any of their group matches. Their performance never looked that convincing after losing that surprise game against Bulgaria team yesterday. It was a pretty one sided and hopeless game against EHOME. The same is true for Malaysian team Nirvana.my, which also crashed out of the tournament. But then without Mushi, I never placed that much expectation toward this team. They did beat MYM anyway.

• EHOME continued their winning streak, convincingly. The replays against LOST and DTS haven't been released, but just by watching their game against AEON and Nirvana.int in the semi final, it's no surprise that they remained as the team to beat in this tournament. They totally dominated their opponent and strikes fear into anyone who tried to beat them. Seriously, playing 3 carry strat will not work against EHOME because it's their own playstyle, they've mastered the strat for years.

• I've occasionally see some unusual build. For example, yesterday was the first time we saw a Slardar with Urn as FIRST ITEM (even before boot), and today we saw a Sven with Urn too. Thinking back, it was probably that they needed the extra 6 strength and mana regen more than the charges.
  

Some of the highlights of toda's game (those that I watched only):

1. Nirvana.int vs EHOME, playoff Winner bracket semi final
It was a bit of a boring game, but this game literally made me laugh. Why: I like how Ehome's trilane bot strike fear to Azen's Morph that he doesn't even dare to get close to the creep, basically giving free farm to Lion. Then he and Puppey's Dark Seer decided to neutral together. It was really funny if you ask me, leaving the bottom lane all unoccupied because of the fear of getting killed. Thanks to that, Lion managed to get a 10 min dagger and the rest is history. A daggered Lion, a rolling Storm Spirit, Sven's long range stun; it was basically gg for Nirvana.int after 10 minutes. Final scre 26-4, Medusa creep kill 425, outfarming the ENTIRE scourge team. Not bad, but still quite far away from ZSMJ's 720 cs and LONGDD's 1024 cs : D (ironically both came against EHOME)
Even the strongest of the Western Dota couldn't hold a candle against EHOME, I wonder what would happened if LGD participated in ESWC.


2. MYM vs Nirvana.int, Group 1
Probably today's best game. To be honest I didn't expect MYM to steamroll Nirvana in this game. MYM pick and teamplay was perfect that it didn't give Nirvana.int much chance to turtle and bounced back.

3. Nirvana.int vs OK, Group 1

Watch this for some Beastmaster's tutorial. Epic beastmaster play by Demon, flawless throughout the game. 15 minutes Necrobook, ganging all over the map and killing lone heroes in the forest.

p/s: Korok vs Kuroky lol

Final thoughts on day 2: As there are lesser games being played, the day was shorter than Matchday 1 but the quality of teams and games being played improved (somehow). EHOME still proved that they means business in this ESWC. I am a bit disappointed with AEON and Nirvana.my's performance today, but their exit was kinda expected given that they barely had consistency in this tournament. Even the great iceiceice couldn't save AEON from their doom. Meanwhile, the lack of Waaaghtv stream continued to disappoint me. Zetsubou-shita щ(ﾟДﾟщ)

ESWC 2010: Day 1 Summary

The first day of ESWC 2010 Paris concluded with all games being played in expected time. To briefly describe the format of the tournament;

• 16 teams participated in the tournament, divived into 4 groups (4 teams per group)
• each team will play against each other in the group (ala World Cup). The top two team will advance to the next round and the bottom two eliminated.
  
• The 8 advanced team will be randomly divided into 2 group - meaning this is the 2nd group stage consisting of 2 group, 4 teams each.
• Just like the first group stage, each team will fight against each other and the top two of each group will advance to the playoff (semi-final) while the bottom two will be eliminated.

Matchday 1 (1st July, Thursday) includes all matches of Group Stage Phase 1. The final standing of Phase 1 Group Stage:

Based on the table, AEON and MYM advance from group 1, Nirvana.int and DTS from group 2, Online Kingdom and LOST from group 3 and EHOME/Nirvana.my advance from group 4. These 8 teams were then randomly drawn into 2 groups:


The top two of each group will advance to the semi final.

links and more:

• ESWC Official site
• ESWC Live update
• Coverage: Gosugamers
• Coverage: Playdota
• Zeyall's live update on Twitter
• stream on Waaaghtv
• livestream shoutcast by Madmordigan/Tobi
• replays on Gosugamers
  

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my comments and observation on the tournament so far:

• Holy crap 2nd stage Group 2. EHOME, AEON, DTS and LOST all in the same group. These games will certainly give some of the best entertainment for dota fans. The two tournament favorite EHOME and AEON will try to prove who's the best, while DTS will want to show that with their LAN experience, they can beat the tournament favorites. LOST (former DDT) will also want to prove that they're one of the best European teams.

• Group 1 of stage 2 is also interesting with both Nirvana team meeting each other, added with the old timer MYM, and Online Kingdom which was reinforced by Kuroky. Overall, it's a touch call for both of these groups. I'm predicting Nirvana.int and OK to advance from G1, and EHOME/AEON from G2.

• It seems like the "3 carry strat" is still prevalent. (In) famously used to perfection by LGD.SGTY back then in SMM 2009, this 3 carry+2 supporter strategy has somewhat become a bread and butter strategy for almost every team as one of the most efficient way to win games. DTS did went for 1 main carry strat against Nirvana.int but it clearly did not work, although that game was a hell of an epic game. Nevertheless, kudos to Bulgarian team for effectively pull a push strat to beat Aeon in the group stage. More of these two games down below.

• All seeded teams managed to advance to the 2nd group stage. Really no surprise. I was looking for underdog team to go through, but it never happened and the best thing they could do is beat AEON with a push strat, but overall they still failed to qualify. The "Challenger" seed kinda disappoint us, you could say.

• EHOME simply steamrolled every team, even against Malaysian team Nirvana.my. It took them less than 25 minutes to get Mega Creep against Nv.my and Tribal. Their game against TEG was a bit tougher, but they still ended the game within 40 minutes. Truly the quality of Chinese dota.
  

• The first and only surprise of the tournament so far is Team Bulgaria's victory over Aeon, with an unorthodox push strat. Admittedly, Aeon has already won the group while BG has already been eliminated when the two met, but it was still a great game This is kinda like the repeat of eswc 2008 when Zenith (the current Aeon team) won their group games, then lost their final game against a Brazillian team which saw the potm bought a divine raiper.

• Despite the reliance of 3 carry strat, we still see a variety, and a lot more heroes being used. Enigma, Visage, Undying and Alchemist occasionally being used along with the regulars core heroes like VS, Drow, SF, Lion, Medusa and WD.

• MYM vs Aeon, hyhy vs maelk rivalry ended in the Hyhy's victory : )

Some recommended games from Day 1:

1. DTS vs Nirvana.int, Group 2.

I'm cursing the eswc because wtv stream was unavailable for this game, and have to wait for the replay instead. But what a game it was. Dendi's pugna in mid lane really amazed me. A lot of kills, very tense with good teamfights. At first it looks like Nirvana had the upper hand when they manage to score a few kills and towers, but then Light's sniper started to grow fat and getting beyond godlike, the tide slowly turned into DTS's favor. But the turning point is probably the 2nd roshan fight when all DTS heroes were killed. DTS then tried to bounced back with the third Roshan attempt at 52nd minute (good teamfight outside of scourge's base), unfortunately it was not enough to stop Nirvana.int from claiming victory. A lengthy but good game if you seek great teamwork in team battle.

2. AEONsport vs Team Bulgaria, Group 1

Both team has nothing to lose as one already won the group and the other had already been eliminated. The Bulgarian team went for an unorthodox push strat. What makes their strat interesting is that you can never see push strat coming until that last pick Undying. AEON might see the push coming with by looking at the bans and Chen pick, but they didn't make much effort in picking an antipush hero. Anyway the team fights was a bit messy and cluttered that sometimes you lost track of where's this and that hero, but overall it was a nice execution of push strat. Sven with Vlads and Necrobook tells everything you need to know.


Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome of Playday 1, and definitely looking forward to playday 2, later this afternoon. The only thing I would complain is the lack of proper stream by Waaghtv, because many streams died after the heroes finished their picking phase, or halfway through the game. Hopefully the games will be streamed better in future matches.