SenBasa 3: Final Heroes Evaluation [Part 1]

Previously I’ve posted about my early evaluation on some of the heroes in Sengoku Basara 3, based on what I experienced when I complete their story mode. At that time however I didn’t really experimented much with their skillsets, especially since most of them didn’t reach past level 40+ by the time I finished their story and therefore has yet to unlock their 2nd or 3rd Special skills. Recently I’ve managed to platinum the game, and obviously taking my time with each heroes, trying various combos and skills against the meanest of bosses (hello Honda and Muneshige), and for that reason I decided to revise my previous hero evaluation, as well as placing them on appropriate Tiers based on a few factors:

1) how I enjoy using these heroes. Some heroes have great skillsets that are easy to chain (Yukimura, Mitsunari, Masamune etc), some have skills that synergised well with each others (Motonari), and some have the “it” factor skills (Kuroda, Yoshihiro). I personally like fast heroes with fast combos. Yukimura, Ieyasu and Date are fast chainers, but I definitely enjoyed Mitsunari and Kotaro much more. And Date has the added bonus of SUPER fast when he used his joke weapons.

2) how comfortable I am with these heroes on Hard mode. Any heroes can be used without much problem on Normal, but IMO the real measure of how good you can use a character is how well you can survive Hard mode with these heroes. As you played through the game, you might find some heroes looked seemingly strong or easy to use , but then on Hard, suddenly you find it difficult to clear the mobs or bosses, or just die too easily (eg Honda, Tsuruhime). So, if I had to pick a few heroes to simply breeze through Hard mode without putting much effort, I would pick the likes of Saica and Oichi.


God Tier (Rank S)
- Saica Magoichi

Awesome Tier (Rank A)
- Mitsunari Ishida
- Kotaro Fuma
- Oichi

Good Tier (Rank B)
- Masamune Date
- Tokugawa Ieyasu
- Yukimura Sanada
- Nobunaga Oda
- Keiji Maeda

Situational Tier (Rank C)
- Tsuruhime
- Kanbe Kuroda
- Yoshihiro Shimazu
- Tadakatsu Honda
- Motonari Mori

Boring Tier (Rank D)
- Motochika Chosokabe
- Yoshitsugu Otani

Extra: Invincible Tier
- Kanetsugu Naoe

Do note that these ranks are merely based on my own personal experience of using these characters, especially while playing on Hard to get their respective 5th Tier joke weapons. Hence some people might put Kanbe or Nobunaga on higher Tier, or Tsuruhime on their shit tier, depending on their preference.


to be continued.

The Platinum Series: [9] Sengoku Basara 3

Following Final Fantasy FFXIII platinum last month, I was left with not so much ps3 games to play – Vanquish, which I doubt I ever platinum (though I recently got back to it), Star Ocean 4 (same case with Vanquish), the unplayable Tales of Vesperia (Jpn), Front Mission Evolve (bored me to death, not going to bother playing), and FIFA11 which I've always played (aside from dota) whenever I was bored. Other games, I’ve already platinumed or lent to friends. So the only game that I could play to spend my every other night time is, Sengoku Basara 3: Samurai Heroes.

When I first bought the game, just like FFXIII, the thought of platinuming the game never really crossed my mind, because the seemingly large amount of work and hours needed. But I still resumed my play anyway because the gameplay was fun. And fast forward after nearly ~180 hours of playing, I finally achieved the long awaited platinum for Sengoku Basara 3. And honestly, I feel Sengoku Basara 3 is worth the odd 200 hours spent, at least if you're fan of Dynasty Warrior/Sengoku Basara-like action game.

Title: Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes (Sengoku Basara 3)
Developers: Capcom
Platform: PlayStation 3 (PS3), Wii
Genre: action-adventure hack-and-slash
Release date: July 2010 (JP); October 2010 (ENG)


Platinum Difficulty: 5 – 8 (varied)

For the first time, I couldn't really give a specific rating platinum difficulty rating for this game. On one hand, the game didn’t really require you to be a skilled combo/timing freak (cough*vanquish*cough) to survive even the hardest mode, therefore skill-wise, I’d put it on about 4 or 5. On the other hand, the some of the collection/grinding trophies can be quite time consuming, ie the bulk of the 200 hours of your play will come from trying to get these trophies, so in a sense, it’s a 7 or 8, farming-wise. But if I had to stamp a single rating (to platinum) for this game, I would give it a 6.5. Not really hard, and even the long hours needed to platinum the game doesn’t really feel THAT long. And I’ll explain that later.

Some of the easier trophies require you to simply complete each heroes (16 total) story once. Then, a trophy will also be granted for completing the game on Easy, Normal and Hard mode. Then there’s miscellaneous battle-related trophy which are easy enough to obtain, like finishing the battle on horseback, finishing the battle with a basara attack, performing 500, 2000 and 10,000 combo hits.

guess what theme did I use for my dashboard ;p

Then comes the “harder” trophy in the game (collect all ally; collect all weapons; collect all accessories; all heroes level 100; get 1,000,000 zennys etc) that require you to spend 100+ hours of playing. And it doesn’t really feel that long because of a few things. First, these trophies can be achieved altogether as you played through the game, without the need to focus of aiming for a single trophy. For example, we need to play each hero story at least 4 times to get their personal accessories, and there’s also guides that allowed us to get all allies on a maximum 4 playthrough for each heroes (except Ieyasu), so these two trophies tied neatly altogether. And since we need to play the story mode at least 4 times, we can take one playthrough on hard mode to farm their required 5th tier joke weapon (which is only available on Hard), and along with some fugitive huntings (which grant huge amount of experience), you’re pretty much guaranteed reaching level 100 even before you finished your 4th playthrough (my Mitsunari reach level 100 in 2 playthroughs, though I did play Sekigahara Intrusion on Hard with him twice, going from level 60 to 100).

Second reason that these “collection” trophies didn’t feel that long is because throughout these, you are playing 16 different heroes with unique skillset, across over possibly 30 different stages. None of the 16 heroes in SB3 are identical to each other when it comes to combat ability, and once you played a new hero, you have the chance to experiment and use a totally different skillset and combo than the hero you previously used. Granted, there are some heroes that you might not like for one reason or another (I know many people who hate Tsuruhime and Kanbe Kuroda), but hey, suck it up. I personally do not like using Yoshitsugu and Motochika, but I still managed to finish their story mode at least once on Hard.

The thing I like about the heroes in Sengoku Basara 3 is that almost every single one of them has a shining point that made them “special” or interesting to use. For Tokugawa Ieyasu, it’s his charging fist and super strong Headbutt. For Mitsunari Ishida (one of my favourite), it’s his Flash/teleport skill that made him so fun to use. For Yukimura Sanada, it’s…well, endless, easy chaining combos. For Masamune Date, it’s the Six Claws and dash cancels. For Tsuruhime, it’s the untouchable Rain of Arrow+Nayuta Issen (even Honda and Muneshige can’t come close to you). For Kotaro Fuma (also one of my favourite), it’s disperse, shuriken, counter, counter and counter. For Kanbe Kuroda (at fist I totally hate him, but then I like him), it’s the boss annihilator Criminal Smasher with my favorite 10 German Suplexes. For Motonari Mori it’s the manipulation of Decoy+Archer+Trap that made every boss looked like a fool. For Yoshihiro Shimazu, it’s OHKO Lightning Sword. For Saika Magoichi (my choice if I want to go through hard mode unscathed), hell, everything about her screams broken, imbalanced and overpowered, especially her personal accessories that made her pistol bullet changed into homing missiles (!). For Keiji Maeda, it’s his broken R1 dash attack, cancellable skill and super art that allowed him to recover health easily. For Oichi, it’s her crazy crowd control with Ocean Wisp+Demon Hands-free. For Nobunaga Oda, it’s his shotgun+demon dual mode and the unkillable Scorched Earth. Unfortunately I’m not so much of a fan of Motochika Aniki (his net fishing is only useful for taunting at most), as well as Yoshitsugu Otani (great crowd control but lack 1v1 boss battle capability). As for Tadakatsu Gundam, he absolutely wreak havoc in normal (especially with his L1+Triangle, the first hero I got 99,999 combo hits with), but I find him boring to use on Hard.

And the third reason, which probably isn’t really as important as the first two, is that each heroes has multiple story route, and within the same route, there are multiple branches of stages that you can choose to advance the story. Overall, it’s hard to get bored with the game as you try to platinum it, and even better if you had fun with the gameplay. Unlike, the overused example – Star Ocean 4 where you spend 80-100 odd hours just killing enemies over and over again to get that ridiculous 30,000 kill BT for Edge and Arumat. Now THAT is a boring trophy, despite how enjoyable the gameplay is.

*image source: gamespots

The Platinum series: [8] Final Fantasy XIII

Finally another platinum. When I first bought Final Fantasy XIII (it was the first game I bought for my ps3, along with Star Ocean 4 and Vesperia jpn version), I just planned to play and finish the game without any thought of platinuming it. After I started playing, the platinum thought still had not crossed my mind, and then even after I finished playing the game last year, it still had not. It was mainly because when I read through the trophy list, I thought some of the trophy was quite troublesome and a pain to obtain due to the grinding needed (which at that time looked ridiculous to me). But hey, I’ve platinumed/1000G The Last Remnant and NieR, so who am I to say about “some” grindings?

The festive break finally gave me the chance to return to my ps3, and I simply had to use that opportunity to platinum FFXIII. Last time I left the game, there’s about 6 trophies I had not obtained: 3 Mark 64-related Trophies; beating Long Gui Trophy, 5-starred final boss Trophy; and the “most” tedious one, collecting all weapon and accessories Trophy.

The first problem I had, as I highlighted in my FFXIII post-game entry, was money. So I spent about a day going back all the way to Eden plaza and farm the adamantoise there for Platinum Ingots/money. In the end I still stick with Vanille’s Death method the whole time, because although it is not that efficient compared to manual killing, it allowed me to multitask, I mean I can just mash the death command (after summon/buff/debuff etc) while watching something on my laptop : ) Surprisingly though, the adamantoise there didn’t take long to go down from Vanille’s Death (average 10 mins to down one, which include the time I deeded to regain TP by fighting the nearby soldiers), and even more surprisingly, they dropped Platinum Ingot much more often than I thought. Heck I even got 7 (yes, SEVEN!) super rare Trapezohedron drops on that run. I guess luck was really on my side on that day.

With lots of Platinum Ingots, it became much easier to upgrade weapons and accessories to complete the list for Treasure Hunter trophy. But even then, there was still one material that I lack to complete my inventory list….the Dark Matter. 5 items required this catalyst for upgrade, but Dark Matter cost a whopping 800,000 gil from shops, and alternatively, it was a rare drop from Shaolong Gui…a monster that I’ve never beat before. The first time I face him, my party was annihilated by his Ultima…until I watched the video on youtube on how to beat him. Damn was it easy. Most video showed Shaolong Guis getting taken down within 1-2 minutes, and while I followed almost exactly the same paradigm deck as the video used, I used a “safer” approach in battle, which in the end took me about 2-3 minutes to take one Shaolong Gui down compared to 1+ mins in the video. Not much of a problem, since I only needed a minimum of 5 Dark Matters, and in the end I got about 10 of them, enough even to create create Kaiser Knuckles and Magistral Crests.

The last trophy that I feel I need to put on here is Adamant Will, that is, beating Long Gui. To be honest I really don’t feel like putting my effort on beating this guy, because I think he didn’t deserve the effort (by the time you face him, you’ve pretty much maxed your crystal and most of your inventory). So I used a bit of “cheating” to beat him: - max upgrade all 3 Doctor’s Code and disassembled them to get 3 Elixers (restore all HP/TP). Go fight a Long Gui. Buff etc, summon to disable Long Gui’s leg, switch to Tri-Disaster and pummel away the downed Long Gui until he is staggered. Switch to Devastation (2 Com + 1 Sab), then continue attacking him. When he’s back on his feet, use elixir to restore TP, buff, and summon again. Then rinse and repeat. Long Gui down in 3 summons sequence, job done and the trophy popped up. Then I reload the save before I disassembled the Doctor’s Code : )

Overall how do I rate FFXIII Platinum difficulty compared to others that I’ve platinumed/1000G? I guess I’ll put FFXIII between The Last Remnant (harder than FFXIII) and NieR (easier than FFXIII). In Last Remnant, I still remembered the pain I had to endure to get a proper party and max their skills, then grind the rarest item for 6 hours without getting anything, and much more tedious stuff. FFXIII in my mind didn’t reach to that level for me. NieR could have reach the level of TLR, but as I mentioned, I was pretty lucky with the moonflower and rate item stuff that it felt to me that the game was somewhat easier to platinum than FFXIII. Nevertheless, none of these could reach the level of SO4’s grinding…ever.

Next platinum project (hopefully): Sengoku Basara 3

Fall 2011 Anime List

TV Series

• Bakuman. 2
• Battle Spirits Heroes
• Ben-To
• Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai
• C³
• Chibi Devi!
• Chihayafuru
• Cross Fight B-Daman
• Digimon Xros Wars – Toki wo Kakeru Shounen Hunter-tachi
• Fate/Zero
• Fujilog Second Season
• Guilty Crown
• Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere (Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon)
• Hunter X Hunter 2011
• Kimi to Boku.
• Last Exile: Fam, the Silver Wing ~Ginyoku no Fam~
• Lupin III 2011
• Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai!!
• Maken-Ki!
• Mashiro-Iro Symphony
• Mirai Nikki
• Mobile Suit Gundam AGE
• Persona 4 the Animation
• Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle
• Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi 2
• Shakugan no Shana III Final
• Shinryaku!? Ika Musume
• Tamayura ~Hitotose~
• Un-Go
• Working’!!
• Zero no Tsukaima Kessakusen

OVA/OAD/Specials

• Ah! My Goddess
• Astarotte no Omocha! EX
• Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu: Sore ga Bokura no Nichijou
• Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai
• Deadman Wonderland
• Eiyuu Densetsu: Sora no Kiseki The Animation
• Hidamari Sketch x SP (Special)
• Ikoku Meiro no Croisée: Yune & Alice (Special)
• IS: Infinite Stratos Encore: Koi ni Kogareru Sextet
• Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai: Yonin to Idol
• Kimi ni Todoke
• Kiss Dum: Engage Planet
• Manyuu Hikenchou (Special)
• Queen’s Blade
• Rio: Rainbow Gate (Special)
• Scryed Alteration
• Seitokai Yakuindomo
• Sekaiichi Hatsukoi
• Usagi Drop (Special)
• Yozakura Quartet: Hoshizno Umi

sources: chartfag/fansubwiki

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When the Fall list was announced some months ago, I was kinda surprised that the list was not as big as I expected it to be (this is Fall season after all), and to date, not much changes occurred to the list. Nevertheless, the upcoming season is still filled with some of the well known sequels/titles, and definitely some which I do not want to miss, such as Shana 3 (please make it truly a final), Bakuman 2, Ika Musume 2, Working 2 (heck the pre-air is out already), Last Exile, Mirai Nikki and Fate Zero.

But one series that I truly crave is... *drum roll* Persona 4. Being a fan of the game (the undub version is just awesome. Ami Koshimizu+Yui Horie+Rie Kugimiya combo is not something I can resist), I have my expectation toward the anime, moreso after watching the trailer. I just hope it won't disappoint me the way Persona:Trinity Soul did. There's also a lot of new/familiar titles in the list, but I will reserve my judgement until I watch them.

Dota 2 and The Internationals

Dota 2 has been the talk of the vast majority of dota community for months, and the anticipation to see the suitor of the current warcraft 3 custom map DotA finally reached its peak last week when Valve held their own tournament at Gamescom 2011, Cologne, Germany, dubbed "The Internationals" where Dota2 made its debut to the public. The tournament which grants a massive 1 million dollar to the winner, featured 16 well known international Dota1 teams to battle over 5 days (August 17th -21st).

The tournament, which used group stage format before proceeding to playoff in double elimination format, concluded last Sunday which saw Ukrainian powerhouse and one of the tournament's favorite, Navi clinched the top spot, beating the unexpected Chinese team EHOME in the best-of-5 grand final.

Tournament info:

• Dota2: The Internationals (participated teams, bracket, VODs etc)
• Gosugamers: Photo
• Gosugamers: post-tournament picks/bans statistic

Final standings:

1. NaVi ($1,000,000)
2. EHOME ($250,000)
3. Scythe.sg ($150,000)
4. MYM ($80,000)
5. Moscow5 ($35,000)
6. iG ($35,000)
7. OK.Nirvana.int ($25,000)
8. MiTH-Trust ($25,000)

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I was very unfortunate not being able to fully follow the tournament due to work, though I still managed to get the update every now and then, as well as watching Video on Demands (VODs) of a few interesting games. To be honest it was not the tournament that I was looking forward to. But rather, like many others, it was the very dota2 itself. After months and months of waiting, we finally got to see what Dota2 looked like, what the heroes, items, icons looked like.

My impression toward Dota2 after watching The Internationals is rather mixed. The overall graphic is actually nice, because of the cel-shading touch to the 3d environment which made it easy to my eyes. The way the map layout (Neutral creep position, juke spots etc) looked almost exactly like in Dota1 made it even better. But there are also many things about the graphic/design that I do not like. The UI (User Interface) is way too bland and boring, with some space wasted between the hero avatar and the minimap/inventory (like HoN). The dots on minimap is kinda too small and hard to see, and that's a problem to a person like me. I also wish the color scheme of sentinel (now the radiant) and scourge (now the dire) is modified because at the moment I have difficulty differentiating sentinel and scourge's creeps -_-

A typical Dota2 screen: main game (left) and picking phase (right)

Some of the hero models were nice (Doom and Nightstalker got my award for best models), but some others were terrible. Storm Spirit is too small, and I REALLY want a Panda model : ( Earthshaker now looked like a chimpanzee running around with a totem. Mirana's "dog" is awfully designed, while Antimage need his head changed, or at least made him blindfolded. It's definitely going to take time to get accustomed to these new model, and over time we might forgot the fact that Rhasta and Dazzle were trolls. The courier model kinda looked retarded, but I somehow like it : ) There are also various effects/icons (eg Radiance aura, ES ulti, Nevermore's Raze etc) that I think need to be changed, and I definitely hope the full (?) version of Dota2 which is likely to be released next year to be slightly different than what we saw at Gamescom. The image of all currently available heroes and items can be viewed at this website. You can also comment about their models, and who knows, someday the critics might reach to Valve so that they changed/modify the models that the community think didn't suit the hero.

graph for difference in gold earned

As for in-game feature, there's some adjustments, but one thing I like is the stats/graph that show the difference in gold earned by both team, which give a mild indication of which team had the advantage at that point of time.

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The Internationals

As I previously said, I didn't pay much attention to the significance of winning or losing the tournament, because the game itself is still in beta phase with over half of Dota1 heroes unavailable, which means some of the current metagame featuring the mainstream picks (eg Omniknights, Broodmother, Invoker and Batrider) can't be used at its fullest. But that being said, I still enjoyed the tournament, because the tournament still produced some interesting games. And the fact that everyone's favorite shoutcaster TobiwanKenobi was there to shoutcast for Dota2 made VoD viewing much more fun. Gosugamers user vertigo compiled the VoD links to some of the best moments/matches of the tournament in this thread, so check it out.

One game that particularly amazed me is NaVi vs EHOME final game 2, which many others also voted as the best game of the tournament. This game has everything Dota2 can offer (it also has Pudge getting picked!), and it was evenly matched, going back and forth with both teams exchanging kills in each team clashes, and it's hard to tell which team is going to win until the last moment. NaVi always has 2 or 3 kills advantage throughout the game, but EHOME had significant gold and roshan advantage midway through the game. The game also had some of the best moments in the tournament, coming from Puppey's Chen - amazing micro to use dominated screep to block the enemies and save himself from being killed, then on many occasions later, he saved his allies by teleporting them back to base with Test of Faith. Totally amazing stuff pulled by Puppey.

Now that The Internationals is over, we're back to Dota1, and I can't wait for ESWC, WDC and our own's SMM : )

Valkyrie Profile: revisited

After finishing P3P some months ago, I decided to play an old game that really grew fond on me – Valkyrie Profile Lenneth. Technically it is my second playthrough, because I’ve played and finished the PS1 version before.

A bit of history about Valkyrie Profile and me: I was introduced to Valkyrie Profile series back then when the 2nd installment, Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria was released for PS2 (around 2006 I think), and it instantly became one my lifelong favourite jrpg due to its unique gameplay, beautiful graphic and (loose) usage of Norse mythology. Then I tried to look for the prequel game Valkyrie Profile 1, released for PS1. But the game was extremely scarce at that time (because of many reasons, such as the being released at the end of PS1 era/beginning of PS2 era), and it was not until quite some time after I finished VP2 (around end 2006) that I was fortunate enough to find a copy of VP1. Needless to say, I completed the game, getting all three endings as well as getting a bit of journeying into Tri-Ace’s typical secret dungeon, Seraphic Gate. But I still had unfinished business with the game (especially regarding Seraphic Gate), so after quite some years, I’m back to VP1, this time into the ported version on PSP, Valkyrie Profile Lenneth.

During the stone age of this blog, I’ve written some lousy, half-ass reviews (here and here) of the Valkyrie Profile franchise, but never write something exclusively for VP1. Now that I’ve finished the PSP’s VP:Lenneth, I decided to give a more elaborate thought on the game (not to the extend of a full review though), and the many thing that brings the memories of VP1 and VP2 from the old days...

Title: Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth
Developer: Tri-Ace
Platform: Playstation Portable (PSP)
Genre: jrpg
Release date: July 2006


Story

As mentioned, the basic story of VP1 revolves loosely around the Norse-Scandinavian myth. Lenneth, a reincarnation of an unfortunate girl named Platina, was awakened in Asgard by Odin to do her duty as the second Valkyrie - descend to human world Midgard and recruit potential Einherjar, then send them back to Asgard to prepare for Ragnarok - the end of the world, and the war against the Vanir. That's pretty much the base of the story, but the plot can expand into a very personal issue between Lenneth, Loki, and her past memories as human; and this part of story can only be achieved if you do specific things during the course of the game and aim for the Ending A. Anyway despite being the first of the Valkyrie Profile series, the story of VP1 actually occurred some few thousand years after the events in VP2: Silmeria.

This brings us to the endings. The game has three endings: Ending A (good), B (normal) and C (bad). (spoiler alert) Obviously Ending A is the best and something that made the game has its “story”, but it require a bit of planning in order to be achieved. Though I personally never liked this ending, because I don't like that "man". Ending B was a bit dull if you ask me, because it’s all about Valkyrie and her duty as Valkyrie: go to Midgard, recruit Einherjar, send someone before the end of chapter, and at the end of the game, fight the battle of Ragnarok at Jotunheim. Ending C is about Lenneth failing her duty as Valkyrie and hence banished to kingdom come by the mighty Freya herself. While it is not a nice ending at all, it’s worth to watch at least, plus if you’re confident enough, you might want to try beating Freya, although she is extremely hard to beat, probably even harder than the Ethereal Queen at Seraphic Gate.

Great addition of CGI Movies

VP: Silmeria has everything contained in the original VP1 with little to no change: same graphic, same gameplay, same game content; basically a more straightforward port than Persona 3 ported to PSP into P3P. But one interesting stuff added for VP:Lenneth is the 12 CGI movies replacing the many cutscenes that originally exist in the original VP1. These movies were definitely beautiful (I think you could find them on utube). Some were unimpressive (eg Lucian’s blues moment), but a few others definitely caught my attention. Among them are the cutscenes at Brahm’s castle, showing Lenneth’s marching through Brahms’s throne, only to find the crystallised Silmeria alongside him. Another scene that got me really excited is Alicia(!)’s appearance in Dipan, a cutscene that was much similar to the one we see in VP2 (with her appearing from the crowd when King Barbarossa was about to be guillotined by Hrist), except that the Alicia in those scene was…well, less cute I guess.


Seraphic gate, as usual

Being a Tri-Ace's game I always anticipated a great extra dungeon with super hard bosses waiting inside. IIRC VP1 is the among the first Tri-Ace’s game that introduced this kind of extra dungeon, and most importantly, the two iconic, trademark Tri-Ace’s super bosses, Gabriel Celeste and her sister Ethereal Queen. Seraphic Gate later reappear in Infinite Undiscovery and VP2, with GC and EQ reappearing in Star Ocean 3, Star Ocean 4, Radiata Stories, Infinite Undiscovery and VP2. Seraphic Gate in VP1 was a completely separate dungeon/mode that detaches itself from the main game, accessible from the main menu once we reach the final save point in Ending A or B. Kind of a shame because unlike VP2 where SG is part of the main game, this means whatever we accrue in Seraphic Gate (the extra characters, uber weapons etc) can never be brought into the main game.

Anyway, exploring Seraphic Gate in VP1/VP:Lenneth is only enjoyable if we play in Hard Mode because there are secret rooms in this dungeon that can only be unlocked by certain items obtained only from Hard Mode dungeons (yes, in this game there are a number of dungeons that were only available in a specific difficulty only), and these unlockable includes uber characters Freya (!), Brahms, and the mad scienti- ops, mad mage Lezard Valeth; and extremely overpowered weapons/gears like Holy Wand of Telos, Ether Laser and Eternal garb. Then the final challenge, Gabriel Celeste and Ethereal Queen. The monsters in the area round Ethereal Queen are the hardest in the game, and it's very unlikely to survive these fights without Auto-Item and Guts. Speaking of Auto-Item and Guts, these are arguable the two most important equipped skill in the game. Why? Because in VP1, many bosses can kill you easily with their special attack (aka PWS/Great Magic), and Auto Item skill helps immensely to immediately brings back the dead or heal the low hp allies when using item/spell manually will cost a turn. I have never played a game where healing items are significantly more important than the spell counterpart. Oh, Ethereal Queen's special attack, Empress Massacre can deal about 1 million damage to any single character -_-

Nevertheless, I ended up beating EQ 10 (!) times, getting a Tri-Emblem as the first reward, 8 Book of Riddles (which absolutely has no use) in the next 8 times I beat her, and an Angel Slayer, the strongest weapon in the game in the 10th battle. Those who explored Seraphic Gate in VP2 will remember this pattern, and in fact, the Book of Riddles that we got in VP2 had similar message as the one we got from VP1's Seraphic Gate. Another returning SG features from VP1 to VP2 is the "hamsters", a tiny, cute little animal in SG that like to appear in groups. Unfortunately, they were also the most dangerous, the hardest enemy to beat in the game, because....they're too small!!

My end game party, and some of the "Book of Riddles". Now, why Nanami instead of Lezard, you ask? Because I like Nanami's battle quotes XD

The full text of the Book of Riddles:

1. Congratulations on clearing it! I thank you for playing the game so much.
2. Wow, you cleared the Seraphic Gate 3 times...What else are you hoping for?
3. Did you finish the game again? I'm so happy that you like the game this much. But there's really no reward...
4. Do you want to play more?! There's no reward, is there? Why don't you do something else already?
5. Are you getting sick of this yet? Unlike Star Ocean, you can get only to level 99...
6. What game should I play next...
7. maybe next will be STAR OCEAN The T???d Story...
8. I'm back. Can't believe I have to do it 9 times... Anyway, I only have one more to do. If I finish that...

p/s: Whenever I watched Etherealsky’s Cool Edition, I always smile at the Mystina part (at 2:13), because indeed, I kinda feel sorry for her because while other major characters reappear in VP2 (Lenneth, Odin, Freya, Lezard, Brahms, Arngrim etc), she was left out. Well, Lucian also was left out but he was never my favourite character (despite the usefulness of his Slash Bolt in battle) I’d rather not having him in VP2.

MYM vs Navi F4F3

Last 2 weeks, one particular game caught the attention of competitive dota community. Or to be exact, the non-chinese community. It was game 2 of Winner Bracket Final of Farm4Fame3 between Danish-based MYM and Ukraine-based Navi. The game was rated Replay of the Week on Gosugamers, with over 11 pages of comments cumulated in just a few days. I admit that since WDC last year, I barely followed European scene and I never watched any European game this year, so for the first time, I feel compelled to watch this so-called epic game of MYM vs Navi.

Events: Farm4Fame3, Winner bracket final
Maps/version: Dota-allstars 6.72f, version 1.26
GameMode: -cm
Length: 82:07 minutes

replay download: [gosugamers]

VOD: [Tobi's Joindota] (amazing shoutcast, really)

After watching the whole game (Tobi's VOD, that is), I would agree that the game is worth the RR status because of the epic comeback. It was indeed an epic game – Navi managed to claim mid and bot rax and took MYM’s Tree of Life’s health to just below 200, but somehow MYM managed to defend and crawl back to steal the victory. A recommended game to watch, but IMO it did not deserve the RotW status as labelled in Gosugamers, because the game is filled with many unnecessary mistakes that almost cost MYM the game, but certainly cost Navi, and some that I'd like to point out:

• Base-rush by both side @44 min. It was a judgement mistake by MYM to have Windrunner going for top rax alone, while the whole of Navi went for mid. In the end MYM claim 1 rax in exchange of their own 2 raxes, and almost the Tree itself. MYM certainly could play it safer by having Windrunner TP back to base to help defending against Navi’s push. But if not for this decision, we would never see the epic comeback, no?

• The biggest mistake in the game – Alchemist’s item choice. Whether it is good to get a Manta Style and keeping that Vanguard late in the game is debatable, but not getting a BKB when he had 8k gold in his pocket is a big mistake. So many times Alchemist was rendered useless in battle because he was repeatedly hexed by Tinker and Windrunner. If he had got the BKB, he could probably finish the low-HP Tree of Life (at 57:30 game time). Now you might say MYM had Beastmaster’s Ulti that can counter BKB, but Navi’s Broodmother (who was virtually useless all games because of BM's Ulti) also got a BKB, so Beastmaster can only Ulti/disable 1 of them, and the rest of MYM (who had tons of disables in Tinker, Windrunner and ES) cannot do anything to the other BKB’d hero. I would even say Dendi's Venomancer also should try to get a BKB.

Nevertheless, it was still an entertaining game to watch particularly if you watched the VOD with Tobi’s shoutcast, his energy simply made any game worth to watch. Kudos to MYM for the great teamwork shown while defending their base, especially Mania's Earthshaker’s many great stuns and ultis.

Anyway, with Dota 2 The Internationals coming next week, pitting the best teams from all over the world, I am still not convinced that MYM or Navi (or any other non-Chinese team) could beat the Chinese. Yes the Chinese scene went through the Great Shuffles several times this year, but you don't often see them doing unforced error/miscommunication that could cost the game, like what Navi did many times in this game, and their grand final game. I hope I'm wrong though, because I do want to see that for once, a non-Chinese team could reach the top in an international LAN event.

p/s: I actually want to cover Tyloo's victory over iG at last week's WCG, but the replay is still not out -_-

Yousei Teikoku - Mischievous of Alice

Title: Mischievous of Alice
Artist: Yousei Teikoku
Release Date: July 27, 2011

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Track List:

• 01．Mischievous of Alice
• 02．emergence
• 03．Mischievous of Alice (instrumental)
• 04．emergence (instrumental)

Download link: [HF/FSN]
*download link will be added later*

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

It's been quite some time since Yousei Teikoku release any major single (the last one being Gothic Lolita Agitator, last December. So when Mischievous of Alice was released, it surprised me in several ways. For one, the songs in this single kinda gave a different feeling than those we listened to in recent years (notably Baptize and Rebellion Anthem). Mischievous of Alice (the song) is obviously the highlight of this single (and an awesome one at that), but how long has it been since we listened to a ballad (?) song like Emergence? I swear the last time I listened to that kind of song from her is when she was still in Denkare (and there's many of these songs in their release). Not saying I didn't enjoy it, but I certainly enjoyed Mischievous of Alice a whole lot more.

Persona 3 Portable, MaleMC Route

The last time I played Persona 3 Portable (last year, playing as female MC), I mentioned that I was planning to replay the game as Male MC in the future. I didn't have the chance to do so, until about a few months ago when I leave my ps3 behind to work, leaving my PSP as my sole entertainer (unless you count DotA in my laptop). The reason I wanted to replay the game a second time is exactly as I previously mentioned: Getting 100% persona compendium, max all Social Links that I failed to finish the last time I played FES on PS2, and the ultimate challenge, beat the secret bosses (Margaret and Elizabeth) on Maniac (I only did half of the Vision Quests during my FemMC play).

Also, when I first began my 2nd playthrough, I planned to use a different party than what I used for FemMC (Yukari, Akihiko and Mitsuru), but as it turned out, I ended up sticking with the same 3 people in my party. And the reason is mostly based on my assesment on each character's ability to dungeon crawl and boss battle. Only on certain bosses (especially Margaret) I changed my party members..

• Yukari - She's simply the better Healer in the game (not counting MC), and she can provide good wind elemental support if needed. Ken is another alternative healer, but his combat prowess isn't that great (Samsara is miles better than his single target Hamaon, although I favor Alice's DieForMe more), and I personally had issue with this kid (especially because of his SL with FemMC).

• Mitsuru - I was planning to switch her for Aigis later, but in the end, I still kept her to the end. She's not a great physical dealer, but she's one of the best magically. Ice boost+Amp+Magic Charge+Bufudyne pretty much become my 2nd major offensive damage against many bosses.

• Akihiko - He's my mainstay early in the game because many monsters/bosses are weak to his Zio, and later in the game, because of his debuff skill, which I always use against bosses.

• Aigis - I planned to use her instead of Mitsuru, but IMO her physical skills weren't that great until much later in the game, and she didn't have elemental spells to exploit enemies's weakness (which is why Mitsuru is better). She's a great buffer, but those skills (the multi-target ma- buffs type) also come late in the game. So in the end, she's out of my party for almost the entire game, except against Margaret.

• Junpei - Probably the best physical attacker in the game, nice buffer (Rakukaja) with an elemental attack (Agi) for weakness exploit. But again, he only shines when he learnt Vorpal Blade (level 74), and only on certain date (for his "great" condition). One of the people I actually don't mind switching in and out while dungeon crawling, but ultimately didn't use him much. Nevertheless, he contributed A LOT in my fight against Margaret. On a side note, Spring of Life is kinda a waste of skill slot.
  

• Koromaru - No comment, I haven't use him at all Persona 3. No reason really though. Blanca was my main party back then in Shadow Hearts Covenant (until Anastacia joined the party), but I didn't really feel doing the same thing for Koro.

• Ken - I hate this boy, nuff said.

• Shinjiro - well, do I need to tell why?

Social Links

Part of the reason why I wanted to replay MaleMC route is because I wanted to max all SL, which as mentioned before, I failed to complete during my P3 Ps2 run. That run was totally messed up, I remembered failing to complete Mitsuru's SL, getting reversed on Kanji's Magician and Chihiro's Justice, as well as not completing many others (such as Moon, Star and Fortune)...total chaos ==

So just like my FemMC run, in the end I managed to max all SL in my MaleMC playthrough, and I didn't think I missed much from my unfinished PS2 run. Gourmet King Nozomi's Moon and Doctor-wannabe Keisuke's Fortune SL were downright boring, Rival athlete Mamoru's Star is okay at best, Kanji's Magician SL was kinda refreshing (though Junpei's Magician for FemMC was way better), Aigis's Aeon was also boring although it didn't change much from the FemaleMC (or vice versa), but most importantly, as awkward the SL were developed (from learning to act like commoners to lover), I really like Mitsuru's SL, probably my favorite Social Link on MaleMC play, with Yukari's Lovers came close in 2nd. Anyway, apparently the script from P3FES were ported straight into P3P without any change, because in P3P, the game still stated that the girls might get upset if we two (or three, or more)-timing when in fact we can form as many lovers as we want without hurting other SL.

My three main Persona in P3P MaleMC: Super Alice for sweeping the Tartarus w/ Morning Star, Siegfried for physicals, Orpheus Telos for Liz and Marg.

Maniac, Monad and Vision Quest...the unfinished business

Maniac mode isn't as hard as I thought after all. I was expecting something gruesomely challenging like Star Ocean 4's Chaos mode, but what I experienced from Maniac mode is that enemies hit you harder, and (probably) the most important thing that affect your Maniac play, the MASSIVE increase in Persona compendium cost. Even a low level persona like Apsaras and Angel can cost a lot more than you earn during your exploration in the first block of Tartarus. This essentially means before we exit Tartarus, we need to carefully prepare our persona library for the upcoming few weeks, rather than relying on compendium. I even thought that I might not be able to get 100% compendium due to the ridiculous price of the high level persona (some would cost more than a million yen), but luckily higher floors loots and battle coins gave a lot of money that in the end, I can even resummon a level 97 Messiah (which cost near 2 million) over and over again to get his heart item. Oh, and I got an Omnipotent Orb in my second try. Lucky bastard : )

100% compendium \o/ Apparently the compendium data is still carried over even in Maniac, hence the Orpheus I got from my FemMC run count as the remaining 1% (we only get 99% persona completion in each play)

And finally, the last challenges that P3P offered, the Monad and Vision Quest, aka beating Elizabeth and Margaret. Needless to say, I managed to beat them thanks to the very detailed and specific pattern that the boss use. For Margaret, it's all about dealing enough damage during her first physical phase (and I got Junpei in great condition on Jan 28th to help with Vorpal Blade), and past that phase, it's all easy. Elizabeth (or Theo) is slightly more difficult, but beating her is more about luck than skills, especially when we're nearing her ~10,000+ hp threshold. I personally had a more difficult time with Elizabeth because in many of my attempts, she would always seem to crit me to death at least once. Only then I found the answer to this problem - Enduring Soul... -__-
With Elizabeth beaten, I got my 2nd Omnipotent Orb, but do I really need it? Nyx is no longer a challenge by this point, and playing a New Game+ on other than Maniac mode with all these goodies carried over will totally kill the fun, considering I'm at level 99, and therefore making any battle in Tartarus meaningless.

So, will I ever returned to P3P? Likely not, but who knows. But I gotta say P3P was pretty enjoyable, even though it didn't have The Answer.

The Impression Series: Summer 2011 [Part 2]

pardon the long wait, rl owns.

Finally the second and final part of my Summer 2011 anime impression. At first I planned to make it a three-parts entry, but I am considering to limit my watchlist to about 10 series this season, hence I ended up dropping/holding about one-third of the amount I initially watched.

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu 2
MAL/Official
Genre: comedy
Studio production: SILVER LINK
Number of episodes: 13

Comments: Well well, it’s Bakatest season 2, how much do I need to comment on this one? The first season already made me laugh a lot (only marginally lost to Mitsudomoe as my best comedy anime of 2010), so I had high expectation from the second season, knowing how much I could laugh from watching this show. And fortunately the few episodes so far delivered, right off the bat, I had a burst of laugh. On a side note, for some reason the more I watched the anime, the less I remembered about the importance of those class battles.

verdict:4.5/5



Mayo Chiki!
MAL/Official
Genre: comedy, romance
Studio production: Feel
Number of episodes: 12

Comments: Aka Mayoeru Shitsuji to Chikin na Ore to. The story is about a gynophobic Sakamachi Kinjiro, who accidentally discovered that his classmate Subaru Konoe, also a butler to Suzutsuki Kanade, is actually a girl. Thanks to the horrid time he had at home with his little sister and mother constantly using him as pro-wrestling guinea pig, Kinjiro somehow developed some kind of allergy that made him nosebleed whenever a girl touched him (lolwat). And with the discovery of Subaru’s secret that’s supposed not to be known (or else she will be removed from her butler position), you bet it’s going to be good (or bad, depending on how you see it) for Kinjiro. A generic comedy romance story which has probably been recycled, tweaked and used many times in other anime/manga/novels, but still never failed to amuse me if done right, like Mayo Chiki did. I mean, it’s not the first time you see a trap like Subaru, a sadistic yet caring ojou-sama like Kanade (Kitamura Eri ftw :3) and a main character with some kind of allergy/phobia like Kinjiro, yet these three blended well to make the story interesting. Kinjiro’s little sister, Kureha (Kana Hanazawa again, huh?), the bunch of Subaru’s admirers as well as the fujoshi defectors made things even funnier. So I would say that I will keep on watching as long as the anime continue to entertain me.
p/s: Can’t help but thinking about Charlotte (IS)/young Minami Haruka whenever I see Subaru in female outfit.

verdict: 3.5/5



Itsuka Tenma no Kuro-Usagi
MAL/Official
Genre: fantasy, romance
Studio production: ZEXCS
Number of episodes: 12

Comments: Okay, another series that gave me a mixed impression. The pros: 1) The story – it was intriguing to say the least, from the point the main character Kurogane Taito remembered his old promise, the fight that ensued, and the involvement of the student council president Kurenai Gekkou and his twins. 2) The ending song, because it’s Shikata Akiko. The cons: 1) Massive cliché that bored me out. The easygoing, reckless main character (oh hi I got a new power and I’m so conceited I think I could beat the bad guy in a hit), the moe female friend that likes to hang with him, the forgotten old promise, the cool student council president, the transferring of the old lover to his school.. 2) The battles. Maybe it’s just me, but I think the battles lacks cohesion and proper flow. Kinda hard to explain, but let’s just say that I really don’t feel the tense of the battle in episode two. And the flashy animation and special effects didn’t help me either. 3) The colourful art and generic character designs (just me and my preference). 4) Cheap panty flash. This didn’t exist much in episode 2 though. In the end, I don’t think I would do anything with the series anymore, except downloading the ED single once it is released.

verdict: 2/5 (dropped)



Kamisama no Memo-chou
MAL/Official
Genre: mystery, psychological
Studio production: J.C. Staff
Number of episodes: 12

Comments: In short, the story tells how an average guy named Fujishima Narumi who longed for average life and avoiding major attention, somehow found himself involved with a group of weirdos – a pro gambler dropout, a military university nerd, a gigolo, yakuza affiliates, and finally the biggest of all, a NEET detective called Alice. The lengthy episode 1 provided the necessary introduction of the major and support characters, and from then on we could probably see similar pattern being played out in future episodes – Alice accepting a request/case and used her extensive network to solve it, with Narumi playing the sidekick role (or bigger one when the time arrived). Okay, I had some problem with Narumi's personality, but so far I could safely say that I’m liking what I am seeing from the series – nice semi-detective story, great animation (J.C.Staff, duh) and some funny moments (I lol’d hard when a simple “God Hand” computer work by Narumi totally amazed the thugs at Soichirou’s place). The story seems to put quite an emphasis in NEET theme (with Alice insisting to be called “NEET” detective), but I personally didn’t see this term having bigger influence than the term had in, say, NHK ni Youkoso. One thing that got me interested is how Alice deliberately mentioning the term “Kamisama no Memo-chou” – memo pads of the Gods in episode one. It could be a metaphor of the vast, extensive network that Alice had, but for a moment I also thought how it might relate to Alice at one point talking about the tainting of the living and the dead (Shigofumi, huh?). Anyway, finally a show from J.C.Staff that I could enjoy, after Bakuman (note that I was not that impressed with their Yumekui Merry and Aria).

verdict: 4/5



Dantalian no Shoka
MAL/Official
Genre: fantasy
Studio production: GAINAX

Number of episodes: 13
Comments: Look, another loli detective show! Dantalian no Shoka is about Hugh Anthony Disward (aka Huey) who was given inheritance of an isolated mansion and massive library from his deceased grandfather’s, and met a mysterious girl named Dalian. The atmosphere of the series screamed Gosick all over the place that it doesn’t feel right to have Dantalian aired right after Gosick concluded, though after awhile you get the sense that these two are never the same kind. How do I summed up my thought after watching the first 2 episodes: Interesting, but at the same time, it is also uninteresting? Although I like the mystery/supernatural element in the series, I feel that the story was rather confusing and weakend by plotholes. The first episode was okay, but then the second episode repeated the similar pattern, giving there’s little chance for us to understand the questions like who Dalian really is and how she ended up at the mansion, the history of those Phantom Books and many more. Then we were stuffed with lots of (uninteresting) long winded text that Huey read whenever they summoned a book from within Dalian. Basically a quarter of the episode (and half of the battles) were filled with Huey reading books! It’s amazing that Huey and Dalian remained composed even during the most dangerous situation in battle. The animation and special effects in battle was great, but the weakness in the plot kinda hold me back from giving this series a higher rating. And by the way, the ED was creepy, but I LOVE it, seriously!!!
p/s: I swear if they repeat those same door-unlocking scenes in the next 10 episodes, I'm gonna throw up. My god this is not mahou shoujo anime where enemies would give you 1 minute to do some flashy transformation =_=

verdict: 3.5/5



The IDOLM@STER
MAL/Official
Genre: slice of life, music (?)
Studio production: A-1 Pictures
Number of episodes: 12

Comments: Hm..I’m not sure why I decided to include this anime in the list. I’ve never played the game, so I really don’t have any kind of expectation toward the anime. Caught in the hype again, I guess. From what I saw, the story is about 12 girls who aimed to be real idols, and with the help of the unnamed producer-san, we see how they went through their everyday life as idol wannabe, with each episode focusing on one or several of these idols (along with their specific character ED song, which is kinda nice), what they do in the studio (everyone seems so disorganised huh?), preparing stage performance and other activities. The animation quality is somewhat lesser than what I expected, but as a whole I don't have much problem of having the show in my watchlist, although the priority is not high in my list at the moment.
p/s: Azusa has always been my favorite :3

verdict: 3/5



that's all I think for this season. There are also other series that I initially watched, but decided not to include full impression on these series:

- Mawaru Penguindrum - hm...weird series? I had real problems with the coloring and perspective of this anime.
- Nurarihyon no Mago 2 - I like the 1st season (minus the pointless ep26 recap), but I think I'm gonna wait till the 2nd season finished and marathon it in a go.
- R-15 – tbh I don’t mind watching a few more episodes of this one.
- Manyuu Hikenchou - omfg you do not tell me that I need to comment on this?
- Nekogami Yaoyorozu - another comedy slice of life of this season, but I personally like Yuruyuri more.