The Impression Series: Spring 2012 [Part 1]

Should have posted these weeks ago, but shit happened and it got delayed more and more. It’s tough trying to balance work, games, dota and anime -___- Better late than never I guess. Anyway, time for the not-so-early impression, now for the recently started Spring 2012 series.

Fate/Zero S2
MAL/OFFICIAL SITE  
Genre:action
Studio Production:ufotable
Number of Episodes:12

Comments: It doesn't make much sense that the first season ended last month and right off the bat, the 2nd season begins this season. Taking a breather before continuing with the rest of the production? Regardless, Fate/Zero S1 exceeded my expectation and I was looking forward to how it's gonna continue in this 2nd season. And right away, episode 1 alone was bloody entertaining. It restarted right where it stopped at the end of season 1, and now all the servants temporarily abandon the Holy Grain war in order to defeat the greater hindrance that is Caster. 4 episodes so far, things are looking great for the series, I'm glad that we finally got to see the much anticipated Saber's Noble Phantasm. The animation retained its high standard despite not having many flashy special effects, the bgms remained a classic from Kajiura Yuki, and though I love both S1 and S2's OP song, the current OP song by Kalafina was much more favorable in my playlist. Overall, like its predecessor, Fate/Zero S2 had the potential to be enlisted in my favorite shows this year.

Verdict: 4.5/5

Sankarea
MAL/OFFICIAL SITE  
Genre:comedy, romance
Studio Production:studio DEEN
Number of Episodes:12
Comments:

The first thought in my head when I watched the first episode: The unique animation, the random scenes appearing every now and then....SHAFT? Then I checked the anime information, and I was surprised to see that the anime was actually produced by the last studio I would have thought of - DEEN. Now that is something coming from DEEN, but overall I am quite satisfied with the series so far. Last year I randomly download the manga into my iphone, yet until today I haven't even touch the manga but the first chapter. I guess now that the anime is aired, I can just set the manga aside. Back to the story, Sankarea tells a story of a high school boy, Furuya Chihiro, whose obsession with the undead (or to be exact, cute zombies) brought him an unexpected meeting with Sanka Rea, a sheltered, innocent girl whose freedom was limited by her strict father. Things happened and she ended up turning into something that Chihiro exactly looks for, a girl zombie.. From production value, DEEN did quite a good job in giving the best animation and musics, along with great choice of dialogues/seiyuus to voice Chihiro and Rea, and scenes selection that sometimes tries to mimick shaft's style. Nevertheless, this is gonna be one of my favorite show this season, and probably this year too.

Verdict: 5/5














Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? of the Dead
MAL/OFFICIAL SITE  
Genre:comedy, romance, supernatural
Studio Production:Studio DEEN

Number of Episodes: 12 

Comments: The second season. Initially I don't have much things to expect from the sequel,  and having watched 3 episodes so far, I would say that my impression didn't change by much. Continuing straight from where it left in season 1, the story still retained the same recipe of fanservice+harem comedy mixed with some action/thriller (Ayumu in action with his Masou Shoujo persona as usual), with more side/new characters (classmates, Sarasvat, Kris etc) now getting involved, though so far the plot was more comedic than the second half of the first season. I used to like the anime a lot when it was first aired, but after a while, for some reason the impact kinda lost, even after watching this 2nd season. So for now, I guess I would put it on my watchlist just for the sake of having some laugh.

Verdict: 3.5/5














Kuroko no Basuke
MAL/OFFICIAL SITE  
Genre:sport/basketball
Studio Production:Production I.G.
Number of Episodes:25

Comments: I am by no means a basketball fans (much less a player) and as far as basketball anime goes, the only series I've got some attachment to was Slam Dunk (duh) and to a certain degree, Buzzer Beater. Having watched 4 episodes, I had to say that I am immensely fascinated with the series. 5 players plus 1 "invisible" sixth player from a generation of extremely talented middle school basketball team, now scattered around the best of high school basketball team, with the story focuses on that sixth player, Kuroko and his teammates. Simple premise, yet nicely done to highlight the 2 main characters Kagami and Kuroko - 2 players of completely different ability yet complement very well to each other and together, the vows to beat the rest of the Generation of Miracles and become the best team in Japan. The basketball game was intense, lots of fast paced basketball action involved, yet it was easy enough to follow for people with minimal basketball knowledge like myself. And even better, they provide in depth strategy and analysis about the game/formation that a football/rugby fan like myself can relate to and understand. The BGMs are also as intense as the action in the court, and that only helped get my excitement going. Overall, it was one of the better sports anime I've watched in recent years, and no doubt I'm gonna watch the anime all the way to the end.

Verdict:: 4.5/5 (must watch)














Natsuiro Kiseki
MAL/OFFICIAL SITE  
Genre:drama, slice of life
Studio Production:Sunrise
Number of Episodes:12

Comments: At first I was a bit skeptical about the story (particularly because I'm less inclined to watch an all-girl slice of life drama). Skimming through the first episode didn't really get me all impressed, until that last "miracle" scene, which surprised me in many way (because I thought it was strange to have that bit of supernatural element infused to the story).  Then I watched the next episode, and the next, and the next; and I have to say that my impression changed, to the better. I sorta feel the same way as when I watched Hanasaku Iroha, and indeed the story did feel similar - a slice of life series focusing on summer life of the 4 main girls, each with different personality: Natsumi, Saki, Yuka and Rinko; and the best part of it is probably watching all of them getting caught in different kind of "miracles"granted by the big rock at the shrine in each episode. I'm all in for the rest of the episodes.

Verdict: 4/5 (must watch)

Shining Hearts ~Shiawase no Pan~
MAL/OFFICIAL SITE  
Genre:fantasy, romance
Studio Production:Production I.G.
Number of Episodes:12
Comments:  I've been a fan of the Shining Series since the introduction of Shining Tears game quite a few years ago, and although Shining Tears x Wind was average overall, I am still looking forward to the third of the series, Shining Wind (how I wish the game was translated). 3 episodes in, I'd say that the pace of the story was way too slow. In the first episode we were introduced with Rick, his job a the bakery and the 3 pretty girls who assisted him, then the 2nd episode didn't differed by much, and only at the end of it we got the gist of the real deal of the story. It's crazy that it took more than 2 episodes to arrive to the focal point, huh? How are they gonna cover the whole plot in 12 episodes is beyond me, I just hope I can see enough actions to satisfy my needs for Shining series. Other than that, I don't really have much to comment. The graphic is awesome but that was a given since the original characters were designed by one of my fav artiste Tony Taka. Nevertheless, it was still a must watch for me because, well, I'm a fan of the series.
p/s: The first time I saw Lana, I totally thought she was Elwyn (Shining Tears). Totally look alike.
Verdict: 4/5


part 2 coming a bit later

Tales of Grace F...FINALLY!

I  nearly forgot that the NA release of the English version was out last month, yet I somehow can't find it anywhere in KL (specifically, at Low Yat), stock sold out in each and every store that I went. A month passed, it was not until a 2 weeks ago when the luck was on my side, that when I went to the gamestore I've used to go, there's a single stock of the game. FINALLY!!! Being a big fan of Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Vesperia, I was really looking forward to the English release of Tales of Grace. The graphic, the occasional humor, the character diversities, the real-time gameplay are just the kind of thing that I love for an jrpg.

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Title: Tales of Grace F
Developer: Namco Bandai
Platform: PlayStation 3 (PS3)
Genre: Japanese role playing game [jrpg]
Release date: Dec 2010 [Japanese], March 2012 [NA]

Currently just a little bit after finishing Chapter 3, I have to admit that there's still a lot about this game that I have yet to know and explore. Things like Dueling, item quality and levels, title unlocking, arte mastering, Inn Requests....But still, I think I've already got a lot of good impression from the game so far. Some comments that I could think of:

-Nice gameplay as usual. "Style Shift Linear Motion Battle System", a somewhat modified battle system than any previous Tales series, where the gameplay emphasized more on players attacking, defending/evading/dashing and switching between A-style artes and B-style artes. Each action in battle now consumes CC (Chain Capacity), which limits how many combos you can do in a go.  Then there's Eleth Gauge (a bit like 2-sided OverLimit) and Critical gauge. 

-There's a lot of titles in this game. I mean, A LOT of titles. The main character, Asbel alone had 100 titles to collect. Some are easy to collect, but the last few ones are relatively tough. And the bad thing is, there's thophy required for these...Star Ocean 4's 100% Battle Trophies trophy anyone?

-Duelizing was quite a complex form of weapon/item customization. Fusing basic items were easy, but fusing weapons and shards, creating gems, creating uber traits etc can be confusing at first. I definitely need to read more about the mechanics.

-The story was okay so far, can't comment much since I haven't ventured that much into the game. I like the fact that the story started out with the character's Childhood years, then fast forward a few years to go to the Adult years (aka the main story). And apparently, there's also another part, the Future years which was available only to the PS3 release.

-The characters were also interesting, though I thought Vesperia's was better. Asbel was quite a changed man after joining the knights (kinda like how Luke fon Fabre changed after "that" incident"), Cheria's outfit was...kinda unfitting I think. Sophie's a loli, Pascal was one hell of an eccentric girl, Malik was kinda boring, Richard too, Hubert too. I wish there's a Jade Curtis-like character in Tales of Grace... Nevertheless, all of them made many of the scenes and skits enjoyable to watch with their unique personality and antics.

-The graphic is a given. I don't think I need to elaborate much on this, it still retains anime-style art with beautiful setting, while in battle, various flashy skills and effects were added to attacks and skills to make battles more, well, interesting. Music-wise, Motoi Sakuraba came with another masterpiece that suits well with Tales series. 

-Platinuming this game seems harder than I thought. It doesn't need to be as detailed as Vesperia (eg 100% items/monsters and such) and you won't easily miss many of the trophies (except beating some bosses in 1 min, which was really hard even on Easy), but to get a full Platinum, it seems like we need to grind. Grind for titles, inn requests, and grind for rare items...Well at least I didn't have to play the game 4 or 5 times, like I did with Vesperia just to Platinum it.

The Platinum Series [11]: Final Fantasy XIII-2

Right after platinuming Atelier Totori, I went straight into full Final Fantasy XIII-2 mode. Took me awhile, but finally after about 3 weeks, I’ve got what I really wanted: a Platinum trophy for the game XD Following my first impression post a while back, I was actually at the point nearing the end of the game, though in term of trophy completion, it was less than 30% completed. So after finishing the main story (and the not-so-favorable ending), I spent some time working on the rest of the trophies, which 90% of the time involved collecting and completing fragments of time….

Title: Final Fantasy XIII-2
Developer: Square-Enix
Platform: PlayStation 3 (PS3), Xbox360
Genre: Japanese role playing game [jrpg]
Release date: Dec 2011 [Japanese], Jan/Feb 2012 [NA/EU]


Platinum difficulty ratings: 3.5/5

I’d say platinuming FFXIII-2 was much, much easier than its predecessor FFXIII, hence the relatively low difficulty ratings (pretty much about the same as Atelier Totori). Why? Because we don’t need to collect all weapons/accessory (or else we’d have to farm some super rare items endlessly, like we had to with the likes of Trapezohedrons in FFXIII), we don’t need to get 5 stars in every single missions/boss fights (though I still get 5 stars in most of the fights on Normal mode anyway). And thank god there’s no trophy needing us to tame every single tameable monster in the game, or else, I’d probably gone crazy.

In FFXIII, the “toughest” trophies to get are probably Adamant Will (beat Long Gui) and Treasure Hunter (collect every single weapons/accessories). But in FFXIII-2, Long Gui (which gave 1 fragment upon defeated) was nowhere as hard as the FFXIII version (Easy mode helps, to say the least), and there’s no such thing as Treasure Hunter trophy. So basically the “hardest” trophy to get is probably, to collect all 160 fragments in the game. Not a hard trophy, it's just…time consuming, considering it constitutes every single damn thing in the game – beat the extra bosses Yomi/Immortal/Long Gui/Ochu; get all paradox endings, answer some stupid trivial FFXIII quizzes…and solve Temporal Rift, which was one of the meanest, annoying and ridiculous obstacle in completing all fragments. The Tile Trials and Crystal Bonds can be a tad bit annoying at times, but the Hands of Time, god knows how mind-boggling this puzzle is that I can’t imagine many people would solve this puzzle manually, without the little “helping” cheat” provided by clockpuzzle.pl. (Obviously I opted to use the shortcut. I’m not gonna waste my time calculating the solution for the puzzle, duh).

Talk about bosses and monsters, who is the strongest monsters/bosses in FFXIII-2, actually? I honestly don’t know myself. Words of people across message boards are divided between Yomi, Caius Paradox and Raspatil as THE strongest bosses in the game. To be honest I personally didn’t find any of them particularly hard. Raspatil’s is just annoying cuz his offense is nowhere strong, and he’ll keep on spawning monsters if we didn’t defeat him quickly (we even got a trophy on beating him on Normal mode). Yomi is basically the reincarnation of Vercingetorix of Mark Mission 64 in FFXIII, and hence poison strategy works best against him. Then there’s Caius Paradox, probably the hardest of the three on Normal, especially if you don’t have a good monster to accompany you (for Serah), and even worse for Noel, since you’ll be fighting him alone. But still, he’s not overly dangerous if your Serah/Noel are fully developed and went for all offensive setup (maximize Mag for Serah - increase ATB charge rate; maximize Str for Noel – lifesteal attack), as well as having a good sentinel/commander to accompany Serah. I guess I was lucky to have a fully optimized Chichu and Goblin Chieftain with Serah by the time I face Caius Paradox.

By the time I completed all my fragments though, I actually still had one more trophy left: Serependitious – amassing 10,000 net coins in Serependity. Be it by chocobo race, or the simplest, luck-driven way, by the slot machine. People said we can just put tape L1 and let the controller do the job for you while you go to sleep, but I thought it's better to at least keep an eye on the monitor while the slot is rolling, so that once we got a Jackpot in Super Victory mode, we can just stop and save, then rinse and repeat from scratch. Playing the slot machine while in Super Victory mode is quite risky as it consume a lot of coins...

Anyway that's it about FFXIII-2's Platinum. Overall my opinion about the game hasn't changed much since my first impression post - I'm enjoying the game more than FFXIII in many ways, and the concept of time travel made the story more interesting for me. The permanent 2-people party in Serah and Noel was nice, added with a third selectable monsters that you can raise to your own desire, to suit the battle's need. Talk about Serah and Noel, I feel that Snow was really a stranger in this game. Where is he at the end of the game? And the ending....well, I shouldn't comment too much about it, but I kinda not liking the idea of another sequel.

Next on Platinum list: probably Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2

The Platinum Series: [10] Atelier Totori

Finally another Platinum to add to my growing list: Atelier Totori - The Adventurer of Arland. Being an ardent fan of the predecessor Atelier Rorona - The Alchemist of Arland, I knew I just had to get Totori, play the game, savour the scenes, and PLATINUM the game. Time for some brief platinum endnotes.

Title: Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of of Arland
Developer: Gust
Platform: PlayStation 3 (PS3)
Genre: Japanese role playing game [jrpg]
Release date: June 2010 [Japanese], September 2011 [NA/EU]


Overall Platinum difficulty: 3.5/10 (easy)

What, 3.5 difficulty rating only? Compared to Atelier Rorona (which was already easy to Plat), I'd definitely say that Totori was easier to Platinum - IF you know how to handle the events, calendar, dates, scenes, schedule blablabla in the game. Trophies are pretty much similar to how trophies were in Rorona - special events/scenes, max levels, beating monsters, endings, endings and ENDINGS. Some are straightforwards and automatically obtained, like the opening scenes, character introduction scenes (Mel/Sterk/Mio/Rorona etc), while others, you had to work for it a bit. Especially the multiple endings, which made up of probably about half of the total trophies needed for Platinum. One thing for sure, things are less repetitive and tedious in Totori. No more going to the Guild/meeting friends for requests, and the world map is much bigger. Though to get 500,000 cole, you probably had to do some utterly boring task of selling liquids from Spring Water over and over and over again....

Just like Rorona, events that can trigger a certain trophy will appear within a certain time limit, or when certain condition was fulfilled. But while in Rorona you had only 3 months for 3 years interval to do your assignments and complete some character's events/endings requirement, in Totori the time gap is much wider - 6 month interval, with the game spanning over 6 years of timeline, and hence you had a more flexible time to manage your stuff, juggling between traveling/adventuring, synthesizing or focusing on characters's scenes. Though that was kinda balanced by the fact that traveling, battle, collecting items from gather points etc consumed more time than it was in Rorona.

Triggering events for each and every ending trophies (11 in total - Bad, Normal, True, Wealth, Chim, Marc, Mel, Gino, Rorona, Sterk, Mio) were obviously hard without some sort of guidance, and it was definitely impossible to get all ending in a single playthrough without following a walkthrough. Thankfully the same method from Rorona work in order to obtain all endings in one go - by loading save files near the end of the game after fulfilling conditions for each endings, ie 500k money+certain quests for Wealth Ending, Chim's pie for Chim ending, character's friendship and quests for their ending, and ALL possible events for the True Ending. Unfortunately, the True End was kinda disappointing. Predictable and way too short compared to the beautiful reunion we had in Rorona's True Ending. Nevertheless, Sterk's Ending was the best, damn that lucky bastard!!!!

Overall, I really enjoyed Atelier Totori. Most of the fun factor came from watching Totori getting teased by people around her as well as many other funny scenes in the game. At the same time, I also enjoyed the alchemy/synthesis in this game, playing around with traits to make the best possible items, foods, weapons, BOMBS etc. N/A bomb was a real killer, but I wish that Tera Bomb from Rorona made a comeback. The animation when Rorona use that bomb was simply hilarious, and the damage a finely crafted bomb dealt was.....phenomenal. But if I had to pick either Atelier Rorona or Atelier Totori, I would say that I'm enjoying the predecessor more than the sequel. Maybe because I like Rorona Frixel better than Totori Helmold, especially due to the voice of Mai Kadowaki ;p


now GIVE me Atelier Meruru this May!!!


full Atelier Totori review coming...later.

Final Fantasy XIII-2: The Impression

Finally, one of the most anticipated video games this year reached my hand. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the biggest fan of Final Fantasy FFXIII (due to its utterly boring story), but I enjoyed the gameplay and Mark Quests a lot that I eventually managed to Platinum the game last year. That alone is enough to make me wanting to buy its sequel, Final Fantasy FXIII-2, and I’m expecting a better impression from this one, especially in term of story and linearity. Due to my commitment to work and Atelier Totori (which I just recently Platinumed), it’s not until last week that I was finally able to start the game, and with over 10 hours into the game, I can say that so far I’m having more fun playing FFXIII-2.

Title: Final Fantasy XIII-2
Developer: Square-Enix
Platform: PlayStation 3 (PS3), Xbox360
Genre: Japanese role playing game [jrpg]
Release date: Dec 2011 [Japanese], Jan/Feb 2012 [NA/EU]

Final Fantasy XIII-2 took place roughly 3 years after the events in Final Fantasy XIII. Lightning is no more, Fang is no more, Snow is no more, every playable character in FFXIII are no more. Now, we’re controlling Lightning’s little sister Serah, and Noel, a stranger from the future. To avoid spoiler, I guess it's better not to write about the story too much, but all I can say is that I'm liking the story because the core is about time paradox, where you’ll travel through time to unveil the mystery behind a certain person’s disappearance, the overlapped time and space continuum, changing history and future blablabla. Steins;Gate, anyone?

Although it didn't hurt NOT playing FFXIII before FFXIII-2, I do think having the experience of playing FFXIII was necessary and beneficial because a lot of the gameplay's aspects were taken and improved. Having familiarized with the gameplay of FFXIII, straight away in FFXIII-2 my finger was moving around automatically, hitting L1 to switch Paradigms back and forth while the ATP gauge is charging (you know, the full ATB gauge trick). Paradigm Shift no longer had those stupid time-wasting first-time paradigm change animation (you know what I mean), so now you got a faster battle pace. The post-battle rank didn't seem to change much, except that 5-Starring a battle gave you 200% boost in rare item drop, on Normal mode. You will also receive gil after each battle, so getting money in FFXIII-2 is essentially much easier than FFXIII. Oh, did I mention that there's Easy and Normal mode?

A lot more changes/improvements were related to off-battle features. Things like Moogle Hunt/Throw, autosave features, time paradoxes, and new mechanism of random encounter, which I'm not gonna spend time elaborating. But I'd like to comment on the new Crystarium system. The basics of Crystarium is similar to those in FFXIII, but the mechanics were somewhat different - basically all Roles share the same Nodes/Crystarium, but what's contained in each nodes changed according to its roles, with some of the (bigger) Nodes giving stat bonus depending on which role you used to activate it. Again, it was hard to describe, even I had trouble understanding the new Crystarium. I only figured out the mechanics (or more accurately, how to maximize Noel's strength's and Serah's Magic's growth) when I was like on stage 6 of my Crystarium progress. Which was kinda late, since I wasted about half of it by not manipulating their stat growth. On the bright side though, my Noel and Serah had a more balanced Mag-Str stats, meaning switching any of them between Ravager and Commando won't have significant effect on the damage dealt.

Then there's Monster crystal, which we can use as the third character in the paradigm shift. I'd say this is one of the few addition in FFXIII-2 that made the game more fun. With no more other playable character, you're pretty much stuck with Noel and Serah for almost the entire game, and who could fill the third slot in the party? A "tamed" monster, obviously. Monsters defeated had a chance to form into crystal, which allowed you to use them in future battle. They have specialized Role, and they can also be levelled up to a certain max level by using certain items that provides specific stat growth to your monsters. So you can have crappy monsters like...well, I don't know, in your party, or if you're really, really beefed up, late in the game you can have the almighty Omega (that Omega Weapon) as your third ally. Nevertheless, many argued that the best ever ally you can have is Chichu, but I haven't encountered one so I can't comment on that.

Currently about halfway through the game (and less than 20% platinum completion), I think it won't take me longer than 2 weeks to finish and platinum the game. The story was much more acceptable than FFXIII to say the least, the faster paradigm shirt and and the addition of monsters in the party made battle somewhat more enjoyable. There's a few more things that I haven't comment, but I'll leave it at that and stop here.

Spring 2012 Anime List

TV

Accel World
Acchi Kocchi
AKB0048
Arashi no Yoru ni. Himitsu no Tomodachi
Baku Tech! Bakugan
Beyblade Zero-G
Cardfight!! Vanguard: Asia Circuit Hen
Eureka Seven Ao
Fate/Zero 2nd Season
Gakkatsu!
Ginga e Kick off!!
Haiyore! Nyaruko-san
Hiiro no Kakera
Hyou-ka
Jewelpet Kira☆Deko!
Jormungand
Kikansha Thomas
Kimi to Boku. 2
Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? of the Dead
Kuroko no Basuke
Medaka Box
Naruto SD: Rock Lee no Seishun Full-Power Ninden
Natsuiro Kiseki
Nazo no Kanojo X
New Lupin III Series
Ozuma
Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle 2nd Season
Pretty Rhythm Dear My Future
Queen’s Blade: Rebellion
Saint Seiya Omega
Sakamichi no Apollon
Saki: Achiga-hen episode of side-A
Sankarea
Sengoku Collection
Shiba Inuko-san
Shining Hearts ~Shiawase no Pan~
Shirokuma Café
Tasogare Otome x Amnesia
Tsuritama
Uchuu Kyoudai
Upotte!!
Yurumates 3D
Zetman

OVA

A-Channel+smile (OVA)
Ai Mai! Moe Can Change! (OVA)
Another (OAD)
High Score (OAD)
Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple (OVA)
Kimi no Iru Machi (OAD)
Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? (OAD)
Lupin Ikka Seizoroi (OVA)
Maken-Ki! (OAD)
Nekogami Yaoyorozu (OVA)
To Heart 2: Dungeon Travelers (OVA)
Yondemasu yo, Azazel-san. (OVA)

sources: fansubwiki, moetron


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

...massive list, to say the least. Not much for me to comment about this upcoming Spring season, but I'm personally looking forward to Fate Zero S2 and Shining Hearts. Then the usual trial and error to add more into my watching lists. And for some reason Sankarea and Tasogare Otome Amnesia seems very familiar to me, I don't really remember reading the manga though. Oh hey, there's another sport anime!

Impression: Atelier Totori - The Adventurer of Arland

I’ve mentioned once that originally I am not that big of a fan of Atelier series, but in 2010, Atelier Rorona was released for PS3 and it completely changed my impression toward Atelier series, for the better. And then the sequel, Atelier Totori was released. The localized version of the game was out somewhere at the end of last year, though it is not until a few weeks ago that I got my hands on the game. And that’s where most of my gaming time in these last few weeks were spent (aside of Dota and FIFA12). With that said, my impression toward the game so far has been good – enjoyable, relaxing and fun : )

Title: Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of of Arland
Developer: Gust
Platform: PlayStation 3 (PS3)
Genre: Japanese role playing game [jrpg]
Release date: June 2010 [Japanese], September 2011 [NA/EU]

So far I would say that I’ve ventured pretty far into the game, currently in my 4th year and 8th month, in the middle of building ships for oversea adventures. About 200 points to go to Galaxy rank, Adventurer and alchemy level 40+. Could have finished the ship sooner, but I decided to explore most of the Cobalt areas and play with item traits to make awesome equipments and bombs.

Back to the game, Atelier Totori was set a few years after the events in Atelier Rorona. The story is now focused on a young girl named Totooria Helmold, an innocent village girl who dreams of being an adventurer to search for her missing mother. So there you go, now instead of trying to prevent a workshop from getting scrapped in Atelier Rorona, in Atelier Totori you basically had to be a real adventurer, ranked up your Adventurer License by exploring areas, defeating monsters and synthesizing things through alchemy, and follow the (humorous) story, from the way each character talks and bickering with each other, to many other trivial things like Sterk's concern about his expression and Guid's lack of presence. By the way, Totori is Rorona’s alchemy student, and it's always fun seeing her getting teased by everyone, like a certain someone in Atelier Rorona : )

Some characters made a return in this game. Rorona is back, now in her early 20s (and somewhat becoming more and more Lionela-like, if you know what I mean >.<) and often travel across the land to teach alchemy (and failed as usual LOL). Sterk is no longer a knight, but his job now is to look for the “runaway” king. Cory works as Adventurer Officer at Arland, handling all stuff about Adventure and licenses. Tantris and Lionela didn’t appear, but their names were mentioned in one of the scenes in mid-games. Esty Dee is gone, searching for a husband (lolwhut) and her job is now taken over by her shy (and yuri) little sister, Filly Dee. The shopkeepers (Iksel, Hagel, Tiffa and Pamela) are the same, if not looking older.

Then there's new playable characters like Mimi, Mel, Gino and Marc. Overall the characters are pretty similar to those in Atelier Rorona. I mean, Totori is a LOT like Rorona – airhead, a bit dumb, clumsy, weak, fun to tease…ouch. Mimi is a carbon copy of Cory (loli, aristocrat, tsundere etc), while Melvia was pretty much a female version of Sterk, minus the seriousness. Too bad since we can recruit both of them, Mel was often left out because, well, Sterk is simply the better of the two. Gino is somewhat like Iksel – a childhood friend, except that instead of cooking, he’s crazy about adventuring.

Gameplay

Playing Atelier Totori wasn't that much different to Atelier Rorona. You still had to go out exploring new places, fights monsters, gather materials for synthesis etc so those familiar with Atelier Rorona will have no problem getting used to Totori. Well, there's no point in playing Totori if you haven't play Rorona anyway.The concept was similar, with a few tweaks to the mechanisms. For example, gathering (I mean, the act digging items from gathering points) consumes time. Battle consumes time. Walking on world map consumes a LOT of times. Therefore in early games, when you don't have the right equipment to speed up your gathering/walking speed, times flew very fast that you really had to be careful whether or not to dig a gathering point and engage in a battle. At first I was a bit pissed off because time passed so quickly than I anticipate at early game, but after awhile I'm getting used to it (especially since I got my Speed Gloves and Traveling Shoes pretty fast) and getting around the world isn't much a problem. On a side note, there's 2 main city/town in the game: Arland (I'm loving the fact that it still re-uses most of the BGM's from Atelier Rorona), and Totori's hometown, Alanya. Both place has a workshop/Atelier and specific scenes can trigger in each place, therefore we also need to be mindful about traveling back and forth from Arland to Alanya, because by default it took about 2 weeks to travel from one place to another (1 week with upgraded Carriage, ZERO days with a Warp Gate).

Synthesis

Synthesis has been a core for Atelier series, and it is no different in Atelier Totori. The mechanics was similar to Rorona, but in Totori it was more complex yet easier to manipulate to yield powerful items and equipment. Synthesized item in Totori is now associated with specific Cost Level which determine how many traits you can put in the item. Yes, now we can have a loads of crappy and good traits listed and manually select any favorable traits that we want, as long as they are within the item's Cost Level. Some new traits were also added (Eg Final Strike), while some old traits removed (eg Restrain Range). Other than that, I can't remember any other significant change of synthesis mechanic in Totori.

Battle

Like Atelier Rorona, battle is nowhere a big priority in Totori. It is needed to defeat stronger monsters and obtain rarer materials, but the emphasis in this game is more or less on synthesis and exploring areas. The basic of battle doesn't change much from Rorona and I don't really want to go into details about it. One thing for sure, in Totori you can no longer just toss a bomb to win a game (say goodbye to super awesome ultimate crazy good Meteor and Tera Bomb). Good bomb still hurts many enemies and bosses, but not to the extent of overkill that Meteor and Tera Bomb had. And since Rorona is playable, you can imagine a fun outing with both Totori and Rorona in the party, tossing bombs around. Beware of strong monsters though, since both Totori and Rorona are complete fail and fragile without their items....

Trophies
As usual, I'm trophy hunting while playing the game and aim to get Platinum on my first try. Like Rorona, most of the trophies were obtained from special scenes and multiple endings, which require us to manipulate and do several saves and reload in order to get all the endings in one playthrough. Overall it looks like getting a Platinum for Totori is easier than Rorona because the time gap/triggering requirement for many of the events aren't as restricted as Rorona. And with the game spans over 6 years, there's really plenty of time to go on adventure, collect materials, synthesize, do quests and trigger specific scenes.

Overall, I had a good time playing Atelier Totori, the scenes were always amusing to watch and although the battle/gameplay wasn't as extravagant as many of the games on PS3, it totally fit with the setting of the game. I'd feel awkward if an Atelier series had a graphic and gameplay like Final Fantasy 13. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to finish the game as soon as possible and move on to the next game.

p/s: Totori started as a kid (about 12-14 years old I assume). So at the end of the game (after 6 years), shouldn't her appearance changed to be a bit more...mature?



Next on my playing list: Final Fantasy XIII-2 : D

Mirai Nikki ED2 Single - Filament [Yousei Teikoku]

Title: Mirai Nikki ED2 Single - Filament
Artist: Yousei Teikoku
Release Date: February 08, 2011

Tracklist:

01 - filament
02 - Zetsubou plantation
03 - filament (Instrumental)
04 - Zetsubou plantation (Instrumental)

Download: [HF/EU]


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Never really thought that Yousei Teikoku and Faylan would switch roles in the middle of the anime. Nevertheless, I'm usually not a big fan of slow paced songs by Yousei Teikoku, but Filament was one of those exceptions, plus the song kinda fit with the current story of Mirai Nikki. I personally liked the second song, Zetsubou Plantation better than the ED2 song, it feels like...how should I say it, the song has the vibes of Yousei Teikoku's older songs from Stigma and Gothic Lolita Propaganda.

The Impression Series: Winter 2011/2012 [Part 2]

Another
MAL/Official site
Genre: thriller, horror, mystery, psychological
Studio Production: P.A Works
Number of Episodes: 12
Comments: The very first thing that came up to my mind when I watched the first half of episode 1: “this seems like a very promising horror/thriller”. 4 episodes on, and the series truly exceed my expectations, I’m truly amazed. With each passing episodes, I simply want MORE of them. I haven't had this excitement of watching a horror since what, the first season of Higurashi? Back to the basics, ANOTHER basically tells a story of a transfer student Sakakibara Koichi who was placed in a mysterious, awkward class 3 at his new school. Awkward because of many things, but the main thing that concerned him was the presence of a really old seat at the edge of the class, and the fact that his classmates seems to be hiding something from him. And as a curious boy he is, Koichi ended up trying to poke into matters that he “probably” shouldn’t has. I probably shouldn't tell more about the story because it's best left unspoiled, the thrill and suspense totally excites me in each episode! Overall this series gave me the vibes of Higurashi, Shiki and Ookamikakushi – creepy, gloomy at times, mysterious, thrill, horror and....death. Everything about the anime managed to convey this horror atmosphere well. The animation was great; the scenes were drawn really well to describe the dark and gloomy nature of the story (especially the occasional creepy dolls that appeared once in awhile early in the series). The eerie musics when it comes to certain scenes are just perfect to add to the creepiness. TOTALLY enjoyed the show!
p/s: evil Chihiro
Verdict: 5/5 (Must. Watch)




Ano Natsu de Matteru
MAL/Official site
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Studio Production: J.C. Staff
Number of Episodes: 12
Comments: What’s this….Onegai Teacher v2? As what you'd expect from the same creator, the similarity with Onegai Teacher was quite apparent...in a lot of aspects. The main character Kaito, the alien Ichika, the friends Kanna, Mio, Remon and Tetsurou and their relations to each other were almost a carbon copy of their counterpart in Onegai Teacher. I’d even say that Remon didn’t even change since Ichigo in OT. Only a tweak in story, and we got Ano Natsu de Matteru. The vintage setting featuring suburb location with lots of beautiful sceneries and the comforting background music were great as it brings back the good memories of Onegai Teacher and Onegai Twins (and I love the latter). A recycled idea I’d say, but still refreshing and fun to watch for me. The comedies made me smiles, and being a school comedy romance, things like misunderstanding and unrequited love are inevitable. Youth times, huh. I personally like Kanna compared to other girls though, her voice kinda fit with her face and personality.
p/s: Highschool of the Dead movie in my animu D :
Verdict: 4/5 (watching)




Nisemonogatari
MAL/Official site
Genre: Comedy, Psychological, Supernatural
Studio Production:
Number of Episodes:
Comments: When Bakemonogatari first aired some years ago, I'm awed by SHAFT's effort to make it unique and very interesting (as they've always had with SZS, Maria Holic etc). Now we have the sequel in Nisemonogatari, pretty much a continuation of [part of] the story where Oshino left and one of the culprit who tortured Senjogahara in season 1 making a comeback. The plot doesn't really differed much than the first season, except that now we're more exposed to the likes of Araragi's two little sisters, and Shinobu. Overall I wouldn't say I'm not enjoying it because I certainly am, but rather the story so far doesn't really had anything that surpassed my expectation from whatever I watched in its prequel. One thing that Nisemonogatari has never failed to amazed me is the dialogue - always witty and although tend to get draggy, often comes with a good blend of humors and brilliant lines. The animation was top notch as always, and now it feel a lot less cluttered and easier to the eyes. Enjoyable? Yes, but so far, not as much as I enjoy season 1, and I hope the next few episodes can change my perception.
Verdict: 3.5/5 (watching)




Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai
MAL/Official site
Genre: romance, comedy, slice of life
Studio Production: Feel
Number of Episodes: 12
Comments: It looks like a harem romance comedy series at first, but as I watched more episodes, I realized that the series is more than that. Papakiki tells a story about Segawa Yuta, a freshman university student, whom due to a certain incident, suddenly found himself in an unlikely position of being the guardian of his sister’s three daughters, Sora, Miu and Hina. In that respect, Yuta’s situation reminded me a lot to Usagi Drop – the difficulty he faced from raising the three girls all alone while balancing with his study and work. In real life, I could never imagine someone able to do all that…The plot developed rather slow (it’s not until episode 2 and three that the whole matter about being the girls’s guardian was settled), but I'm fine with the pace because, well, it doesn't feel rushed. While sometimes amusing and fun to watch, I gotta say episode 2 and 3 gave made me sad and touching more than hilarity, but it’s a good sign that the story actually had some substances rather than an empty harem comedy show. Nevertheless although the story focused on Yuta and the three girl’s daily lives, once in awhile we did see the people at Yuta’s “Sightseeing” Club getting involved with the story, and I’m certainly interested to see how the voluptuous Raika mixed into all this mess in Yuta’s university life.
p/s: Sako = Daru.
Verdict: 3.5/5 (watching)


Also got the likes of Inu x Boku SS and Recorder to Randoseru in my watchlist, but I guess I don't really need to write a lengthy impression on those. Oh yeah, I'm kinda inclined to watch Black Rock Shooter, but maybe I'll do that...much later. Winter seems a lot crowded in my watchlist this year compared to the last -_-