The Platinum Series [12]: Tales of Grace F

It's not me if I didn't get a platinum for arguably my favorite JRPG series, the Tales.It's been quite awhile since my last Platinum (FFXIII-2), added to the fact that I didn't have as much time as I used to for games. Overall, it took me about 3 months to platinum this game, or roughly 150+ hours of in-game time. Not so much I guess, compared to the time I spent on Tales of Vesperia or Star Ocean 4.

Title: Tales of Grace F
Developer: Namco Tales Studio
Platform: PlayStation 3 (PS3)
Genre: Japanese role playing game (jrpg)
Release date: March 2012 (NA)


Overall Platinum Difficulty: 5/10 (moderate) 

 If I could compare Tales of Grace F with another games that I've platinumed, I would say the difficulty is roughly similar to Resonance of Fate - there's not too many overwhelmingly skill/technical-based trophies, and most of the time you need to spend time grinding for a few trophies. In Tales of Grace F's case, it's the trophy that require you to develop your Eleth Mixer to its maximum capacity of 9999. A time consuming process, considering you normally get only a few eleth increase (sometimes NONE) when you cooked a dish in battle. Thankfully there's this wonderful dish called Miso Stew that made the task much faster - going from around 6.5k eleth to the maximum 9999 eleth in about 4 hours (though the non-stop grinding is boring).

Talk about skill-based trophies, there are a few of those, but none of them are as gruesomely annoying and frustrating than special challenge 17 in Tales of Vesperia (aiming Yeager's heart core). (Probably) the most difficult trophy to get; the "Beat _______ in 60 seconds"; beat the last boss on Chaos mode; beat the secret bosses in Zhonegace/Coliseum etc; are all easily attainable in New Game+ with little to no effort, especially on Easy mode. They are harder to accomplish in your first playthrough, but still attainable through title grinding/eleth gauge preparation/duelizing weapons. 

And then the rest of the trophies, in which largely requires you to unlock about 100 titles for each characters (except Richard). That's it. We really don't have to go through the tedious process of completely do everything like we need to do in Vesperia. No need to fight every single enemies, no need to complete every single Collector's book, no need to watch all skits, no need to get all items etc. I kinda wish there's a trophy for getting every single titles in the game, and THAT's what I call a real difficult trophy to get.

guess what I'm playing right now XD

Overall,  Tales of Grace F was a real enjoyment for me. While the "friendship" theme of the story is a little bit too generic and boring, the characters and good voice acting made up for that. But most importantly the gameplay is one that I really enjoyed the most out of recent Tales series. It's fast-paced, balanced, easy to chain, and nowhere near as broken as Vesperia (blablabla Tidal Wave!). The Grade system in this series also ensure that we can't really "farm" grade for subsequent playthrough (again, blablabla Tidal Wave!). The only other disappointment I had for the series are the forgettable musics, it was definitely one of the least memorable OST in recent Tales's series. 

Okay, time to anticipate the next Tales series to be localised into English, Tales of Xillia!!!! 

Speaking of which, where oh where is Tales of Vesperia PS3 English !!! ＼(゜ロ＼)

 

The Impression Series: Summer 2012 [Part 1]

(No) thanks to Tales of Grace F, my time spent watching anime last spring was severely limited (in the end I ended up with only Hyouka, Kuroko, Amnesia and Sankarea in my weekly watchlist while others were still in my on-hold list). But now that I’ve nearly platinumed the game (only 1 trophy left), I should have more time to spend on anime, or at least keep up with more titles this season than last spring. And so far, Summer 2012 offered quite a number of series that have taken a lot of my interest.  I guess I'll just make this a quick of an impression.

p/s: Hakuouki without Yukimura is kinda boring : (

Moyashimon Returns 
MAL/OFFICIAL SITE 
Genre: comedy, microbiology (lol)
Studio Production: Shirogumi Inc
Number of Episodes: 12

Comments: So, why not start with the series I wanted to watch the most this season, Moyashimon Returns. I can never forget the first season, one of the few series that actually brought me deeply into anime back then in 2007. It's good to see the series back. The stories needs no explanation, and being a former agricultural student who partially involved in bacterial work and fermentation processes, I found the theme really engaging. Everyone returned and still haven't changed much, though I would say the art for some of the characters seems to be tweaked a little (especially Oikawa and Sawaki). The microbes were cute, the comedy was funny, and just like season 1, the story did a great job in explaining a lot of fermentation and bacterial stuff in the series. Especially the ED song, that was awesome (and always made me smile when they introduce those microbes). As for where the plot will go after this...well as long as they keep the story interesting, funny and informative, I'm all in for the series. Oh yeah, I'm still kinda interested about why Kei drop out of college and changed into a Trap : )

verdict: 5/5 (absolutely must watch!)















Arcana Famiglia 
MAL/OFFICIAL SITE 
Genre: action, comedy, drama
Studio Production: J.C. Staff
Number of Episodes: 12

Comments: Okay, I thought I was in for some Baccano treat, but I realized I was wrong after about 10 minutes into the first episode. The premise of battle tournament between group members, each with their own arcana powers (being arguably the strongest, it's no wonder that the Papa and Mama are The World and Judgement respectively) to select the new leader for the group were interesting to say the least, and the animation art was quite excellent to boot. Unfortunately, the characters left me a bit unimpressed. Yes they are unique, gifted with special powers blablabla, but I just can't help but finding the guys in the group typical, boring and uninteresting, especially the reckless Liberta (Fool arcana, huh?). It's gonna be interesting to see how each of them are going to develop and utilize their Arcana power for the battle, if that ever happened.

p/s: somehow I prefer Nova-Fecilita pairing more than Liberta.
verdict: 3/5 (might continue watching)















Tari Tari 
MAL/OFFICIAL SITE 
Genre: comedy, drama
Studio Production: P.A. Works
Number of Episodes: 13

Comments: Am I weird for saying that the title is awful? Nonetheless, the first few episodes gave me quite a good impression. A likeable and fascinating story of a group of student in their final year of high school, each with their own unique backgrounds and pasts, trying to live their dream  (or rather, a person's dream), brought together and ended up creating a club that benefits all of them, one way or another (Choir and Sometimes Badminton Club, really?). Neat and beautiful graphic as expected from P.A. Works, from the background scenery to character creation, as well as great choice of seiyuu. And, True Tear's Reflectia OP song certainly caught my attention in episode 1, that choir was great and brings back good old memories : )

verdict: 4.5/5 (watching)















Hagure Yuusha no Estetica 
MAL/OFFICIAL SITE 
Genre: action, drama, fantasy, romance
Studio Production: ARMS
Number of Episodes: 12

Comments: Hagure Yuusha no Erotica...? So much of my impression in the first 2 episodes, but it changed a little in episode 3, because surprisingly there's not a single uncensored stuff! Thank goodness (lol). I like the story - imagine (or some sort) Tidus beat Jecth and Yu Yevon, take its daughter (whoever it was) and back to his other world of Zanarkand, and the story started from that point onward, where he still inherited whatever combat skill he learned in Spira and had to enroll in some kind of college. Okay, pardon the lame analogy. But you get the gist, that's what the anime basically is, and I like it. The fact that Akatsuki is not your usual weak guy, a bit perverted yet kind-hearted and love to tease people around him (esp those from Student Council) were refreshing and funny. The graphic, action, musics (Faylan!), my favorite seiyuus, I love all of them, and I certainly would not want to miss this anime.

verdict: 4/5 (watching)















Campione!
MAL/OFFICIAL SITE 
Genre: adventure, fantasy, romance, comedy
Studio Production: Diomedea
Number of Episodes: 12

Comments: Okay, normal student-turned Godslayer Godou Kusanagi, the Campione, now being hunted by all kind of divine beings for his accomplishment and powers. I've never bothered to read the LN, so my impression was totally based on what I saw from the first 3 episodes of the anime. The story was okay and entertaining at times, but I feel some of the scenes were very predictable and lacked proper buildup (what's the deal with Athena and Krancar, again?). Not to mention that the subpar graphic and battle effect made it a bit less interesting for me. One more thing, while being totally different, I can't help but thinking about 2 other similar shows that's being aired at this same season whenever I watch this anime.

verdict: 3/5














Yuru Yuri 2
MAL/OFFICIAL SITE 
Genre: comedy slice of life
Studio Production: Dogakobo
Number of Episodes: 12

Comments: I have to admit that I love the first season, probably one of the very few all-girl, mild yuri shows that I like to watch - mostly because of Kyouko and Ayano lol. And of course, I also like the show because I enjoyed comedy slice of life, if it's done the right way. So now that the second season is out, I guess there's no reason for me "not" to watch the show, although sometimes I feel the random stuff they put in there was... too random? If you know what I mean. Good for some laugh, at least.

verdict: 3.5/5

that's it for part 1.

Summer 2012 Anime List

TV

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

OVA

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

sources: fansubwiki/moetron

===========================================

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

Tales of Grace F: marching toward the Platinum

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

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

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

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

My character assessment:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Warriors Orochi 3 - crossover, and more crossover

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

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

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

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

Gameplay

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

Hero selection

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

Other features

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

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

The Impression Series: Spring 2012 [Part 2]

Damn I'm sure taking my time for this (Tales of Grace F is just too awesome). I was supposed to post this weeks ago, but somehow I totally forgot about it and the entry ended up in my draft. Now this is not even supposed to be called a first impression entry...well I guess no use keeping it forever in my draft list, so I might as well finish the post now before I forgot about it again. Nonetheless, not much to add to the 6 series I've watched in my part 1.

Tasogare Otome x Amnesia
MAL/OFFICIAL SITE 
Genre: mystery, romance, supernatural, comedy
Studio Production: Silver Link
Number of Episodes: 12

Comments: When I looked at the anime list released for this season some months ago, for some reason I had a feeling that this series would be the show I would “probably” enjoy the most this season, together with Sankarea. And my hunch was correct. Amnesia, while vaguely similar to Sankarea, was quite entertaining in much more different ways. For one, the OP song Choir Jail was so awesome I don’t think I would remove it from my playlist for a long time (along with Kusoo Merosogii and Dead End). Secondly, the plot was entertaining. From the existence of the legendary ghost named Yuuko that haunts the school but in fact was a pretty girl who often hanged out with the main character Teichii Niya; other members of Paranormal Investigation Club Okonogi and Kanoe who often made things even more entertaining; the mystery/supernatural elements added every now and then, mainly revolving around Yuuko’s tale and her past; and most importantly, the comedy/romance. The animation art was magnificently done with many scenes incorporating darker background to complement the theme. And I like the fact that sometimes it assimilate SHAFT's unique animation style, with the unique camera angle, random dialogue appearing every now and then…

verdict: 5/5















Hyouka
MAL/OFFICIAL SITE 
Genre: mystery, school life
Studio Production: Kyoto Animation
Number of Episodes: 21

Comments: Finally another show by KyoAni, but I didn’t really expect they would go for this kind of series. You know…the mild mystery genre that once engulfed the Suzumiya Haruhi series, but without the element of supernatural in it. Hyouka tells the story of an “eco-friendly” boy named Oreki Houtarou who doesn’t like to get involved in anything and would rather preserve his energy...for nothing. Until one day when he was “coerced” into joining the Classic Club by his sister, met a super curious girl named Chitanda Eru, and from that point his energy conservation lifestyle seems to be over, no thanks to his great logic and analysis ability. The little mystery that came in every episode was well crafted given the fact that Houtarou often solved it in the simplest manner possible, then when it comes to the bigger mystery, he used every possible information available to draw the most feasible answer to the puzzle. Despite their contrasting nature, the unenthusiastic Houtarou and energetically curious Chitanda, along with their friends Fukube and Ibara are quite good pairings when it comes to doing their routine club activities.

 verdict: 4.5/5

p/s: is this the season of long black haired girl? Rea of Sankarea, Yuuko of Amnesia, Yuka of Natsuiro Kiseki, Chitanda of Hyouka....

Hiiro no Kakera
MAL/OFFICIAL SITE 
Genre: fantasy, romance, supernatural
Studio Production: Studio DEEN
Number of Episodes: 26

Comments: Damn now it’s already over 8 episodes, can’t even call this a first impression, huh. When the series first aired, I’ve never really planned to put this into my watchlist. But as I watched a few more episodes, I kinda started to like the series, maybe because it had the resemblance to Hakuouki, from the reverse harem point, and the same production of studio DEEN. Mind you I’m no fan of reverse harem, but those from DEEN seem to have something that I enjoyed. Maybe the action/supernatural factor, maybe the animation art…The plot revolves around a girl named Tamaki, a descendant of the powerful Tamayori princess and hence was targeted by all kind of menaces, but surrounding her are 5 guardians assigned to protect her. The plot was rather slow at first but then it started to build up quickly once those people that targeted Tamaki appeared, complemented by some nice fighting scenes. One thing I’m really hoping for though is that it won’t have a disappointing ending, like Hakuouki. And I want to see the romance more. Well, a long way to go I guess.

verdict: 4/5















Haiyore! Nyaruko-san
MAL/OFFICIAL SITE 
Genre: comedy
Studio Production: Xebec
Number of Episodes: 12

Comments: my god, an anime with all the weird names from cthulhu mythos, thanks HP Lovecraft. Never been the fan of the work so I’ll put the mythology aside, but I certainly had a lot of laugh watching the craziness of the characters in this series, the ridiculousness of the jokes, the repeated gags that reminds me to Bokusatsu-tenshi Dokuro-chan. But with less guro. So the story (well do people really care about the plot of this series?) is about Nyaruko (aka Nyarlathotep), a totally messed up "deity" withh so many crazy shit going on inside her head, coming to earth for the sole reason to protect a boy named Mahiro Yasaka, and subsequently all kind of other “mystic” creatures/aliens came either to help them or to oppose/break them. To be honest there’s really not much for me to say, the plot was forgettable but it was balanced by the unique characters, pretty animation and funny jokes. A light-hearted comedy series like this is always welcomed into my watchlist.

verdict: 3.5/5

Victory Quotes

....and and this is one of the reason why Tales series are so enjoyable, especially Tales of Grace F. Pascal, Sophie, Malik, Cheria, Asbel, Hubert and to some extent, Richard made things really entertaining XD

or for just the English sound clips to complement the video above;

still a long way to finish the game...I mean, Platinum it. Gonna enjoy it slowly.

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