Ho-kago Tea Time

Those of you who read my previous post may notice that it was not as long as some of the other posts I have made (I have even had this pointed out to me). Those of you who watch a lot of modern anime will also notice that the picture I posted is of a character from a very popular anime: K-ON!

I recently finished watching it and I want to talk about but, I don’t know what to say about it. It seems that everything I think of doesn’t do the show justice. Having said that, its not as if the show is easy to describe well.

The synopsis of the show is: A small group of high school girls decide to revive the light music club.
That’s it. No super powers, no magical abilities, no “saving the world”, no romantic developments between characters (although it is parodied).

For me, its the characters that make the show special and so good. Let me introduce you to the cast. (May contain spoilers from here on in)

Name: Yui Hirasawa
Role: Lead guitarist / Lead Singer
Description: Yui is a… carefree girl who loves food. While not the brightest bulb in the box, she does have her moments. She also cannot read music and doesn’t know much in the way of musical terminology, but that has yet to stop her. She didn’t know how to play the guitar before joining the club but has made up for it with plenty of practice. She named her guitar ‘Gitah’.

Name: Ritsu Tainaka (Ricchan)
Role: Drummer / Club President
Description: Ritsu is the resident tomboy and the closest the show has to a genki girl. Ritsu is the one who got Mio into music and has been her friend since they were in Elementary school. Ritsu is not the most responsible when it comes to important tasks as she often forgets to fill in important forms. She has a younger brother called Satoshi. Ritsu became a drummer after watching the Who. Due to how she acts, she often gets hit on the head by Mio as a way of punishment.

Name: Mio Akiyama
Role: Bassist / Lead Singer

Description: Mio is easily the most popular character inside the series. Mio is the shy, mature girl of the group. Her shyness and scaredy nature tend to be her defining points, that and the fact that the characters agree that she looks good in whatever outfit Sawako puts her in. After the club’s first performance, Mio accidently gained herself a fan club when she gave the audience the only pantyshot in the anime. Mio gets scared easily, a fact that Ritsu is more than happy to prove whenever possible. Mio writes most of the lyrics to the band’s songs, though when a vocalist was being picked, she didn’t like the idea of having to sing in front of an audience, something Yui didn’t help with when she (Yui) lost her voice from practising too hard.

Name: Tsumugi Kotobuki (Mugi)

Role: Keyboardist

Description: Tsumugi is a rich airhead. She often gets excited by or wants to try things that people often take for granted, such as ordering fast food or getting hit. Tsumugi provides the tea and sweets that the clubs spend most their meetings consuming. She also provides the group with villas for their summer training camp, though she does not like showing off her family’s wealth. Her family owns the music shop the club normally uses and because of this, the club have had unlikely discounts when the staff recognise Tsumugi. Tsumugi gets entranced by two girls interacting intimately, imagining something different to what is actually going on. Tsumugi was considered a piano prodigy when she was four and has had experience winning contests.

Name: Azusa Nakano (Azunyan)

Role: Rhythm Guitarist

Description: Azusa is the sole student the club managed to recruit when the members went into their second year. She joined after watching their recruitment performance. Azusa is serious about performing and practising, having played the guitar since she was in the four grade. When she first joined, she looked up to Yui’s guitar playing, as she believes herself a novice. This soon changed and she ended up teaching Yui how to play the guitar. Azusa doesn’t like the fact that the club spends most of its time goofing off, however she is easy to calm with sweets. Azusa is in the year below the rest of the members, because of this she is made club president when the remaining member graduate. Azusa’s cuteness is often commented on, whether she likes it or not.

Name: Sawako Yamanaka (Sawa-chan)
Role: Club advisor / Home room teacher
Description: Sawako is the school’s music teacher and was made the club’s advisor after Ritsu and Yui found her picture in the previous Light Music Club band: Death Devil. Sawako wants to throw away her past so that everyone sees her as a gentle and kind teacher, however she always seems to manage to come back to her band persona. Sawako often spends her time lazing in the club room, enjoying Tsumugi’s tea. She has a nack for making outfits for the club and likes to be complemented on her work. She was the lead singer of Death Devil and taught Yui how to sing and play at the same time. Her wild personality came from a desire to please her high school crush, but she overdid it.

Name: Ui Hirasawa

Role: Yui’s younger sister

Description: There is a stark contrast in personality between Yui and Ui, while Yui is lazy and immature, Ui is mature and constantly looking after Yui, acting more like an older sister rather than a younger one. In appearance, however, there is little difference between the sisters, which Ui uses to pretend to be Yui. Ui often does the chores and cooks for Yui. Ui is a fast learner, which she uses to pretend be Yui when she falls ill. Ui is friends with Jun and Azusa and joins Azusa in the light music club when the seniors graduate. Ui cannot see any negatives in Yui, thinking any that are pointed as positives or cute.

Name: Nodoka Manabe
Role: Class Representative / Student Council President / President of Mio’s fanclub / Yui’s childhood friend
Description:  Nodoka is a well-mannered and intelligent girl. She acts as the clubs liaison to the student council, often chasing up any forms Ritsu forgets to fill out. Nodoka is made the president of Mio’s fanclub after the previous one graduated. When the club members enter their second year, Mio is grateful to see Nodoka in her class as she doesn’t know anyone in her class. Nodoka occasionally shares stories about Yui’s childhood with the other members of the light music club.

Name: Jun Suzuki
Role: Jazz club member / Friend of Ui and Azusa
Description: Jun is a classmate of Azusa and Ui who hangs out with Ui. She is easygoing but can occasionally be unintentionally rude. She plays a bass in the jazz club and looks up to Mio. She often asks Azusa about what the light music club does, and gets envious of the activities the members get up to. She joins the club when the senior members graduate.

And that is all the main characters. I could give more information so I’ll just give you the K-ON wiki link: http://k-on.wikia.com/wiki/K-ON!_Wiki and may favourite moments from the series:
The band’s first performance
The club’s last performance
When Ui masquerades as Yui so the band can perform
When the club first hears Azusa play
Whenever Yui forgets the Lyrics
When Yui arrived an hour early, so she practised in the clubroom
When Mio uses her bass to wake Ritsu and Yui

See ya

It’s a new year…

Sorry for not updating folks, left it then things got busy.
Anyway

Welcome! To the new year! How is the new year treating everyone? Me and my cold have managed to avoid dull moments everywhere.

Lets review 2010, shall we?
I give it 7/10, has its good points and bad.

I’m just keeping this post short.
I’ll probably do a proper update…at some point…in the future.

And now I’ll leave you with a pic of Ui Hirasawa from K-ON!

Isn't she adorable?

A game of love

This month I’m gonna point out: Katawa Shoujo

This is a completely free, in the works, visual novel / dating sim featuring the theme of disability (don’t judge, its actually pretty good). However, before I get any further, social thingies (I forgotten the word I want) require me to point out that the game is going to be an eroge and the final product is going to contain sex scenes, so make sure you are over age / have permission from parents /  guardians (There, now you can’t complain! I warned you).

Currently only the first act is out, which only contains a couple of swear words and a death (Spoiler there, sorry). So I’d say that would be ok, which is good because that is all I’ve played of it and therefore, can recommend.

You play Hisao Nakai (I think that’s right), a normal school boy until his crush confesses to him and in turn gives him a heart attack. He ends up moving to a disabled school because of his Arrythmia.
Think about that for a second: the player character in a romantic game has a heart problem which was found because of a romantic situation. Yeah, this does not bode well.

The ‘winnable’ girls in the game:

From right to left: Emi, Shizune, Rin, Hadako, Lilly (Anyone paying attention will notice I did them BACKWARDS!). Note that all the girls, while their paths are separate, have been ‘paired up’. What I mean here is that they will have a friend who you often see them with or talk to them about. These partnerships tend to either have some sort of irony (I guess?) or obviousness to them

And now more details:
Name: Lilly (I can’t remember if its double ‘l’ or not)
Disability: Blind
Notes: Lilly is the sophisticated girl of the options, coming from a private school beforehand. She acts sort of motherly / sisterly towards Hadako, who is her ‘partner’.

Name: Hadako
Disability: Physical Scarring and emotional trauma
Notes: Hadako is your shrinking violet, to the extreme (and who can blame her?). Although considered a hard girl to ‘win’, she was the first I ‘got’. I do find a sort of poetry(?) (god-damn my vocabulary) in her partnership: Physically scarred girl is friends with the only main character who can’t see at her

Name: Emi
Disability: Lack of legs below knee
Notes: Out of all the girls’ paths I’ve seen so far, Emi’s seems the one most likely to kill Hisao (the player) as it seems to follow her path, you have to willing attempt to spark a heart attack. She also lampshades her partnership with Rin: "Someone in accommendation decided to put our rooms next to each other." "Together we have a full set of limbs". Emi is also the Genki girl of the cast as she is easily very active and cheerful, if anything her prosthetics help that as she is now the fastest runner on the track team.

Name: Rin
Disability: No arms from shoulder (Just look at her picture)
Notes: Rin is a very thoughtful person to the point where her response to a kick up the backside to get her to finish her project is: "I shall think harder". For those who are wondering: she does everything with her feet.

Name: Shizune
Disability: Deaf
Notes: Shizune is the first of the girls who you meet and possibly the least friendly depending on your take on her. Student council president, Shizune can appear manipulative and definitely has a competitive streak. Shizune’s partner is her translator: Misha. Misha isn’t mentioned because you can’t ‘get’ her, and doesn’t appear to have a disability (though she does have a problem with volume control)

I’ll also mention the ‘bromance’ option (No incest):
Name: Kenji
Disability: Partially blind
Notes: Misogynistic conspirathy theorist who has his own ending (admittedly its the bad end, but nevertheless). So far the only one who appears nude (though it is censored, so its alright) and can be an entertaining character when you converse with him.

Overall, I like what I’ve experienced so far, so I’m looking forward to the final product.

And I’m back…

I apologise for not updating at all. I’ve moved in to uni and August was very busy, so I kinda forgot, oopsie

Quick update:
MP2: Echoes: Found the Sonic boom, god is it fun!
Disgaea: Completed story mode only to start Edna mode and find that I don’t keep two of my strongest characters, d’oh!
MM ZX: Borrowed it off a flat mate and completed it. Not bad, main problem I had with it was a lack of proper map, meaning that when you were supposed to find areas to perform missions, you didn’t know where to look
Time Hollow:  ||
                      \/

And now the main topic:

Time Hollow

Great game for the DS. It follows the adventures of Ethan Kairos, a supposed normal boy who gets a bizarre pen that allows him open portals to the past.
The story goes like this: On the eve of his 17th birthday, Ethan has a weird conversation with his parents about something his Dad is going to give to him on the following day. The day rolls over and Ethan wakes up to find that his parents have been gone for 12 years and he’s been living with his uncle ever since. Ethan also finds out that his class has a student who wasn’t there before and only he appears to notice this…

The game is a sort of visual novel / mystery game as you play as Ethan, who goes around trying to work out what changed and why so he can fix it.

I’d certainly recommend it, and while it may not be too long, it can keep you amused for more than a few hours… if that is your cup of tea, if not then don’t bother, I’m not gonna force you.

Spoilers past this point:

While I do like the game, I do have some gripes with the ‘new game +’. First of which being, its waaaaay too short. The only ending it offers is effectively a shortcut to the main ending with the ending playing with minor differences. Considering how much I was looking forward to seeing all the ‘new game +’ had to offer, I was really disappointed.
My other complaint about the bonus story is this, you have the chance to follow this story halfway through the tutorial. If you pick any of the options to return to the main story, the tutorial picks up right where it left off. Now seeing as you just started the bonus which (as far as I know) you can only access after completing the game, it be a fair assumption to make that you already know how to play. So this just makes things annoying.

Thinking back on it, I guess I feel that the game missed its chance to have a romantic side quest of sorts (maybe, its just me?). Having said that, I guess that doing something like that would be awkward to somehow make possible in the plot, seeing the only female who’d remember what you’ve done for her is Kori, so yeah. And the part where Ethan is considered a murderer wouldn’t help.

Anyway, well worth playing

8/10

My gaming stats

Update: I finished Prime 2! Well, the story mode. I love Spider Ball, was glad when I finally killed that damn boss. Got to the ending and received a nasty shock: 78% complete. That’s right, I just squeaked the good ending. I was aiming for 100% but, I got annoyed with looking so I decided to take down the final bosses (those of you who pay attention and scan everything you come across would have been able to work out the last boss). Its nice to know, though, that when it comes to the 100%, I now know how to kill them and will have alot more in the way of ammo and health. Anyway, on with the post!

Recently I came across a forum thread talking about player weaknesses in gaming (Failing to watch your back, focusing too much in one area, etc) and I’ve decided to go over what I think are my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to gaming.

Real-time strategy:
Strengths: I make a handy decoy / back-up when it comes to team battles, spamming units
Weaknesses: Complete lack of micromanagement and co-ordination

First Person Shooters:
Strengths: Decent critical hit ratio (I have this uncanny ability to score impressive shots with complete flukes), short to medium range
Weaknesses: Sniping, Snipers, have a habit of spending more time looking for ammo than attacking

Role-Playing Games:
Strengths: I go out of my way to look for goodies, Focus on healing
Weaknesses: Don’t like using items, will try to minimize MP/SP/PP usage if possible

Racing games:
Strengths: Can drive for small periods of time while attention is elsewhere (i.e. looking behind)
Weaknesses: Have a habit of misjudging corners, don’t use brake

Sport:
Strengths: Persistant?
Weaknesses: General lack of skill

Platformers:
Strengths: N/A
Weaknesses: General lack of skill

Adventure games:
Strengths: Surviving?
Weaknesses: In Metroidvania games I have a habit of getting lost / forgetting where I’ve looked

Action games:
Strengths: Persistance?
Weaknesses: Spamming moves

Fighting games:
Strengths: Surviving?
Weaknesses: Losing controls

That’s all the genres I can think of
I really need to think these through before putting them up
Oh well, its not like people read them

A tale of two worlds

(Cutting it a bit close here)

Recently I’ve gone back to Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and I’m glad I stumbled across it in the first place. Out of the Metroid Prime Trilogy I think Echoes was the one least publised, but that’s just my opinion. Finding it in the pre-owned section, I decided to get it based on my experiences of the first one (I don’t have it I borrowed it). And the game has lived up to expectations so far.

Aside from being a Metroidvania game (an adventure game that lets the player find their own way at the own pace, emphasis on exploring), the main feature is a Light / Dark theme which presents itself in two, linked, forms.

The first is the Dark world, which is like a mirror of the light world, except it isn’t. The layout changes, inaccessible areas are now open and paths that are open in the ‘light’ world are now blocked off. Rooms that contained say a save station, now are ammo depots. Even the atmosphere is trying to kill you. Although this is a neat idea and I like it, you can’t help shake the feeling that you’re retreading previously explored areas as you explore the dark world. The layout hasn’t changed drastically and most ‘rooms’ look similar between both worlds, so it feels like the staff were taking short-cuts when it came to level design.

The other form is the light and dark beam weapons. They act as a sort of reverse polarity weapon, creatures that are weak to light beam are generally resistant to dark, though this isn’t always true. This inverse polarity only really comes into effect in the dark world. Seeing as the light world is supposed to be a normal world, that means that most weapons will work anyway unless the game is being horribly specific. In the Dark world, the light beam is your saviour for the most part as most creatures are weak to "bright light" and it can super charge the safe areas so that they are deadly to most creatures as well as open doors and power system crystals. Dark beam, not so useful.
The light beam fires beams on intense light which burn most enemies when you charge up, dealing more damage. The charge up shot fires a spread shot which can incinerate Ing (main bad things) if you persist.
If the light beam is ‘fire’ then the dark beam is ‘ice’. The charge shot homes in one what you are locked onto and freezes it. While not very useful against Ing, it has the same effect as the ice beam on Metroids.

I could go on but meh, feeling lazy and its hard enough trying to work out what to say next. So I’ll end on the final note: I do not like any aspect of morph ball.

Space: The Penultimate frontier

Been playing Infinite Space recently, its a great game, I’d recommend it to any sci-fi fan, or just anybody who’s had the dream of owning their own space fleet.
I  haven’t finished and I won’t spoil it

You play as Yuri, a teenage who dreams of going into space. You don’t directly control him, instead controlling the fleet as a whole and making various decisions for him.

I’m gonna say now: All the hype and various info about is likely to exagurate the content:
Yes, it is customisable, but only in certain areas. You don’t get to choose the colours of your ships for example
Next, yes you do control a fleet… of a maximum of Five ships, of which Yuri needs to ‘learn’ how to ‘control’. This means that the maximum number of ships in your fleet slowly increases as the game goes on
Next, yes there are 100s (probably, I’ve been looking and been picking up as many as I can, I think), but you will end up finding that you will have more crew than positions, somewhat destroying the illusion that everyone has a certain job

The Battle system is simple, (oh, is it just!) and I’m gonna fail at portraying that but I’ll try: You start with 3 options, (well, 6 if you count movement as well): Barrage, Normal, Dodge.
Normal: All your ships fire a single volley of shots at the target, does double damage against Dodge
Barrage: Simply put- 3 ‘Normals’ in a row for the cost of 2, fails against Dodge
Dodge: Your ships ‘dodge’ until you pick a different command (except from Movement and Anti-air)

There are 6 more commands that you’ll learn as time goes on: Melee, Fighters, Anti-air, Special (1, 2, 3):
Melee (Not aplicable to all battles): Use this to board an enemy ship in a Rock-Paper-Scissors style fight. Winning the fight ends the battle, retreating (either side) returns you to the battle.
Fighters (Requires Specific Ships): Sends all Fighters in hanger (not all Fighters on ship) to attack selected ship. If enemy launches fighters, then the two will fight and the winner will continue to the enemy ship. Note that if any ships are attacked by fighters then fleet cannot move.
Anti-air: Fires anti-fighter weapons, is ended similar way to Dodge
Special: Activates whichever special ability is attached to that command. Effects vary depending on ability

Last thing I’m gonna say about this game is the mood: It starts as a fairly bright and naive atmosphere which gets darker and darker, before a big event happens and it goes from sad and depressing to almost morale-raising… which is about as far as I am

And that is all I’m gonna say on this, if you wanna know more, play the game!

This is not a joke

Wow, I’m really bad at this
This is late because… I broke my computer then revision started (yay(!)), but I’m doing it now

Anyway, I went to see Alice in Wonderland… Sunday before last. It is brilliant –  GO WATCH IT NOW!

I won’t spoil any of it but it is well worth it. You can watch it in 3D but in my opinion it doesn’t add anything to it, so yeah, your choice.

Quick update as well, I’ve recorded the trading side-quest, I’ll get those up when I can. Other than that, I’m not gonna have too much time to be recording because of revision so I’m gonna wait until after

Well, I think that’ll be all

See ya

Spoon!

Sorry

Sorry

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There’s no getting away from it, I messed up my own schedule. My excuse: February got busy fast and I ended up forgetting, sorry it’s bound to happen again.

As for update…
um…
Let me think of something

Wii Fit in a box!

Before I start, I’ve decided that I’m gonna update this a minimum of once a month, when will vary but I will try to make sure that posts aren’t consecutive (I can’t remember if that’s how its spelt). Now, on with the show!

Very much earlier this month, we got Nintendo’s updated "Lets try to grab as many people into gaming by aiming it at families" game (I don’t care if it wasn’t aiming it at families, I still don’t like the idea of it): Wii Fit PLUS.

This game seems to be largely based on making act like a complete twit while giving you the delusions that you’re getting better. Granted we haven’t had it a month and I haven’t been able to use it for a good portion of that because of revision (I HATE exams!) so I’m not expecting much.

The game seems rather pointless, and I really doubt that its paying much attention to whatever it is you’re trying to do on it short from acting like a futuristic pair of scales.

Then you got the various characters who act as trainiers or your mirror-self or something like that. The game expects that you can do whatever it is doing onscreen, and then grades you based on where your balance was. Except I really doubt that half their target audience can realistically do what its asking them to do, at least with injuring themselves. To be honest, that was the highest my foot has been up my body with having to move to a side and it screwed up my balance because it didn’t want to be there. "Yoga Novice" oh, screw you game.
My major problem with the trainers is that the don’t move their mouth, c’mon Nintendo! CG people have been doing that for years, so it can’t be that hard. I find it rather off putting to see the teacher try to encourage me when they aren’t actually communicating to me like anybody else would. There’s subtitles, so sign language would work… except for the parts where you have to put your head down, but you get the picture.
Finally: the board, oh god. He/It (voice doesn’t sound very feminine, not to be sexist) has a voice designed to amuse 6 year olds and parents (I want to categorise them further but I’m not sure how) and I fit neither category. This means that I find it annoying and what it says somewhere between "****ING STOP IT NOW" cute and offensive. It says "ow" when you get on in a horrendously cute way. "Keep still" I am still, I centred my balance about two seconds after I got on and haven’t moved enough to worry you. "See you again tomorrow (or something to that extent)" STOP WAVING YOU ****! You’ve just gone and told me that I’ve (somehow) put on weight and I’m bouncing between getting weaker and in peferct health!

…Yeah I don’t like that thing

Finally note, and this isn’t just this game. I don’t like games which want you to play everyday, I have other things to do, my attention and mood don’t work like that. Some days I feel like playing Animal Crossing, other days its Star Wars or watching the Matrix, take your turn and be happy that I bothered to come back to you!

…I’ll stop now