So yeah, I didn't feel like actually thinking of something, so I made Mika bounce around. Drag and release to toss her, and use arrow keys to resize and rotate. Fun fun XD
OH GAWD MIND FUCK! I have *no* idea what the crap is going on in Umineko right now. Is everyone dead? Did they revive? Is this heaven, an illusion, or the inside of a delicious chocolate cake? I have absolutely no clue anymore, and while I love it, the week-long wait is painful for something like this. XD
Dead Fantasy 5 debuted on Tuesday, so check it out if you've been too lazy to get it yourself!
Lots of 'Holy crap Tifa!' to be had here, haha. Not sure where he's taking this, or what's become of the other 5 girls, but we'll see that eventually I guess? Like I said before, this is the last of this set for Dead Fantasy, so don't expect Part VI until some time next year.
I've actually been spending way too much time watching videos and reading stuff about Dissidia: Final Fantasy over the past couple days (coincidentally part of the reason I didn't make a comic, lol), and I'm pretty stoked for it. I haven't heard any terrible English voice actors, which is a breath of relief, though we don't have all the characters yet. I've no clue who's going to be replacing Hayashibara Megumi for Shantotto, but they'd better do a damn good job, as Megumi's the main reason I didn't nerd-rage over the fact that they dropped Prishe (The original rep from FFXI) in favor of Shantotto. Prishe better be in Dissidia 2 though, I wanna Dropkick me some gods. XD
You shouldn't go outside unless you are certified to handle bears. And catgirls. They can get you with but a moment's notice.
Anyway, so I found and downloaded a working copy of Immaterial and Missing Power, and I still don't know why people like it more than Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, lol. It's probably because I suck at fighting games in general, so I wouldn't know all the subtleties like the infinite combos and the cancels and all that junk. I just figure out how to hit someone and then do, and then proceed to spam the same few moves over until they're not effective anymore, then I find new moves! :D I did somehow manage to beat Story Mode (on Easy, lol) with Reimu, Marisa and Sakuya, so I've got all the characters unlocked now if I ever decide to spend any length of time with the game.
What I DID spend absurd amounts of time playing was Higurashi DAYBREAK. Geez, why did I never download this game before? Haha. It's kinda clunky and the loading times are noticably slow, but I don't think I've had that much fun with a fighting game since like 5-6 years ago when I got Super Smash Brothers Melee on my Gamecube. I got the expansion too, so there's Natsumi and Hanyuu, and all sorts of other weapons and outfits. Favorite characters so far are Rena (of course XD) with her Giant Cleaver, and she constantly talks in Psycho-mode with that weapon. Also Natsumi with her knife. I'm not quite used to her yet since she's quick, but if you connect with a full charge attack, holy crap! She tackles the victim and sits on them, then goes on a yandere stabbing spree. <3 And of course, there's Hanyuu who's always talking about cream puffs, though I don't use her much because I suck with her. Higurashi is so awesome. Maybe if I'm lucky I can find a person or two to play against while I'm at college, after I learn to not suck. XD
This week's photo didn't come out how I wanted, I suppose I need a few more weeks to level up my Photography skill again. =/
The theme this time was "Pieces of the Night", although I wasted two days on the concept because I read it wrong as "Pisces of the Night", haha. I spent some time trying out different spots and driving around the area, as well as doing slow shutterspeeds to try to get taillight blurs. Of course, that last part didn't work, I should've brought my tripod, though I didn't think of it at the time, ah well. Interestingly enough, I've learned my camera tends to make pictures kind of grainy in both very high-light and very low-light situations, so I should keep that in mind when conceptualizing for future shots. I didn't think I'd be missing the capabilities of my Mamiya so soon. XD
No sign of Dead Fantasy 5 yet, might be a day or two late because of Comic Con I suppose.
Got an idea of how much I need for Books for the fall now, though it looks like I can only get secondhand copies of my English books. The Calculus ones still aren't listed yet though, so that a bit of a pain.
Water Country USA sounds pretty rad right about now...
So yeah, Touhou 12.3 was announced the other day, and so far we just have those three characters confirmed. I'm definitely looking forward to it, because Cirno is hilarious and one of my favorite characters. Still, no real info on it other than it'll be a fighting game, even whether it'll use IaMP or SWR's fighting styles. Not that that means anything to me, since I haven't played IaMP I don't know what's different about it. I've heard we might even see as many as 4 new characters make an appearance too, teamed up with the full version of Undefined Fantastic Object it's like a jamboree next month. XD As for the 12.3 part, I've no idea if that means another side game is in planning between UFO and TH13, or if ZUN just wanted 1-2-3, but I guess it'll be a while before we'd actually know.
Umineko holy shit. I mean, we're only 4 episodes in and we're almost out of characters. And Umineko doesn't do the time-reset thing Higurashi does. I know there's some more characters we haven't seen, but I've no idea where they would come from with the typhoon and all. I mean, I figured at least those two would survive, since they very much seemed important, but Beatrice apparantly didn't think so. O_o; I did like the Rena reference when Kanon went and started swinging around the billhook though, haha.
Animals are a pain in the arse to work with. Geebus. I had to basically scrap every idea I could come up with because cats will never cooperate with you when you want them to. So I just said screw it and tossed a beanie baby on Tara, haha. Theme from Rei was 'All creatures great and small.'
There are like holidays pratically every day of the year. This calls for a celebration! Today's National Junk Food Day! I had some Pizza Rolls earlier, so I think that counts, right?
Anyway, following up from last week, Dead Fantasy 4 is out now. More action, more explosions, though it's over alot quicker than the last one. Certainly worth a look though.
Cloud's totally a woman, lol. Part 5 (the last for now) should be out next Monday, and maybe wrap up this mini-arc? No telling until then I guess. XD
Anyway, somehow, someway I managed to eke out 6 more clears in Shoot the Bullet, bringing me to the coveted 66 and unlocking EX mode! Where I was promptly discombobulated by everyone, oh yay! Haha, it's not earth-shattering difficult, although there are 3 I wasn't able to get more than a single photo on. Surprisingly, I already managed to beat one of Flandre's spellcards, "Taboo 'Forbidden Games'". Aya's quote she made after the win is probably one of the best I've seen in the game thus far too. "I was fairly sure vampires were weak to the cross symbol, but it doesn't seem like it. She just came out and played with it..." Hahaha. Also, this morning I managed my first true victory in Touhou Normal Mode, beating Phantasmagoria of Flower View with Aya of all people. Probably so used to her due to my overplaying of Shoot the Bullet, haha. After countless times of Shikieiki kicking my arse right at the end with Unlimited Bullet Works, when I finally beat her I hadn't even been hit once in the round, talk about luck. XD
Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, I'm unable to present the photo assignment for today yet. I'm hoping to get everything worked out tonight so I can throw up the photo tomorrow morning though. If you see this Rei, you can go ahead and come up with this week's assignment if you like.
Saw The Spirit last night, which was surprisingly good, despite not being about stallions. Needed more Red Tie though, that think had the potential to be almost as cool as Shinobi's scarf, lol. I'm unfamiliar with the source material, so based on the movie itself I'd give it an 8. Quite good, but seemed awkward or rushed here and there.
Watched the first two episodes of Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and it more or less keeps the same disjointed style from the other seasons, so I guess I can just kick back and enjoy the next 11 episodes as they come out. Maybe we'll actually get plot and discover this mysterious dark side of Kafuka, haha.
And a minor update on Touhoumon LUNATIC. Holy shit is this game grindy. I'm trying to work up to ~Lv70 just to do the Rocket Base in Celadon City, something you could normally easily sweep through at 30. At least the Bridge of Hell Trainers mostly stayed and can be VS. Seeker'd, as the highest wild Touhou I've seen is Lv20. >_>;
Summer is pretty boring tbh. And hot. A water park sounds good about now, but that requires both people and effort, and blarg. Maybe in August sometime? I'unno. Maybe this time I won't get heat stroke and die, haha.
First up (and it's about time, haha), Dead Fantasy III has *finally* been released!
Not only that, but is seems Dead Fantasy 4 and 5 are finished (or just about) as well, and should be out withing the next few weeks. DF6 is still a long way off though. XD There's a bunch of footage of the next two floating around already since Monty Oum presented all three incomplete at a few cons up until now, so be wary about clicking related video links if you don't want spoilers. :3
Also it seems I lied about taking an extended break from Shoot the Bullet, as I've instead been playing quite a lot of it lately. As a result, I've now cleared 60 stages, putting me a mere 6 away from getting my face completely obliterated in EXTRA mode, haha. I'm not sure how much more I can force out right now, since I've done every one I can get close to completion on, and Youmu is a bitch. Seriously.
And WOW, I can't believe it took me this long to realize, though I blame the fact I haven't watched Slayers in years aside from Revolution/Evolution-R and Xelloss didn't have a very large part at all there. But anyway, Xerxes Break in Pandora Hearts is voiced by Ishida Akira, in his lovable creepishly eccentric character who knows far more than he should about what's going on. Basically, Xelloss/Shinkohyo/whoever is in Pandora Hearts as the Mad Hatter, and it's probably my favorite character of that group, although Shinkohyo is quite close.
Saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince the other day. The movie...wasn't that great. It spent way too much time with the teen drama stuff, and not nearly enough time with the meat of the plot, despite alot of it being Harry's inner thoughts. Ironically, it *didn't* include the infamous Harry/Ginny scene after the Quiddich match near the end of the book, but whatever. As Erik pointed out to me, it's quite a letdown of a movie, especially since they made us wait for such an extra length of time for it. Well, maybe they'll get the last one right? *flips a coin*
Holy ever loving crap. Touhoumon LUNATIC is no joke. Like, right now I have a full team of Lv28 Touhou, and Brock still managed to kick my arse. Granted, it was his last Touhou (and it hacks so bad ><), but still, when you could sweep the original Brock with a Lv13 Bulbasaur. XD I don't really show it here, but Viridian Forest is a nightmare too, not really because of the trainers (there's only a handful, and only the last one is challenging) but because it's a giant maze, completely dark and you don't get Flash, and raining. One wrong jump off a ledge and you have to figure out your way back to the beginning (or at least, quite a ways) before you can even start working your way through again. I think I finally got through after an hour of bumping around. And I hear Mt. Moon is worse. WONDERFUL! *dies*
There is a good part though, while I had to give up my Chibi Flandre to try picking one that could evolve and stand up to the crazy arse trainers, I later found a wild EX Flandre looking for a Chibi Kirisame! And her attack is through the roof compared to the rest of my team! XD To make training slightly less painful, they give you 3 Lucky Eggs right at the start too. For those of you worried about the 'Part I', it's probable that I'll make another few about this game later on if I don't come up with anything else. It is a long game though, aside from practically requiring training multiple Lv100 teams, it contains the entirety of Kanto, Sevii Islands, and Johto apparantly. Well, I'll get into more later I guess. Back to freaking BROCK. -_-;
I probably forgot to mention this because I tend to forget about that manga outside of release days, but Fairy Tail is getting an anime this fall! It's the next work by Mashima Hiro, the guy who made Rave Master/Groove Adventure Rave for those who haven't heard of it. And in alot of ways I like it more. Although before this fall season I really need to catch up on anime at some point. >_> I'm months behind on Bleach due to constant intermittent shitty fillers, One Piece due to lack of stable fansubbers, and Gintama due to infrequent releases. I also need to get around to watching Hayate no Gotoku, Rave Master, and possibly Shuffle (I've heard this one's good, but the beginning is just really lame. Needs moar yandere.) And to top it off, staying current with Pandora Hearts, Umineko, and Haruhi (after they freaking stop Endless Eight). AND it looks like a new season of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei came out, so I'll have to check that out. So yeah. Geez. I guess I could probably catch up on Bleach and Gintama, but who knows with the rest of them.
To end the news no one cares about, I finally upgraded to Firefox 3. Doesn't really feel any different, a few things here and there, and the updated skin I got looks a good bit better. I lost Perapera-kun though, so I guess the trade-off's even.
Next they should discover a rainbow with sound effects or something. Even if science is able to explain this kind of stuff, it doesn't make it any less awesome.
Anyway, thanks to Rei for offering to give me my weekly photo assignments. I figure I'll try to have them up with the first entry I make every week (Sun-Tues), and then have the rest of the week to work on the next. The first assignment was "The Sky's the Limit".
It was a bit tricky getting the house to shoot into the mid troposphere temporarily, but it seems to have gone over well for the most part. I've already started to realize the limits of my camera (I'm back to using my 5MPx Sony from high school), but I think that's good, since it might force me to try to come up with unusual solutions if I run into something I can't quite do. It actually turned out better than I expected, since I'm not exactly pro at image splicing like that. But hey, an idea's an idea, and as long as I can figure out how to make it work, I'm gonna run with it.
Back in Touhouworld, somehow unknown to myself, I managed not one or two, but an additional five stage clears in Shoot the Bullet. This brings my total up to 46 and unlocks Level 10. Of course, I can hardly do anything there, Shikieiki is all like 'GUILTY! DIE!' And I do. Sheesh. There is one more level I have left to unlock, the mythical EXTRA level. Of course, that's not going to unlock easily, I need 66 clears, or another 20 to be able to even get to it, and it's probably filled with Spellcards that will make my head explode before they're even fired off (Flandre Scarlet is the first boss in Extra, if that's any indication >_>; ) So with that, I think I'll be taking another extended break from Aya's photo strike force.
Anyway, I half gave up on the idea of hacking the JP Touhoumon games. It seems alot of the data and text is stored differently than in US Pokemon games, and it doesn't help that I can't read japanese to find the proper tools to use, heh. Also, english text is all fat and stuff in japanese ROMs, and I don't know how to recode that to make it use standard texting. Ah well, I can at least fiddle around with english releases and fix all the buggy stuff that those localizers leave behind. Maybe if I can find the sprites, I can add newer or unofficial Touhoumon to an english cart too, like EX Rika, Shanghai, Hourai (different than the Dolls) or even Funndoshi Rinnosuke, lol. In the meantime, I guess I'll just play the JP Touhoumon Lunatic. Not like I haven't read all that text 10 times over anyway, haha.
I was kinda busy today and then I passed out all evening, so I didn't bother to make something with effort, lol.
Haruhi. I totally called it. Episode 5 and Endless Eight is still going strong. KyoAni make awesome trolls.
So anyway, I booted up Shoot The Bullet (Touhou 9.5) the other day for kicks, and somehow my latent ability to get better at stuff by not doing it kicked in, because I was able to finally clear 2 stages I had nothing but problems with before and unlock Level 9. Of course, I tried L9, but Kaguya and Eirin just decided that I should die. Alot. haha, there were one or two stages I think I couldn't even manage a second picture. Ironically, 9-8, the highest level I've unlocked so far, I cleared on my second attempt. It's probably because Kaguya's a NEET and Eirin's the dark king of Eientei XD I wonder how bad Level 10 is going to be? 2-4 more clears to find out, maybe I'll have it by the end of the year, heh.
I've just about beat the English Touhoumon. I've caught every wild one I think I can, so it's just alot of evolving to go, and the few that appear in areas after the Elite 4. I've not beat them yet, mainly because their levels are jacked up even higher (O.o), but there's still not really any decent places to train until after you best them. Irony much? I actually hacked into the ROM a couple times to solve a few buggy issues I had (there's a LOT of incorrect text to cause confusion, especially with attacks and a few items.) It was surprisingly easy though, so maybe if I'm bored enough, I'll go download the Japanese Touhoumon LUNATIC version and try hacking that to English. I've heard there's one even harder than LUNATIC that's outright unfair (enemys have hacked stats, illegal moves, 6 billion potions, etc.), so maybe I'll look at that too if I can find it, haha. Well, we'll see how long that keeps me occupied until I get bored again.
Had the season's first water gun battle today with Erik, though it was kinda meh. Only two competitors, 3 guns and an indiscriminate wasp attack didn't exactly make for a riveting time, though it was fun to pop out of places Erik didn't expect in his own backyard with my CPS3000. We need more people though, maybe I can kidnap YOU and drag you along! Mwahahaha! Be sure to get an actual Super Soaker though, I don't think a little squirt gun is going to do much good for you. There's also the option of Erik's sister who I think expressed interest, but she won't be home until mid August or something. WATER WARZ GO
Also, before I get into the school year, I'm thinking of getting into the habit of actually doing photography again. I NO RITE!? The problem is, I want to give myself a direction of sorts, so I don't just end up regressing to my high school days when I took pictures of ordinary tree branches, haha. I figure maybe something like a once-a-week assignment will keep me occupied without making it seem like I'm forcing myself. Problem is, I want an outside source to come up with the concepts, else, I'll probably just pick a bunch of similar stuff or come up with the concept idea after I take the picture, haha. Anyone know of something on or offline I might be able to use for such an endeavor? Or in lieu of that, anyone wish to offer their own concepts weekly to see what craziness I end up interpreting it as? XD
So, Haruhi Season 2. If you've been watching it, then you know exactly what I'm about to say, so you can skip on to the next part. If not, well, I wouldn't recommend jumping right into it just yet. Episode 1, Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody, was fine. I enjoyed that. However, the subsequent 3 episodes have been Endless Eight. And it's not over. What. The. Crap. E8 was a decent side story, but it's quite far from the best part of Haruhi. One can sympathize with Yuki for having to live the same 2 weeks 15,498 times I suppose, but that doesn't mean the viewers want to. Heck, episodes 3 and 4 were more or less the *exact same thing* only drawn differently. Of course, KyoAni knows they can get away with it, because it's Haruhi, and people just eat it up anyway. It better be over in the next episode, else I might as well just not even bother watching again until they move onto Snow Mountain Syndrome (another part of what irks me, since SMS is one of my favorite parts from the novels =P) Since I might as well dump all my negativity right-off, I'm also not impressed with Haruhi S2's OP and ED. They're not terrible, but compared to the music the first season offered us, there's not even a comparison. Ah well, /rantoff. While Haruhi's failed my expectations, Umineko has easily surpassed them, and should serve to keep me happy this anime season. =D
While I was bored the past few days, I came across a freeMMO my sister showed me, called Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent. Of course, I have a slight weakness to MMO's (I've probably tried over 25 different ones by now), and this one had a Steampunk-ish design to it, so I figured I'd give it a go. Unfortunately, after a few days of playing, all I can see is yet another half-ass Korean WoW-clone. Like, there was way too much hand holding and speeding through the beginning to actually give me any time to immerse myself. I doubt I'll find any that can hook me the least bit until the possibilities of FFXIV and The Old Republic start oozing out more info, heh.
What has managed to hook me though is Touhou Puppet Play, aka Touhoumon. Yep, just what it sounds like. A mod of Pokémon FireRed, only instead of pokémon, the world is filled with Touhou characters, most of whom have a Chibi, normal and EX form to allow the evolutionary part. I don't think I've been hooked this long on pokémon since the Moémon mod last year, or maybe when I got Pokémon Battle Revolution for the Wii. Anyway, this is actually a whole new thing, since instead of just modded sprites like Moémon was, these are actually all different pokémon, with their own typings, movepools, locations, etc. Like Diglett's Tunnel, normally only home to Diglett and the odd Dugtrio, is now how to the entire cast of Subterranian Animism save Kisume. Trainers are harder too, Brock was royally kicking my arse the first couple times I fought him. Currently I've gotten to Celadon with my party ~Lv30 as Flandre, Orin, Marisa, Alice, Nitori, and Tenshi as my HM bitch lol. Don't worry, she likes it. XD I hope the english group handling this manages to make more headway or something, last I heard some of the things that were being added in the original JP game were stuff like splitting Special and Physical attacks like in D/P, access to the whole Johto area, and even maybe a whole new Touhoumon game world (hopefully it'll end up being a lot better than your average fanbrew Pokémon, not that that's hard, lol)
Anyway, back to my crazy wild extreme to the maxx house party while the 'rents are away for several days. *flashlight rave*
Poor Kogasa, she finally ended up surprising some people! Although it looks like she'll end up with a cold at that rate, guess she didn't think that far through.
Umineko episode 1 is out, and it is glorious! I'm actually quite impressed with Studio Deen, they seem to be even better then when they started working on Higurashi Rei. Umineko's going to be an interesting ride for me, since I've been expecting the anime since '07, I've tried my hardest to avoid the literal landfill of spoilers (and it's worked...mostly XD) And now my brain gets to explode, hooray! I'll actually be reading the manga too, what little there is translated. Unfortunately by the looks of the number of chapters, the anime will be past that point in 2 weeks tops, and I'll just have to sit on my arse and wait for whatever group wants to work on it to release more. Of course, I know I shouldn't get my hopes up too high, the Watanagashi-hen manga is still only at 8/12 chapters translated. >_>;
While I'll avoid spoilers for now, I was dead on when I assumed Battler and Maria would be my favorite characters starting off. George and Kanon are a bit different than my perception of them, but good different. No comment on the adults yet, though other than our crazy geezer, I don't think many of them will have a large role.
The opening theme was amazing, and I was in love with it within the first five notes, haha. It's called 'Katayoku no Tori' or 'One Winged Bird' sung by Shikata Akiko, the same singer behind the amazing opening for the Umineko games I posted a couple weeks ago. Katayoku no Tori isn't quite as good as the Umineko game OP, but it's still damn good, and it can only get better in a month and a half when the single comes out in a month and a half.
Now brace yourself for the Ending theme. :3
I'll be honest, I absolutely hated when I heard it at the end of the episode, not the music or the mood, those were excellent. I just couldn't stomach the singer. It took me a few listens, but I actually like it quite a bit now, it's just so much different than what I'm used to that I was taken aback. After all, it's not supposed to be a calm, or a cutesy song, it's meant to show Kinzo's, aka the crazy old guy, madness as he opens forth whatever the hell is gonna come in the next however many episodes this will be. In terms of 'When They Cry' ED's, I rank this 2nd only to the awesome that is Why or Why Not from the first season of Higurashi. It's titled 'La Divina Tragedia: Makyoku' or 'The Divine Tragedy: Demonic Song', sung by Jimang, and the single is set to come out a month after Katayoku no Tori.
In other news, it seems no one with the Idolm@ster U.N.Owen was her? video has the ability to both upload a good quality video and not get their account banned. (I've favorited like 3 that have been banned now, wtf) So I'll put a link to the NicoNico original here and in the original post. If anyone needs help setting up a NicoNico account to browse their extensive awesome, lemme know. :3
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