You are Super Player!

So I beat Double Spoiler. Lemme put it in perspective a bit.

The game was released on March 14, at Reitaisai 7. It's not actually going on normal sale until Thursday. Note that the two Bunkanchou games are considered to be the hardest Touhou games(I find them the easiest though, lol) It took me roughly 15 days to re-beat all 85 stages of Shoot the Bullet(including 3 I had never beat previously), clear all 99 scenes in Double Spoiler with Aya, clear the 9-stage Spoiler level to unlock Hatate, and then clear all 99 stages again with Hatate. That's 292 scenes. Best waste of 2 weeks ever.

Now...what do I do for the next 3+ years until ZUN releases another? ;x

Feels good, man!

I finally cleared 85/85 Shoot the Bullet. That is all.

I'm absurd.

I don't know how I beat this stuff, it must be magic. This is why I save the replays. Because holy shit.

Starting off, I decided to push Hatate a bit in Double Spoiler, and ended up clearing the remainder of Level 8, as well as the entirety of Levels 9 and 10 with her. Yes, that includes Iku's stages, and holy shit, 10-4 with Hatate is the absolute most bullshit stage ever. But I finished it, hurray! Now I'm on Level 11 with both Aya and Hatate, though I haven't put too much time into this group yet.

I did more with Shoot the Bullet too! Earlier today, I finally finished saving replays for all the stages I had previously beaten. (82/85) But that wasn't apparently enough, as I managed to finally clear Suika's "Pandemonium" after only a few tries. ALSO. HOLY CRAP. I finally beat Komachi's Old Rain ~ "Rain in the Underworld Journey" Probably the hardest StB/DS stage I've managed to beat so far, it took me 1085 shots to clear. Now I'm at 84/85! The only spellcard left is Yukari's Boundary Sign ~ "Boundary between Particle and Wave" It seems like a tricky card, but it's also a pattern with no random shots(I think). So all I have to do is spend time learning how to navigate the pattern and I'll make it somehow. Ah well, I'll save that for later. Yukari is hax.

Finally got to go see Alice in Wonderland today. While it's not even remotely faithful to the books, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Tim Burton made quite the visual treat as always, Johnny Depp wasn't immediately discernible by his character, and there was lots of really cool stuff. I do have several complaints about deviating *too* much from the books, like the Jabberwock wasn't really Jabberwockish enough for me, and the dormouse wasn't narcoleptic(the hell?), but they're pretty minor complaints. Overall I'd probably give it a 3.5/5

And last for today, guess what I got in the mail!?

Tarutarus! I ordered these back the same day I did my Reaper minis a few weeks ago, but it seems these had to be shipped from Japan. Most excellent figures indeed though! The main reason I wanted the set was for Shantotto, but getting Robel-Akbel, the Star Sibyl, and Ajido-Marujido is neat too. Now I just need Square to make more. Like Prishe. Yes.

Ohohohoho~!

Just a note

I won't even be completing the retexturing of the FFXI Offline project, just because all of a sudden teachers are firing work out their arses like freaking lazer guns. No big loss since I never found a spriter I suppose. Maybe someday I'll find something I don't suck at, haha.

In unrelated news, I cleared Double Spoiler Level 10. Iku is a goddamned nightmare. That is all.

No more monsters!

Thank goodness too, I almost stopped painting in the middle of the last gargoyle because I was so bored, lol. Anyway, finished up he set of 13 Chaos Warriors on Wednesday.


And yesterday I moved onto the Gargoyles and Chaos Sorcerers. There's only 3 of each, and only one Gargoyle was unpainted, so I just shoved them all into one evening.


Of course, I'm not done yet. The heroes still need something to fight with! I saved all the player characters for last, because I knew if I instead ended on 34 Orcs I was likely to just say 'Screw it', haha.

From left to right they're NPCs, Wizards, Elves, Dwarves, and Barbarians. I might not do much if anything with them this weekend, as I'm gonna shift focus to my programming homework, but maybe they'll be finished by Easter? We'll see. I also have a few *more* minis that need painting, but they're all ones that exist outside the main game system, so I'm not too worried about them if I don't even have any confirmed players yet, heh.

Played too much Touhou Photo-shoot as expected, haha. I got alot done though! I cleared Stage 8 and 9 entirely in StB, as well as a quarter of the remaining scenes. 12 scenes left now, 3 of which I've not beaten before. I find it a bit amusing that Stage 9-6 is apparently considered the hardest stage in the game, but I've beat it twice now. In Double Spoiler, I cleared the rest of Level 8 and most of Level 9 with Aya, and then every stage in Levels 1 though 7 with Hatate. After playing as her that much, I don't really think she's any harder or easier than Aya. The faster film speed is great, but lack of any zoom really hurts on some stages. Her lens is also thinner, so about 80% of Aya's scores on the same stages are higher. Ah well, I reached some decent checkpoints I suppose, I'll probably hold off on spamming the game too much for a while at least.

In other news, the combined shinies of FFXIII and FFXIV have finally allowed me to supress the urge to go back to FFXI (for now, lol) Not that I could until June or whenever I get enough money for a new laptop, but whatever. Class of Heroes has also been pissing me off something fierce. So, I beat the next-to-last boss around level 15. I go to beat the final boss, and my attacks hardly do any damage and she wallops my arse in 2 turns. 'Kay. I go train for a while and try to find new weapons (I don't, because random drops suck =P) I come back 7 levels later to the final boss. My attacks hardly do any damage and she wallops my arse in 2 turns. ...Wat? I sort of see what I could have done, but that's like another freaking 10+ hours of retraining, which is really not something I want to bother with. Unfortunately, the game is overall fairly mediocre. I'll probably shelve it for a while and then hack through to see all the post game stuff somewhere down the road. Not sure what I'll play next though. Back to MHFU? Probably, but then I'd have to go farm that damn Blangonga again. Might also pick up FFIII(DS) when I get back to skool, just to burn through an eeji-modo RPG, heh.

More stuff no one cares about! :D

Finished the mummies today, did a quick job because mummies are boring.

I actually gave them skin and stuff now, instead of being completely swirling figures of off-white tones. I also made one all burned and stuff. Not literally of course, but that might've been fun too.

Next up are Chaos Warriors. I have 13 of them, but 4 are designed as statues, so they don't really need touching up. I've got some ideas for the four new ones too. It'll take a while tomorrow I think, but it's not like I'm doing anything.


As for Touhou, I went into insane mode last night. At first I cleared 2 stages in Level 8, thinking that would unlock EX mode. That didn't work though, as apparantly there's a second condition that I have to beat at least one stage in every level through 12. So I did. And then I beat 3 stages in Level EX. And then I beat all 9 stages in Level SPOILER and unlocked Hatate. Yeah, I'm pretty awesome like that. Current capture count is ~70, though I do intend on capturing every stage in Levels 1-EX with both Aya and Hatate, so I've still got a while ahead of me. Since I finished all of that, I also went a bit father on StB and saved replays for the rest of Level 7 and started on Level 8. I'll probably not mention this stuff so much from now on, since I burned through the bulk of it so bloody fast, haha. Just milestones here and there when I make updates.

It's Zombie Time!

Zombies took a bit longer than I expected to finish, because I had to intentionally make them a bit messy, haha. Was still easy to finish the group within a day's time.

Opted to make the last two a swampy green color, not excellent, but not terrible either. Not like zombies are important very often anyway though.


Tomorrow's deed is the last of the undead, Mummies. Totalling at a mere 8, and having even less specific detail than skeletons, I really doubt these will take very long at all. Looks like more time for Double Spoiler tomorrow! :DDDD

Speaking of which, I've been still chugging in Double Spoiler, and have managed to clear the remainder of Level 6 and the entirety of Level 7. The only one that really gave me trouble was Shou's "LAZOR sign"[Banana Shitstorm], but I managed to somehow nab it in the end. In clearing all these stages, I unlocked Levels 11 and 12, and now have 50 clears. EXTRA mode only needs 52 clears to unlock, so that should be just around the corner. Alot easier to get there than in Shoot the Bullet, where I had to clear 66! Did a bit in the replay saving for StB as well, finishing up Level 6 and clearing half of Level 7. Considering how close I am to EX Mode and subsequently, SP Mode in DS, I'll probably not focus too much on StB for just a bit.

Spring Break!

Spring Break's here, and guess what I'm doing! Nothing of value, hurray! I did have a shitstorm of homework assigned right before break started, but being as awesome as I am, I managed to finish everything except my programming assignment before I came home. Now to get around to doing that...

Anyway, off my two week break, I'm now back to my minis and actually hoping to have the rest of the ones I have finished painting by the end of Spring Break. Today I tackled the largest set of single monster I had remaining, the skeletons.

There may have been 20 of them,but it's not like there's alot of different parts that need painting. Most of the time was just spent making sure the line between the scythe handles and the bones was smooth.

Since I didn't need another 6 standard white skeles, I opted to make two of them black. Why? I dunno, ambiance? Surprise 'OH SHIT!' moments? My favorite is still Pinky though.

Tomorrow's task is the Zombie patrol. There's only 10, so even if they're kind of detailed, it shouldn't be more than 2 or 3 hours. I don't have anymore of the color I used for the old one's skins though, so I'll get to be creative with the new two, haha.

Reitaisei 7 was yesterday morning! Some cool stuff, some disappointment, and a whole lots of 'Yeah, that's nice' No demo for TH13 yet, but Double Spoiler is out in full, and boy is it GLORIOUS. :D All the features it has makes it control-wise, better in every way than Shoot the Bullet, though the difficulty seems a bit lower. (Not too much, haha) Since now was a good a time as any, I went ahead and also started Shoot the Bullet over from the beginning as well, this time saving Replays for every single stage that I beat. My original goal was that my focus would be on DS, but when that frustrates me, I'd switch over and try some StB, since I already know most of the tricks for the stages. So far it's worked pretty well. Within a single day of DS being released, I've cleared Levels 1-5 and half of Level 6 on *both* games, and DS is now unlocked up to Level 10. I should be able to unlock Levels 11 and 12 within a few days, and maybe even Level EX by the end of Spring Break if I'm really lucky.

Of course, it doesn't end there, apparently there's *another* level after EX, Level SP, featuring a new character, Himekaidou Hatate. She's a tengu like Aya, that seems to get her photos via Google image search on her cell phone or something, lol. She becomes a playable character somewhere around there too, so there's an actual goal for this game haha. And then I get to go back and clear everything with Hatate. XD

Nothing else much happening for now. Picked up Class of Heroes again, but all I can really do right now is grind a ton, which is painfully slow. I'd really like to clear the game before the semester is over. >_>;

Blarg

Unfortunately, too much trying to figure out Java syntax led to me being largely nonproductive this weekend. I knew what I had to do, I just had no idea how to do it, lol. Anyway, I did manage to accomplish 2 things.

First, I cleared another stage in StB, bringing me to a justice-packed 82. This was also Mokou's 'OMGWTFWHYISN'TTHEREANYTHINGBUTBULLETS' spellcard, which I'm quite amazed I figured out. The last three might be too much pinpoint dodging for me at my skill level, but we'll see.

Second, I got a package in the mail containing the last few minis I need! (for now)

Since the only female mini I had up until now was an Amazon I've named 'Slutty McSlutslut', this'll help out a bit, especially if any of the hero players I end up with are female. There's one conterpart for each of the 4 male heros, and then the one on the back left I'm planning on using as the nefarious 'Generic Female Villian'. Despite not getting a chance to paint this weekend, I have off 9 straight days starting next Saturday, so I'll hopefully get most, if not all of my painting done during that time.

ZOMGWTFNOWAI

Hay guys. Did you think I was done with Touhou? Even a little bit?

Not a chance. =D


Touhou 12.5 was just announced: ダブルスポイラー　～ 東方文花帖 aka Double Spoiler ~ Touhou Bunkachou. This is awesome because now I can confuse people and say I play Touhou DS. Especially since they won't even know wtf I'm talking about! =D This is also awesome because it's another SHOOT THE BULLET type game! Hooray! More endless carnage and pretty, deadly lights just trying to take some pictures.

From what I can gather, no opponents will be reused from StB, and there will be over 100 stages (StB had 85 total), and possibly it's harder than even StB which is widely considered the hardest Touhou game. That part could be a mistranslation though.

Guess this means I need to finish up StB then? Haha maybe, but I doubt it. While I have 81/85 clears, these last four are still out of my reach (Except Komachi's 10-5. Sort of kinda almost got that one, but I get annihilated trying to get pics 6 & 7) I was hoping for this though, and this time I plan on actually saving all my replays. I sort of regret not saving any from StB, but maybe after I get my new computer this summer I'll start a new file.

Anyway, in unrelated news, HeroQuest painting may be delayed or not bothered with this weekend. Java's being a pain in the arse and I can't concentrate in the room with all the dumbarses around, so I'll probably lock myself in my bedroom all weekend instead of the basement. Assuming I finish early though, I should still be able to get through the Skeletons. I also placed an order on the last few figures I need to *start* HeroQuest, so I think I'll be ready to roll by the end of Spring Break assuming they get here timely. Now I just need some people, lol.

West Ronfaure

And here we are, all set with West Ronfaure~



Not too shabby, although it was a bit harder to place all the shrubbery about with the large areas with few landmarks. The large area in the middle is intentially left blank, since there is no shrubbery that grows there, just trees and somewhat smaller trees. As with before, I left off the trees for now. If I have time this week, I'm going to root through the RPG Maker files and see if I can put together a proper tileset so I can make these look nice. Whether or not I finally can get a pixel artist though remains to be seen. XD

Since it's March now, I might as well go over how I'm doing in classes this semester so far.
Calculus 2: Who's surprised I take a guilty pleasure with this class? It's the toughest one so far this semester, but when I finish out a ten minute integral and come out with the right answer, it's a damn good feeling. So far, all my quiz scores are high (2A, 1B), so let's see if I can keep it that way.

CompSci 2: Kinda mixed about this one, although tbh, CompSci 1 was a crap class, I just learned alot from doing the assignments, haha. Java isn't nearly as nice to work with as Python though, and for some reason we're spending alot of time talking about memory management, even though Java does all of that automatically. I suppose it might be useful to know down the road, but right now it just seems like more useless information to memorize. I've also been doing all my assignments in Python and Ruby, so hopefully by the end of the semester I'll have a solid foundation for the real CompSci courses.

Discrete Structures: aka Logic. aka Middle School Math. So far, this class is nothing but an insult. The instructor literally spent a 1:15 class talking about division. Not special division. Just division. The stuff I knew going into 1st grade. /wrists

Sceneography: aka Theater Shop. This class is pretty interesting. We have spent a bit of time on really basic stuff, but considering it's a required class for acting majors, I can see why. (Some of the kids in the class are *really* dumb) But I get to build things and run around stage with pneumatic power tools, so it's all good. Haha.

Chemistry 101: Not as bad as I expected, in fact, I think I mesh alot better with Chemistry than Physics. (Good thing I dropped the idea of Computer Engineering) So far everything has been pretty straightforward and understandable to me, and I should have no problem getting an A. This was proven today when we were playing a Review game in discussion session, and not to be insulting, but my 3 teammates had no idea what they were doing. Which means I was basically answering everything for the group myself. And I won, by like 2x the number of points as the group in second place, lol. I think we might've gotten some extra credit for that, though I dunno. Friday's exam is gonna be a snap though.

2 more weeks until Spring Break. I never really figured out something to do, so I'm just gonna spend the week at home, paint minis and play video games, haha. I'm such an interesting person.

Greenskins

Well, got lots and lots of painting done this weekend. Why don't we flip through those pics right quick now?

First up are the Goblins! I managed to finish up the remaining layers of paint late on Friday night, bringing a close to my second most populous monster type. Certainly glad that part's over.



A closeup of some of the Gobs. The jester impressed me, so far I've done the least touching up on him, so I guess I was really careful last time for some reason? I'm not sure why, he has trouble staying upright for any length of time.



Next up are the fimirs. These were a short-lived group in Warhammer Fantasy that eventually were phased out, though they made an appearance in HeroQuest as some monster fodder that would put up more fight than the Orcs. They're bigger and more detailed than Orcs, but thank goodness I only have 11 of them, and only 2 were unpainted.



Because there were so few, I managed to get the whole unit done with the rest of the time I had over the weekend. The skins alone took about half the total time, so after they were touched up, it was all downhill. I randomly decided to make a dark red and blue with the two new ones just because.



And a close up of these guys. I really hope my next camera can get in closer than this, although I think my alignment was screwed up or something. Also, I painted the whites and irises on all these guys, and that was a pain in the arse. I need even smaller brushes, lol.



With the fimir done, I've finished all the greenskins, and by far the bulk of my current HeroQuest figures. Up for next weekend are the undead starting with Skeletons. There may be 20 of them, but I really don't see them taking *too* long.



In non-HeroQuest related news, I scored a new pair of goggles this weekend!



While they're not as awesome as my Aviators, they're certainly nice, especially for the price ($20). They work alot better in indoor-shop/lab/etc. type situations, which my other pair was having a bit of trouble with. I might need to find a longer elastic, so they can fit around my enormous ego, but other than that, I like 'em.

For those of you who live under an internet rock, CLICK ME AND ALL YOUR DREAMS WILL COME TRUE!

Also, I guess for once I should be glad my computer is crappy? After what happened at VanaFest yesterday, I'd already be back on FFXI if I knew I wouldn't be /rage at my computer every 10 minutes. Somebody really needs to stop me before I get a new computer, else I'll be playing 2 MMO's.

And then all hope is lost.