More video games

This post is for more video games that I've been playing. The two that I'm going to be mentioning are ones that I played at around the same time. It kinda sucked because they're both really good and engrossing games.

The first one I'll mention is Digimon World Re:Digitize on the PSP. I was looking forward to this game for a while since I knew it was going to be like Digimon World for the PS1. Playing through Re:Digitize was awesome. It really felt like a modern update to the original game. Getting Numemon because you messed up was no longer the case. Now, Greymon is the new Numemon. Dammit. Training your Digimon is also more streamlined, which is something the series really needed. The PS1 game was extremely brutal because it expected you to raise them perfectly without mistakes while knowing where everything is in order to complete the game. Re:Digitize is much better paced and gives you the opportunity to do whatever you want. The combat is still the same as Digimon World. You can't control them like you would in a regular RPG but that's just a staple of the series and gets the job done.

I love the official artwork

One thing that did discourage me is the grinding. Now, grinding in this game isn't fighting battles, it's actually training your digimon. If you've played the PS1 game, you'd know that digimon need to be trained and taken cared of just like a virtual pet. The games are pretty much virtual pet simulators with heavy RPG elements in the mix. This also means that they don't last forever because they die after a certain time period. You need to keep raising different digimon, which have better stats if you chose reincarnation, in order to progress through the game. By the time I got to my fifth digimon, I was already feeling kinda tired of doing the same thing over again.

I stopped playing the game after this. I was using my awesome Angewomon that wrecked pretty much everything and it was great to finally have my first super powerful digimon. When her time was up, I just couldn't go on anymore since raising them takes way too long so I just stopped. I'll come back to it, though. I still need to finish the story and it's interesting enough to get me to come back. It's completely in Japanese but it has furigana so it pretty much means that I can understand all if not most of it.

I finally decided to play Fallout New Vegas, or as I like to put it, the real Fallout 3. Without getting too much into it, Fallout 3 was pretty good but a lot of things just didn't fit in right with the series, which is where New Vegas comes in. I started up the game, and to no surprise, I saw that this game was in serious need of mods. I was prepared for this but it took me a while just to get them all working right. Once I had a good looking female character wearing the GANTZ suit with the big ass GANTZ katana and a custom radio playing the Wangan Midnight Soundtrack, I was ready to have a good time. Playing the game this way for the first time was an amazing experience. Just like my ultimate Cyberpunk Fantasy!

The game itself was good. The dialogue was gold and exploring the desert was cool. Though, I personally don't like the dirty post-apocalyptic aesthetic. Sci-fi guy here. The gameplay is still kinda clunky but I didn't get a chance to mod that. To be honest, I don't think I can ever play this game vanilla. It just doesn't seem like my cup of tea. It's a pretty good game but I won't really enjoy it unless I play it the way I want to. Going through that desert at night, listening to the techno tunes of Wangan Midnight and using my game-breaking weapons. This is the way I liked to play it. I stopped playing this game too. I got to a certain quest and found out that I could've done something beforehand. I didn't have a save to go back to and that pretty much made me not want to play it. I'll get back to this too, I think.

That's it for now, so what are you guys playing?

Some video games I played

I haven't been talking about what video games I've been playing lately, so this post is going to be dedicated to that. I planned to add another poll but it won't let me for some reason.

Let's start at the very beginning. I was playing Dark Souls quite a bit and I was really liking it. But then I got stuck at a certain part of the game. I don't know the names of the locations but it was the area where you had to fight two bosses at once. You might be thinking, "Oh, that shouldn't be a problem." But it IS. I tried a few more times, grinded, and even got new armor but nothing helped. Normally I would keep trying but I just stopped playing. I was stuck in that area and you can't go back to the hub until you beat the boss. Yes, literally stuck there. The game became unappealing at that point. I'll go back to it someday, I think.

Now, at some point I decided to go back and give Fate/Extra another try since the game was severely lackluster when I first played it. Well, it was still kinda poop. The gameplay is the main problem here. Sure, they tried to make it different but it's just really sluggish and boring. It doesn't have that "fun" factor that other RPGs are supposed to have with its gameplay. I guess this is why they bundled it with a figma. The dungeons are kinda bland and the school, the main hub area, feels hollow and boring. But for some reason I kept playing. I don't know why. Maybe it was the mediocre story or the quirky interactions with a more rude SEIBAH. Or maybe it was my video game pride saying, "I'm gonna beat this fucking game! FUCK YEAH!" I stopped playing this game around 2 weeks ago. I was pretty far into it. I'm not sure if I enjoyed playing the game or I liked the thought of me beating it. One thing is for certain, I will come back to it.

 At the same time I played Phantasy Star Online 2. I signed up during the open beta since I couldn't wait anymore. The game was awesome, it was everything you'd expect from the sequel to Phantasy Star Online. I don't play it too much since there's nothing that really compels me to play more. It's pretty much a huge grind, which is what the series is about. A fun grind, though.

True hero of GUNDAMu

 Let's move onto some recent games. I've been playing Gundam Battle Operation, a lot. It was the one that I was looking forward to and it did not disappoint. Well, there is one thing. Being a free to play online game, you can only play up to three matches. Once those matches are up, you have to wait two hours for one more chance to play. This can stack up to three. You also get rewarded free matches for doing various things like ranking up. There's also the quick method, which is to pay money to add a set amount of games. It isn't pay to win since matchmaking does a good job at pairing you up with similarly ranked players.

I mostly play as Zeon.

The game is all online multiplayer, so no local play. You start off with a junker grunt mobile suit and later on you can upgrade to better grunt mobile suits. Yup, this game is mostly grunt units and it's pretty cool. There are those super special, high level mechs such as the Dom, Gouf, and da GUNDAM. These take quite a bit of time to unlock but if you've been playing every chance you get since the beginning, then you'd probably have these mechs by now. I, personally, have not so I'm still using level 2 mechs.

I wish you could use this in the game.

Actually, I just barely unlocked the painting option. Yeah, you can paint your mechs and the pilot. Fucking awesome. Paint it red to go three times faster. Oh, and I'm doing surprisingly well when I play, sometimes I do the best out of the entire team. I'm at the stage where I do better than most people but I can't beat high level people since their mechs are much more advanced than mine so I go down in two hits. Finding out how to use custom search led me to play with high level people. Never again. As you can tell, I really like this game. Maybe some of you with PS3s can come join the fun. It's only on Japanese PSN so you need a Japanese account. The game is, of course, completely in Japanese but still very playable for those that don't know the language. The controls will take some getting used to, as do a lot of games, but you really need to learn how to control effectively if you want to become the best newtype there is. If you're curious, check out some gameplay videos on youtube.

There's a couple more games I've been playing but I'll save those for later.  Next post, probably.

So, what have you been playing?

Summer Anime 2012

Since a few weeks have passed since the start of this new season, I thought I should go over what I'm watching. A simple first look at things, not an in-depth review. Before we start, there's also a poll I've set up. I'll be adding new ones every now and then.

Campione!

When I saw the promotional art, I knew that it wasn't going to be anything special. Yes, I do have an extra sense that tells what's going to be good just by looking at the cover. Only works with anime, though. The first episode was kinda poop but it all changed at episode 2. It suddenly became lots of fun to watch because of the generic anime plot elements. In fact, it was so generic that it kind of felt like parody. Still, not recommended but I'm having fun with it.

Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita

I picked this up completely on a whim and I didn't really know what to expect. What I got was a cute, cynical comedy that has a unique style. The comedy style seems to be a bit different than most. I don't really know how to describe it. It is a bit cynical but but not entirely. Also, the unique art style is very appealing to me.

Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate

A harem series that I picked up because I knew it would be entertaining. Of course, that's what ended up happening. Not really sure what to say since it's just another harem with a different setting. It also features chocolate and politics, as the name implies.

Kokoro Connect

I was looking forward to this one for a while. A slice of life series that deals with body swapping. Very funny at times and the antics that ensue are also fun. I'm really enjoying this one. I'm pretty sure you'll notice that the character designs look like modern KyoAni. That's because the character designer of K-ON did the art for the original light novel. I was disappointed that KyoAni didn't animate this, though. It would've made sense but I guess it didn't happen. Silver Link is doing it instead and they're doing a pretty decent job at it. The animation itself still has a sort of "cheapness" to it, since the studio isn't really known for their spectacular animation.

Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru!

A generic harem series that was obviously made to sell. If you didn't know this already, then you are a fool. Despite how generic it is, I'm still enjoying this. The story has no substance whatsoever but it's still good fun to watch.

Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon II

A direct continuation of the first series. I have no idea what's going on but I like it. Yes, that's Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon. It doesn't look like they changed much from production, though correct me if I'm wrong. It's still as fun as always. My only problem is that I didn't rewatch the first season so I'm still confused as to what's going on. But I'm slowly remembering what happened as time goes on.

Moyashimon Returns

The microbes are back with all new adventures..... is what I would say if that's what this series was about. It's just more slice of life adventures in an agriculture college that involves a main character that can see microbes. Still just as good as the first series, though they changed the character designs for some reason. It was a really weird change and I really would like to know why this happened. It doesn't matter too much since I'm really liking this series.

Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse

Adding to what I said from my AX post. I was able to watch the first two episodes again, as well as episode three, by myself and I actually enjoyed it more. I guess I hate watching things with other people. It still isn't very good, though. The opening song is just bad. I have no idea what they were thinking with this. The show still suffers from atrocious direction. The animation looks cheap a lot of the time. I know that using CG for the mechs saved the studio a lot of money but it's just terrible anytime you use it. The fight scenes lost a lot of life because of this and, in the end, felt very stale. I'm still enjoying it since the characters are entertaining and the voice acting is pretty good. Ono Daisuke and Tomokazu Sugita are back again! The end is predictable but Muv-Luv is all about the ride there.
EDIT: It seems that the director was replaced with someone else in the middle of production and the whole studio is a mess. The cause seems to be a work overload and not enough resources to finish it all. It really baffles me how this could've happened in the first place. I really hope that the studio can recover from all this.

Sword Art Online
Another series that I was really looking forward to. Every episode seems to deliver and I look forward to watching it every week. The concept itself is interesting, you're stuck in a video game and you can't get out until you beat the game. It kind of has the survival aspect that I enjoy. Can't really say much else since the story feels like it hasn't opened up yet.

Tari Tari
A nice slice of life show by P. A. Works. The gimmick of this one is music, more specifically, the choir club. It's nice and I really like it so far. It does suffer from a lot of generic events and I can kinda predict how this will end but I still enjoy it.

So those are all of the new series I'm watching this season. In addition, I'm still watching the series that are still going on from last season.

So what are you guys watching?