Mistakes of Youth: The Blog (Powered by EXCELLENCE!)

…despite its awesome cover art, the only other things different from my US edition are the cut scenes along with the very few times the characters speak, and I can just watch that stuff on YouTube! It was however quite tempting at a nice 250 yen. In the end, though, I had to buy both Intelligent Qube and I.Q FINAL.

My love affair with this game started when I was a wee lad–around 10 or 11–and I constantly played the demo on a demo disc sent to me directly from the PLAYSTATION UNDERGROUND. I kept playing that demo for like… years. Never bought the game, though. Couldn’t find it anywhere. It wasn’t until around sophomore year in college that I played the game proper by way of emulation, and it was as brilliant as I remember it being. In fact, what prompted me to play the whole game was when I found out about its awesome musical score by way of bored Wikipedia surfing one night. Until I actually got around to finding an ISO for the game I just listened to the soundtrack over and over.

Just a little while ago I was wandering around the local BookOff to kill some time. I had never actually looked in the games section before (I don’t often play games) and decided to look specifically for old, cheap, Japanese PSX games. I found these and had no choice but to buy them. I.Q was 105 yen, and I.Q FINAL was 500.

Man, I don’t get what’s with me and Intelligent Qube. It’s just so… INTELLIGENT.

I actually meant to order Giant Robo OST 7, but since it was late I ordered this on accident. Still something I wanted, though!

Original Post

Even though I’ve always made a point of doing a Christmas-themed comic every year, I don’t believe I’ve ever done one to bring in the new year. Well, there’s a first time for everything. I was going to do another new years comic along with this one featuring the main characters, but it’s far too late now, and that script kind of sucked anyways. I really like the art here, and I also think the jokes are pretty good. There should be a gag for everyone, even for those poor souls who sat through all of Dragonaut -The Resonance-… like me.

In other site news, I’ve been doing a 2008 anime retrospective on the blog. It’s about three posts in, and I reckon I have another five to go. If the planets align properly, then I’ll have another post out tonight. Look out for it!

It is at this point that I would talk about C75, but I feel like a dick talking about doujinshi I’m stealing. If I manage to swing C76 then I’ll do a proper rundown. Lots of Tora Dora! this time around, though. Where’s the Strike Witches and Kojika love? At least we’re finally getting some decent Nagi books. Sanzenin Nagi, that is. Not the slut from Kannagi.

Since we’re between seasons (actually, the winter season is just starting up, but whatever) I’ll talk about video games instead of anime. The only game I’ve really been playing is Gundam Musou (or Dynasty Warriors: Gundam.) The gameplay is still very lazy, but it manages to be lots of fun regardless. What really makes the game shine is its writing. I’ve said this before, but I love the idea of all the characters from the different Gundam universes coming together into one epic adventure. It’s not as well written as, say, Giant Robo–but the exchanges between the characters are great. The game has also piqued my interest in some Gundam shows I haven’t yet gotten around to seeing. I know people get on its case, but after playing Judau’s Official route, and working through Puru’s Original route really makes me want to see ZZ Gundam. How can you go wrong with Purupurupuru?

Anyway, that’s all for this week. My backlog has gotten less epic in the last week, but it’s still somewhat intimidating. I’m going to try to make a pretty big dent in it later on today. Until next time!

Original Post

No rant today because I’m on break, but here are some quick notes.

• Kurogane no Linebarrels is actually enjoyable now
• So is To Aru Majutsu no Index
• Been making a fool of myself on mixi
• Gundam Musou is still mindless fun

That’s all. Going to catch up on anime today, and try my hand at Perfect Cherry Blossom.

I really want to play Crash Bandicoot in Japanese now.

I’ve actually been aware of this OVA for a while, but never really got around to watching it. I figured one had to have knowledge of the game and its characters to fully appreciate it, but after a push in the right direction by Sang, I finally downloaded the one OVA and watched it after many frustrating rounds of Intelligent Qube.

It’s so sad that this isn’t the iDOLM@STER TV series. I’ve been meaning to play the iDOLM@STER games, but I lack a Japanese 360, so all I can really do is watch videos like this. I’m so glad that there’s finally something translated into English from the series that I can watch.

Sure the OVA isn’t totally fucking amazing. It’s pretty standard fare, but really cute. I could watch 13 to 26 episodes of this if the animation was good and the writing was a little fresh. It’d sure be a lot better than that shitfest Xenoglossia. Jesus.

It’s been a while since I’ve played a video game, and it’s been an even longer while since I’ve actually played one that I own. My younger brother promised me Gundam Musou (or Dynasty Warriors Gundam) for my birthday, and all of two months later, a copy of the game randomly appeared in my room. Not having much time to play it during work, I only just popped it in recently to give it a spin before heading back to Boston.

When it comes to video games, I’m very much “I don’t know art, but I know what I like” and I certainly like Gundam Musou, but more experienced reviewers would probably tear it limb from limb. It’s a fun, easy to play game that pits all of the famous Gundam heroes together in one epic adventure. Kind of like how they took all of Yokoyama Mitsuteru’s characters and threw them together in one story for Giant Robo. Yeah, it’s like that, and it’s awesome.

I’ve never played a Dynasty Warriors game in my life, but given the English title, I can only assume that this game is Dynasty Warriors, just with giant robots. The gameplay is serviceable, but it kind of sucks that projectile weapons are more or less useless. The beam canon is one of the most used weapons in the Gundam TV shows, but in this game it’s difficult to aim, and when it does hit, the damage done is minimal. As such, you mainly have to rely on melee attacks, combos and special attacks. It’s not really true to Gundam style, but it’s still a lot fun. I did my first playthrough with Domon anyways, so it wasn’t that out of character.

The story is, like I mentioned earlier, one that involves all of the main Gundam heroes from I guess… 1979 to 2000? I haven’t seen any Seed guys yet, but maybe they’ll show up later. I’ve only played through original mode on Domon, so I probably don’t have the whole story, but right now it seems pretty thinly defined, and only an excuse to go around chopping things up. And that’s totally fine. There’s only so much story you can cram in through mission briefings and in-mission dialogue, so that fact that they even have some background to go with all this fighting is impressive enough for me.

Besides, the story isn’t the important part– the characters are! The character interaction in this game is a Gundam fan’s wet dream– seeing all the characters from various Gundam shows coming together and exchanging snarky comments during battle is just too funny. I love it! And hey, the inclusion of Puru actually makes me wanna watch ZZ now! She’s too cute~

Anyways, I’m having a blast. Gundam Musou may just be the game to get me back into gaming… provided other people supply me with the games. I’m spending enough money as it is!