2012/03/17

Some more Vita backgrounds




I made a few more Vita backgrounds, since I'm currently very much into Natsume Yuujinchou again and just saw the very lovely Hotarubi no Mori e a few days ago, so I made some backgrounds from fanart of these two... Thought I'd share them again. :)


2012/03/15

5 Reasons Why I Hate That My Son Is A Gamer

Huge rant about why it's not a good idea to let your children enjoy video games at an early age. And it got nothing to do with wether playing video games is good or bad for a young child. ;>


My son is a huge gaming enthusiast like me. He just turned 6 and can't even read yet, but he loves nothing more than playing video games. Except for ice cream, maybe. I'm usually pretty pleased with him being so interested in games except for these certain moments where I regret nothing more than introducing him to the gaming world. 

Accidently deleted this - Stuff that's intriguing me


 
Cave's newly announced Tokyo Therion which is gonna be released on iOS systems, is supposed to be a MORPG, so since it's not massive, I hope there's gonna be some sort of storyline (maybe revolving around the three characters from the teaser image) that can be played via co-op. I'd really rather love that, as I'm not too much of an MMO fan, since those are mostly lacking in the story department... so I hope this game doesn't. I also really like the character design of Tokyo Therion, so I'm definitely looking forward to more news on that - I hope they'll port it to another system (*coughs*Vita*coughcough*), since I own no Apple decives and never will.. ;>

Here's the official website: http://www.tokyot.jp/


The other game that has picked my interested is Sol Trigger, a newly announced PSP RPG by imageepoch, which I'm very curious about since the character design looks awesome (it's by Shuji Sogabe who also designed the characters in the Senko no Ronde games, not my cup of tea genre-wise, but the art is adorable) - by now scans of the three protagonists are floating around the web, so I hought I'd share:

Farrel, Emma & Walter

I'm not too sure how great the story will be as it sounds pretty generic: Some sort of freedom fighters, with access to some sort of power source called "Sol", which seems to be some sort of enhanced mana, it's used for skills and special attacks and if you die, but got enough Sol, you won't die, but your Sol gets depleted instead. Farrel is somehow special, being the only one having a gold Sol and he's a candidate to become the next Sol Trigger. Emma is his gun wielding childhood friend and Walter's best friend was killed by the church, so he is seeking revenge.


The scenario will be written by Kazushige Nojima, who also wrote the scenarios for FF8, 10, 10-2, 13, 13-2 and Kingdom Hearts 2 among other stuff. I have to admit, the only game where I really liked the storytelling of those is KH2, so I'm not too sure what to expect. 


It sounds a lot like another imageepoch game, Arc Rise Fantasia, right now.. fighting for freedom, the church killing people... I really loved Arc Rise Fantasia (the undub!!) but I hope it will be different.... I hope the church won't have such an important role, I just don't like the church as the bad guys, way too overused.


I'm not too sure what to expect from all of those involved.. the art is superb, definitely, but imageepoch has never done anything more than mediocre to quite good but flawed games imo and Nojima never really got to me either. I still hope this turns out good and will be localised. ^^;


Also: Does anyone else think that Walter looks like a girl if you cut off his head? That clothes design is somewhat creepy... ^^;;


Speaking of imageepoch... as I've mentioned, I'm currently taking a break from Corpse Party and I borrowed my DS to one of my besties, as she has no money for consoles and handhelds, so I gave her my DS and a couple of games (Pokemon White, Ghost Trick, Layton, GTA, ...and I forgot what else XD) so she can enjoy a little gaming. That means I'm taking a break from Devil Survivor 2 right now as well.

So I bought Fate/Extra and Dissiddia 012 [duodecim] (since it's 50% off for Plus users) from the US PSN store and have been playing those two. 



Fate/Extra is very.... hm, I like the design and the gameplay is interesting, but it's also very lacking. The characters are beautiful, especially the 3D models look really awesome (and that from the girl who usually can't stand 3D) but everything else is just so bland and boring. The dungeons are even worse than that Thanatos tower in Persona 3. The battle system is interesting for the first ten minutes and then it just gets annoyingly boring.. you either predict everything right and win after a minute of watching your servant (in my case Archer <333) smack the enemy or you get everything wrong and almost die yourself... and I'm playing on easy mode. 


In fact, everything annoyed me so much, that I downloaded a clear save file and started my game over after I reached the 3rd day of the 1st week. Now at least I know all enemy patterns. The game is still very annoying, it's just one hell of a huge grindfest and usually I do not mind a little grinding here and there, I enjoyed it a lot in Persona 3 & 4, but battles in those two where at least a little rewarding, since you could get Personae and items and stuff, but the lack of any kind of equipment for your servant and the minimal experience gain from each battle, they really demotivate me. 


So, as a result, I asked someone to add the 999SP cheat to my save file, so I can avoid grinding and just add a few points to my skills each day.. orz


I'm on the 6th day of the 1st week now and I hope I'll enjoy the game more now, as I really love the Fate universe.. :) 


But I forgive the game's flaws. Since there is Archer. And who could resist this smug smile, huh? ;>

And even tho I'm pretty sure it won't happen (I've avoided all kinds of spoilers so far!) I really wish for an ending like this:


































Anyway.. while Fate/Extra has an extra lot of flaws, I still kinda enjoy it.. ^^


Dissidia 012 [duodecim] is quite lovely in every sense on the other hand so far. I'm not huge on fighting games unless I play against someone else (sitting next to me, playing on the same console, not via online play - I'm a big fan of Guilty Gear and Melty Blood <3) so I'm playing on easy and with the RPG mode and while I do barely understand all of the gameplay yet (50 minutes into the game) it does seem to be fun and it's definitely a good buy for $14,69! <3


I'm also done with Fringe, I'm up to the latest episode and OMG THIS SERIES IS UTTER MINDFUCK!!! Totally love it, but I think they should stop adding new timelines, alternate realities and everything.. it gets a little confusing by now. ;> And Olivia and Peter... it's just graaghwjwgjfkrfhjrk!!!!1eleven


I swear, I'll kill the people behind this series if those two do not end up happily ever after at some point! ;> Since I was so obsessed with Fringe I have to catch up with Lost Girl, New Girl, Being Human, Grimm and all those anime series I'm currently watching as well.. but oh well, I'll concentrate on Fate/Extra for now! :) 

My game and my brother's PS3

Which are two totally unrelated things. :>


First of all, I found an artist for my game. So this kinda makes the team complete. My bestie, who is awesome, will be in charge of composing the music and sound effects (http://www.benedikt-grosser.com/), a long-time online friend of mine will be in charge of programming (... and I am wholeheartedly amazed by his enthusiasm for programming) and now for the art we've got a very talented artist! (http://cathselprime.deviantart.com/)

Now that leaves me with game design and the story. 

I finally had some ideas about a core element in the story, so writing should move along smoothly. I still have to figure out a few things about game play mechanics, like what kind of effect they have on the story progression and individual charater routes and things like that. I started a few character designs, which I'll hand over to the artist this weekend and maybe in a bit there will be more to show. :)

Things are moving a long slowly in any case! <3





But for this weekend, I've got my little brother's PS3 - he's off to Holland with a few friends, so I can have his PS3 while he's gone. And I still got Agarest Senki (also known as Record of Agarest War) on my PSN account, which I bought like 2 years ago and never had a chance to play since I don't own a PS3. orz

But now I've got 3 whole days to try and finish the game. I probably won't be able to play through all generations in this time, but maybe I can at least finish one? I totally need to check out which bride makes the prettiest son, so I can play the bishiest hero in the other generations. ;> Tho I will probably not go for any girl that annoys me, even if her son would be the easiest on the eye. Hopefully the one's with the pretty sons are the girls I'd choose anyway. (I'll definitely go for the fox girl in the second generation. :>)

The game should have finished downloading by now, so off I go to save the world and make children! ... Did I mention that I totally want to play Conception: Ore no Kodomo wo Undekure and make lots of Star Children? 8)

2012/03/09

Going to the slam!

Just a tiny update via my Vita - I'm amazed how well blogspot works on it, uploading images doesn't seem to work tho - going to my monthly poetry slam thingy today and I'm somewhat excited to see David Friedrich again, who I've only seen in a team slam together with Bjoern Dunne (I think that's his name ^^;) before. Dunne was at last month's slam by himself tho, presenting both a German and an English text, which was pretty neat. Anyway, gotta hurry now and get back home to meet with my bestie and some other friends, yay! <3