The awesome adventures of J & M! (part one)

Adventure games have always been a passion of mine. Back in the day, when computers were still a mystery to me, the only thing I'd touch one for were adventure games.

Games like Monkey Island, Indiana Jones, Laura Bow, Sam & Max, Day of the Tentacle and the likes were my favourite games to play after school. I'd be running over to J's place and we'd sit in front of her mother's computer for hours, trying to find a way to save Laura Bow from the evil killer and solve the crime, trying to have Indy sell leather jackets to about anyone he'd meet. Trying to save Elaine from the evil clutches of LeChuck... oh, those were the days.

But some day 3D took over and the games lost their spark. But the past couple of years the 2D point & click adventure genre had a huge come back, so J and I got back together for the sake of the good old times and our greatest (or most tiring) adventure began.... 

Pokemon Black & White 2's hairstyles..

... are seriously weird and very gravity defying.

The new main characters have been announced and with that the first "scans" started floating around the internet and I must admit... I'm quiet disappointed with the step back compared to the designs of B/W.

  

Whats's with those silly buns for the protag girl? And what kind of plant is growing on the boy's head!? oO And what's up with that blonde dude with that blue freaky strain of hair growing in whatever direction it feels like? Why is the obviously wet hair of the tanned duded standing up high like he emptied 3 cans of hairspray on it? HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE!?

*coughs*

Sigh... I was hoping for a return of my sexy Hilda.. which is the unsexiest name ever, I must admit. But just look at her, shes a brunette, has tied up hair, wears short pants and honestly? She IS kinda hot. Something I thought I'd never think about a Pokemon MC.. ;>

And after the cut you can find some delicious fanart spamming... ;>

Atelier Ayesha

Developer: Gust 

Official Site: click here 

Genre: Turn-Based RPG

Release Date: 2012/06/28 (JPN)

 

I'm pretty excited for this by now... especially since two new awesome characters just got announced.. 8)

Limited Edition

I just pre-ordered the limited edition of Ciel no Surge from CDJapan AmiAmi. I'm not sure if this was really smart, since I don't think the game is very non-Japanese friendly, menu-wise and all, but I really want this game. And the extras. Especially the PS Vita front sticker:

The rest of the LE is nothing that special, a soundtrack CD and "documents" which are probably containing info on characters, the world etc.. 

Definitely not as awesome as my last LE, the Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 4 Treasure Box, which included a CG collection book, a character design book, a bunch of postcards with art from the game and a flower necklace with replaceable stones, 8 of them, one of each for the romanceable guys in the game. <3

But the Ciel no Surge LE is tempting enough with that sticker thingy, I really find it rather pretty and would love to stick it on my Vita... ^^; It's also been quite a while since I bought Haruka4 (and back then I was lucky enough to have a friend stay over in Japan, so he bought it for me and brought it back over here when he got back... no customs, no hundred years of shipping, no shipping fees... yay!) so I'm somewhat excited even tho the extras aren't that awesome. it It still seems pretty shiny to me and about 60 Euro for a LE from Japan is quite cheap actually. Can't wait for early May when the game arrives here.. or rather when I get my notification from the customs office.. orz

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. :)

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! :)