Wednesday 28 December 2011

Dark souls boss profiles: Taurus demon


Taurus demon
HP: 1200~
Skills: Jumping smash, Standing smash, Poke, Hammer swing*
Souls:1000

Difficulty:1.5/5
Times died on 1st playthrough: 1

Welcome to the 2nd post of dark souls boss profiles, where we cover all the bosses of dark souls. For today, we will going through the 2nd boss I fought during my playthrough, and thats the Taurus demon. This guy should be familiar to fans, since he appeared alot in screenshots and trailers. He seems so unbeatable at first, but once you figure out the secret of the fight (which isnt that hard to figure out at all), you can beat him no problem. Taurus demon is the boss of undead burg.



He's quite a terror to fight against on the ground.

Jumping smash- He leaps foward in an attempt to smash you. Its slow, so you gotta time your dodges carefully.

Standing smash- Same as jumping smash, but without the jump. This is even easier to predict once you see it coming.

Poke- This seems to hit me alot, but thankfully, its the lowest damaging out of all his attacks. He stabs you with the blunt thin end of his hammer, almost without warning. Roll away or block, but blocking will cost you a hefty amount of stamina.

Hammer swing*- This hits hard, and its hard not to get his by this. He lifts his hammer sideways and attempts to swipe you. It has good range, and  blocking it is a bad idea, since it staggers you. Dodging this is tricky too, since the timing for his swing is awkward as hell, and I always roll at the wrong time. Rolling back once won't cut it, roll back twice just to make sure. Rolling sideways is suicide. If you are hit by this, you will fly (literally).


Another easy boss. If it isnt obvious enough, you aren't suppose to literally 1v1 this boss like a pro, because he will slaughter you. The arena you fight in is super linear, and its just a straight path back and forth. In other words, you don't have alot of room to dodge. There are multiple ways to winning this fight, using the intending jumping stab method, melee him 1 on 1 (not recommended unless you are high leveled or confident with your melee skills), or ranged combat (once again, not really recommended).

I'll start with the easiest method first. When you enter the arena, look for a ladder near your position without moving any further foward (moving too far up front prompts the taurus demon to appear). Climb it and dispatch the 2 skeleton archers up there. Now climb back down and go prompt the taurus demon. When he shows up, climb up the ladder to the top and wait for him to reach your position. When he reaches the tower, he will look up at you, not doing anything, this is your chance to strike. Do a jumping stab on him. Depending on your starting class, you can do up to 400 damage easily. Beware though, if you idle too much up there, he will jump up there and personally clobber your ass.

After your first stab, the rest is easy as well. Run to the halfway point of the arena, and watch him run towards you. When you see him readying an attack, run past him and back to the ladder. If you dodged the attack, take this time to climb up the ladder real quick, if you are hit, reposition yourself and try to dodge his next attack before running for the ladder. Granted that you dodged his attack, you will be able to climb the ladder without taking a scratch, since he will be too busy recovering from his attack to come aftee you. Wait for him to come at you again, and do jumping stab to take off another good chunk of health. Rinse and repeat until dead, shouldnt take more than 4 or 5 times for most classes.


Kids, don't try this at home.

If you are a mage or hunter, ranging this guy is also a possibility. Especially with mage, since jumping stab with dagger does crappy damage, you're gonna want to range this guy with magic, you're gonna have better results. As usual, start the battle up the tower, do a jumping stab on him. After that, take this battle differently. Prompt him to attack, if its anyting but the jumping smash, roll back a few times, then fire soul arrows at his face. Rinse and repeat, he doesnt have a whole lot of magic defense to begin with, and you definetely won't even need 30 soul arrows to kill him. Hell, I doubt you need 20.
 
Meleeing him requires a sheer amount of skill, since the arena is so linear. The usual roll and smack strategy applies, but this guy hits to hard its not even funny. I don't recommend meleeing him at all (unless of course you are in NG+). What you're gonna want to do here should be fairly similar to previous strategies. You run, prompt an attack, hit his ass, rinse and repeat. But this time, make sure the attack you are prompting is jumping smash, since it has huge recovery time and you can ALWAYS run behind him when he does this.
 
Taurus demon is superbly easy to beat if you use the intended jumping stab method, its just a matter of running and climbing. Other methods arent recommended, but if you have shitty damage with melee, it can't really be helped. Meleeing him is the hardest, but people have done it. There are harder bosses to come, don't worry.
 
Peace.

Monday 26 December 2011

Pokemon White version

Gamespot score:7.5(Good)

my score:8.5

(+)Pros:-Great leap in terms of visuals from the previous game,-brand new continent with totally brand new pokemon (no repeats from older versions AT ALL until post game),-battle system is yet again FURTHER improved,-super long gameplay,-C-gear is convinient,-story actually tries to be a little different this time and the villians have a somewhat bigger impact.

(-)Cons:-Its pokemon all over again! You jelly haters?,-C-gear takes WAY too long to connect sometimes.

Gameplay time:50 hours+


Pokemon pokemon pokemon. The magic word that makes people go wild. There's no doubt in my mind that at least 90% of the world has at least played ONE pokemon game, if they haven't... they have failed in life. Like all pokemon games before it, pokemon white/black strives to not revamp thier formula, but instead improve upon it, to create the ultimate adventure that strikes as a familiar one to the fans, yet slighty different so they don't get bored. Time and time again this has been done, but without a doubt, this year, Game freak has pulled a fast one on us, and white/black is probably one of the best pokemon games up to date. 



Pokemon stories always make me go zzzzzzzzz. Because its basically the same shit all over again. Thankfully though, Game freak emphasised on thier story more this year. While the root of the story remains mostly the same, now we actually have REAL villians, and more worthy rivals. Previous games had the game make you go through this same procedure....8 gyms> villians appear somewhere in between>capture the legendary at gym 8> kill off villians at gym 7> proceed to steamroll elite 4>credits. Now though, there are changes. The villians arent just a team of losers trying to abuse the use of pokemon, but there are actually solid characters behind that team, and make you think. I think Ghetis and N make great villians, just as cheron and bianca make great rivals. There are 2 rivals this time round, and other than just fools that appear like 3 times in the game just to fight you, these actually appear frequently, and thier seperate ideals are an interesting thing to have. Finally, the professor is a CHICK! WAD.



The most stressful moment of all history...choosing your starter.

White/black version's improved story is just one of the many juicy things it has to over. Like all pokemon games, black/white's theme is to FUCKING CATCH THEM ALL.WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. Well, no harm in that, pokemon has always been like that. In black/white though, we get the leisure of exploring a brand new continent with brand new pokemon. I say this because its 100% true, all pokemon are BRAND NEW. Unlike, the gen 4 games, where we got cool ass pokemon like gastrodon and garchomp, but the caves were still populated with fking zubats and geodudes.

 None of that is in black/white, the pokemon in the continent are all gen 5 exculsive.....now that is awesome. I'd say that is a step in the right direction, lets hope all future games do this. Of course, old school pokemon still appear....post game. The visuals also took a nice leap in the right direction. Instead of still images, now we have like sort of GIFs. The pokemon all move in thier own seperate animation in battle now, and that is great. Took them 5 generations of games...but they finally done it! Also, the visuals in towns and other areas look pretty sweet. The camera angle turns to capture the best parts of the area, and dynamic zoom outs reveal the best of cities and mountains.



Game freak really gave it thier all in terms of visuals.

The basic flow of the game hasnt changed at all. You travel through towns and challenge gym leaders for thier badges, and participate in pokemon battles. Battles have changed quiiiite abit in black/white. For example, now in the wild, there are "dark" grass patches. Walking on these will make you encounter usually rarer and stronger pokemon....you might also trigger double battles. As usual its all about beating them or capturing them when in the wild. Trainers are also mostly the same. The game runs on the exact same elemental weakness system it has been using all the while.

Though a new feature this time round, is the triple pokemon battle. As if double pokemon battles werent hectic enough, 3 on 3 fights are even crazier. These new features promote multiplayer even more, and they have something to address this as well. Meet the C-gear. A brand new item that allows users to communicate with others through wifi, be it battling, trading, travelling together, or just for the sake of communicating. The C-gear makes everything multiplayer so much more convinient, but of course, those who prefer the way of the old school can always go to the nearest pokemon center.


Triple the pokemon....triple the madness.

Pokemon, no matter how fancy, will always be pokemon. White/black does have some great improvements, but boy, old school fans will still be bothered. I have played every pokemon game since the original gold/silver/crystal, and up till now, black/white is still using the same formula. Like I said earlier, I don't think Game freak is going revamp thier game plan anytime soon. The exact same cycle of going through 8 gyms, getting the legendary pokemon and beating the bad guys is getting old, and even the improved story cant fail to save that. Another issue is regarding C-gear. No matter how convinient it is, it has issues, like taking forever to connect.

The pokemon formula is getting stale, and it shows us so in black/white. But, the extra effort put into the story, and the fact that the continent had nothing but brand new pokemon is sweet. All that and more make black/white a great addition to the already blooming franchise. Black/white proves that Game freak still has some tricks up their sleeves, and I cant wait to see what they have in store for us in gen 6.



Happy gaming!

Friday 23 December 2011

Incest?!? Probably not (Oreimo review)


Opening songs
OP 1-Irony (ClariS)

Ending songs*
ED 7-Masquerade (Kana hanazawa)

Genre:Drama, Comedy

Episodes:16

I should be updating more, but I'm currently too busy playing games ( you guys want more reviews right? I'm running short of games already). I finished like 3 games during the past month, including time spent on League of Legends, PLUS anime and other shit....Well, enough whining from me, lets get to the topic at hand today, and thats none other than the anime review of the all so awesome Oreimo. This anime has been spreading like wild fire since its release, and thats definetely a good thing, since Oreimo is nothing short of a great anime. Its something new, to say the least, and it aint your regular "romance"/comedy, because theres absolutely no romance in this, and Im glad to see that its not in the genre. And before you go saying "Damn this incest shit I aint watching this", stop. Whoever told you that is lying and you should still watch this if you are interested, you probably won't regret it.

The opening song for Oreimo is insanely good. 'Irony' is an awesome song and I got hooked immediately, and this was the song that made me so hyped onto ClariS. It is currently my 2nd favourite song from them (my favourite being their latest single, Nexus).  I highly recommend you guys to pick up 'Irony' because it is the shit! And the fact that the opening animations change a little bit almost every episode makes it even better. There are WAYY TOO MANY ending songs for the anime, there is a seperate ending theme for each godamn episode, and its overwhelming. I could not remember every single one of them altough I looked them all up. The only one that caught my attention was 'masquerade' by kana hanazawa, and it was used as the ending for episode 7. It is catchy, and something different from her, since her usual works are all cutesy stuff.

Rating:8.0/10

Well this kind of score would kind of have been expected from me. Yes, I think Oreimo is great, along with the rest of the world. Whats there not to like about it? The characters are likable, the background is story is solid, and the situations that take place in the anime are all great expriences for us viewers. Could have been an 8.5 though, Kirino can be beyond annoying at times (Just saying). Well I guess thats what tsunderes are all about. Oreimo is a different experience from modern day harems. Oreimo IS a harem, don't get mistaken, but its more about the relationship between brother and sister, and not the usual "romance" stuff in other animes. I've heard people with sisters as siblings find this a little disturbing, but still ended up liking it one way or another.



How the F**K can you refuse your sister when she looks at you like that??!!?
 Oreimo stars (yet once again) a regular high school boy as the main character. Kyouske is a normal young man leading a regular life in school and outside. But at home, he bears quite a problem. Kyouske has a younger sister known as kirino, and she is a lil b*tch. Kirino and Kyosuke have a very bad sister/brother relationship, and they don't even acknowledge each other. They rarely speak to each other, and don't care about one another whatsoever. One day though, all of that changed. Kyouske finds an eroge lying around, and is puzzled to whose it was. Holding on to it and keeping it in his room, he finds kirino barging in to look for something. Kyouske had to game, and after he made kirino confess that the game was hers, he gave it back to her. Later that night, kirino heads into kyouske's room once again, inviting him to HER room, and revealing to him that she is actually an otaku. That night, kyouske learns alot about his sister that he never knew about, and since then, kirino has starting a session with her brother known as "life counseling". Because of "life counseling", kyouske now gets to know more about her sister, and they begin acting like real siblings now. As a price though, now kyouske gets into loads of weird shit because of his sister.

Oreimo is great. Not because it has fanservice or because it has nice girls, its because its different. Never would I have expected a tale between a brother and sister, that doesnt actually involve incest (Kiss x sis...lol). To make things even better, this show has 2 alternatives. Episode 1-12 shows the original "good ending". Episodes 12.5-15 show the "true ending" which is a slighty longer but more touching take on the original "good ending". No reason not to pick this up, no?

Peace!


Opening songs
OP 1-Egao no riyuu (Meg rock)

Ending songs
ED 1-Life and proud (Aki misato)

Genre:Romance, Comedy

Episodes:12

The holidays are here and I am still being a lazy ass. I apologize for that, but here I am. For today, I will be reviewing Asu no yoichi, which apparently seems like your everyday average harem anime. Well it is typical harem, but its actually one of the better ones....in a way. It has more or less every thing a harem should have, even its own swimsuit episode. Its pretty staple, but there are some characters that are very likable and funny, making this one quite worth your time. Also, if you are tired of main characters being powerless, useless and always being bullied, look no more! This anime has a freaking samurai for a main character, instead of being bullied, he beats the shit out of others!

Asu no yoichi has some alright songs being used. For the opening, we have 'Egao no riyuu' by Meg rock. By itself its a pretty good song and gets catchy real quick, but I highly recommend you to check our the remix by exit trance, that one is great. The ending is 'Life and proud' by the all so famous Aki misato. It isnt a bad song, but there are definetely much better songs by her (Scarlet bomb, blood queen etc).

Rating:7.5/10

No shit, Im not being biased here, I really think Asu no yoichi deserves it. It shares many similarities with common day harems, and it definetely does NOT fit the theme romance (by now you probably already know what romance means to me). Still, yes, it is funny, and damn, the characters are pretty likable, especially Washizu and his little sidekick. And you will actually even grow to like the main character, which is a special case, like me. Usually main characters in harems are shunned, but I think yoichi is pretty cool, in more ways than one. Oh and lets not forget, no harem is complete without its set of hot girls :D, which this anime has no shortage of.



This scene is legit, Im sure you will agree with me.
 As the title of the anime suggests, the star of the show is none other than yoichi himself. Yoichi is but a meager samurai of the karasuma clan, using wind in his techniques. He is the next successor of the family, and he has been living in the mountains with his father. Unfortunately, his father's training is at his limits, and yoichi can only be as strong as he is now if he continues living with him. So, in hopes to make yoichi stronger, he sends him to the city to live with some acquantinces, who are also training under the wind technique. However, since he has been living in the mountains his whole life, the city proved to be difficulty for yoichi on his first visit. He got into lots of trouble and almost got involved with the police. Luckily, he got picked up by the ones that he was supposed to be living with, and they turned out to be the ikaruga family...a family of girl siblings. And thus, his life begins, as he lives with the ikarugas...as a single boy.

Asu no yoichi is a good harem, thats all there is to it. If you are tired of regular high school boys starring in these extremely lucky situations, how bout a, insanely samurai kid who knows nothing about the city? Now this is a legit harem situation. Those harem lovers should already have this under thier belt, but if not, give this a go, its worth your time.

Peaceee.

Thursday 15 December 2011

Penumbra:Black plague

Gamespot score:8.0(Great)

my score:7.5

(+)Pros:-Great atmosphere,-gripping story that leaves alot to be pondered upon,-manages to be scary,- challenging puzzles that require lots of area observation.

(-)Cons:-Regular enemies pose almost no threat,-far too short,-clunky graphics..even for something released in 2008.

Gameplay time:Below 5 hours



Scary games are few in the market nowadays. The top dominators for the horror genre now are perhaps the dead space series and silent hill (I could be wrong), but even so, this is a very unvisited genre. Penumbra:Black plague was released back in 2008, and it was the last in the penumbra series. I havent played overture and reqiuem, and I probably never will, but still, black plague was a unique experience, even for me. I couldnt stand amnesia, but black plague was fine. The game seemed like a brand new adventure on its own, it may be a third game in the series, but the story was easy to catch on and it quickly became an engrossing one. Penumbra:Black plague is a good horror game to envelope yourself in, wheter you're a horror game fan or not.



The story puts you in the shoes of a lone adventurer, philip. Philip was apparently looking for his father, and through his journey, he met red. But due to the events of the second game, red was killed. Now in black plague, he continues his journey, and he finds himself at an abaondoned lab. There he runs into the monsters that have been haunting him, in his quest to find his father. But in black plague, philip eventually catches on a virus, and soon becomes mad. He starts hearing a voice in his head that can attracts monsters to his position. The voice talks to him and names him clarence. Philip finds Clarence's existence a treat, and goes on a journey to attempt to eliminate him.



Always bring your handy torchlight when adventuring!

Penumbra:Black plague, being an old game, has some dated graphics. Still, the game does well in creating an awesome atmosphere that is perfect for a horror game. The areas are dark and deserted, filled with long black hallways with only small amounts of flicky bulbs used to light them up. There is no music, so threading these hallways can be quite lonely...and when you hear the slightest sound, you will turn and look around frantically to find the source....and most of the time you will run into a monster.

There are many different environments to explore, but the main theme here is a labotrary/underground base, so there are lots of hallways and rooms. Still, you will be traversing sewers, caves and some hallucination segments have you traversing hell inspired deathpits, with flames and skulls everywhere. To makes things even scarier, the monsters look kinda freaky, and the way they come at you can be pretty creepy as well. Props to the developers there.

To comment more on the monsters in penumbra, they cannot be killed. There is no way or method to actually put a monster down for good. You can have a monster chase you for long segments, but you cannot kill him. Now that makes a good gameplay mechanic. Similar to silent hill:Shattered memories, the game's horror standards are boosted significantly when you have no way to defend yourselves from the mosnters....except running of course. There are a few ways to deal with the monsters. While running works fine, the bugger will keep chasing you like a deprived beggar, until you enter a new area. You can avoid the monster completely, by sneaking past it. OR, when see or hear a monster nearby, you can hide it out by camping at a hidden location until it moves away.

When faced by a monster the options given to you to counter them are aplenty, but it all narrows down to you running away from them. Other than the monsters, there are also some cleverly made puzzles that require a lot of inspection to the environments to solve. Some of them are so hard that I had to refer to walkthroughs a few times. Moving poles, crushing cans, lighting fires...all of these are to be done by observing and using your environment surrounds, which can be tricky.

You scared bro? YOU SCARED??
Black plague is plagued by issues of its own (see what I did there?). For one, it is toooo short. Like as in, short, portal short. I cleared the game in like 3 hours or something. Yeah I used a guide, but even if I didnt, I would go crazy and still clear it under 5 hours. Its hell short. The graphics also leave something to be desired. It may be released in 2008, but it totally pales when compared to stuff like dead space, L4D and crysis. And another issue (they fixed this in amnesia), is that the enemies posed no threat. Sure you couldnt kill them, but they took way too many hits to kill you, and your sprinting speed was enough to outrun them, which is stupid.

Penumbra:Black plague, being the final game in the franchise, did a good job closing off the series. The story was pretty engrossing, and they ending left me thinking for quite awhile ( I actually couldnt sleep for a day thinking about it). Black plague is a suitable horror game for almost anyone, altough the game's lenght might be a huge turnoff.



Happy gaming....

Tuesday 13 December 2011

Final fantasy:The 4 heroes of light

Gamespot score:7.5(Good)

my score:7.7

(+)Pros:-Goes back to the series's oldschool roots....which is good,-lenghty adventure with a fair amount of post game content,-tons of character customization with the superb amount of crowns and different classes,- becomes rather challenging towards the 2nd half of the game,-charming graphics.

(-)Cons:-Some of the dungeons are boring,-can be quite a tedious grindfest at times,- some areas have annoyingly high enemy encounter rate.

Gameplay time:30-40 hours



Final fantasy has always been a series that holds a special place in the hearts many RPG fans. Final fantasy 13 was criticized by alot of these fans for its linear explorations and other issues. What went wrong? I personally enjoyed FF 13, not sure why people hated on it that much. Still...if people loved final fantasy back then and hated final fantasy 13 now, the four heroes of light are here to let players relive the old days. The four heroes of light go back to final fantasy's very roots, and brings players an adventure that redefines the very definition of what "old school" is, thats because this is as old school as it gets...and its a good thing.



To further show its oldschool-ness, the plot itself is something that is rather cliche. Still, the very plot itself screams final fantasy, its almost hard to fault. You star as brandt, a young man of the town horne, and one day on his visit to the king's castle, the king brings terrible news. The princess has been kidnapped (seem familiar?). Brandt's childhood friend jusqua has already been sent to rescue her, so as the stubborn young man brandt is, he takes off to rescue the princess with his trusty blade and nothing else. On his journey he runs into Jusqua, the princess's personal guard Yunita, and the princess herself, Aire. After rescueing the princess and returning to horne, the entire townsfolk had turned to stone. To cure this ancient curse, the four heroes must set out to the world and seek ancient lands to find a solution...and save thier hometown.



Arm yourself with all the cool shit you find!

Final fantasy: the 4 heroes of light brings some very simple and oldschool mechanics into play, and thus, its not very hard to get yourself into the game. There isnt a tutorial or anything, right off the bat you are thrown into the world map and fighting for your life as you are swarmed by birds and goblins. The exploration mechanics are very similar to that of old final fantasy games, like FF 1,2 and so on....you get the point. Those games were out before I was even born = =. You navigate the areas on a world map, and you can see your character walking through forests and plains before actually entering a town or cave.

On the world map, you can encounter monsters, just like always. Of course, later on you get tons of transport options, including sea transport and flight. Seeing the return of the world map is kinda awesome, its been awhile since we were able to do this in final fantasy games. Things get even better when you enter the towns and dungeons you actually see when traversing the land. Towns, like old FFs, are places for you to buy armor, weapons, items and rest up at the local inn for replenishing your characters' health and stats. The graphical style in this game is pretty much like the FF games on DS, and its as charming as always.



Welcome back to the classic turn by turn battle system. No ATBs here!
 Just like there are many awesome towns in the game, there are just as many dungeons, and they come in all shapes and sizes. There caves, mountains, ruins, haunted mansions and more, and of course, these are infested with the finest of monsters. Monsters are modeled just as the characters way, and while this may not be a bad thing, its sometimes hard to find some of those bigger monsters very menacing. The battle system is classic turn by turn combat introduced long ago. There isnt much to explain, you and the enemy monsters just take turns striking each other...its as simple as it gets. Of course, there are many factors that make battle alot more enjoyable.

 First of all, there are tons of classes available for you to choose, providing different ways for you to tackle your enemies. Through the course of the game you unlock crowns, each with its own special abilities. Wear a crown and your character changes to the corresponding class the crown represents, and gain all abilites that the crown has in it. Through battles you will receives various gems and crystals of different value, and you use these to upgrade your crowns, granting more abilities. There are TONS of crowns (easily over 20), and leveling them all up to get all the available abilities can soon get addictive. You can build your team of 4 as varied as you want, changing classes for fights you cant win can be really cool...trying different strategies. This is definetely required, since the 2nd half of the game will kick your ass with its tough ass bosses (Fuck YOU asmodeus).



*Insert victory fanfare here*

Being an oldschool game, it will be plagued by some flaws you'd expect from an oldschool game. For one, the game can become quite a grindfest. Its expected actually. You run through a dungeon flawlessly and get your arse kicked by a certain boss (again, Im looking at you asmodeus, and you too belzebub), where does that leave you? Thats right, grinding. You grind and grind again to get gems and EXP to power up your crowns and characters, and it gets tedious. The dungeons are also dreadfully boring at times. Its always just 3 floors of lousy mazes, followed by a boss. Very rarely only are you greeted by some innovative puzzles. Now if all dungeons had good puzzles to them, it would have been great. Finally...some of these dungeons and some segments of the game have sooo annoyingly high encounter rate its sickening. Cant we walk 2 steps without fighitng another enemy that looks the same as the previous one? Jesus...


The 4 heroes of light successfully captures the spirit of oldschool final fantasy games, and it does a damn good job at that. Everything ranging from the exploration, combat and the story are done well to let the game be shaped in that condition. The main journey is lenghty, about 30 hours long at least. Plus the optional post game towers you can explore....thats an easy 40 hours. The 4 heroes of light makes itself a worthy addition to the final fantasy franchise, and is well worth any JRPG lover's time.




Happy gaming.

Well, I would like to start something a little new here, and yes its regarding anime. I may do one for games too, just the villians thing I like to do but who knows. Just to rake up the posts yes? :)

Anyway, anime has always been one of my main sources of entertainment, but everytime I finish a good anime and move on to the next, my mind becomes focused on the new anime, and my memory of the previous I anime I watched starts to slowly fade away. By the time I finish the new anime, the old anime is mostly gone, but there are parts that stayed itched to my memory...and those are the characters that really appealed to me in that particular anime.

So to commerate those characters, Ima do posts to describe them and tell you guys what makes me like those characters and make me remember them! 

Oh yeah, *SPOILERS*. There, I said it.


11eyes

11eyes wasn't really that awesome of an anime, it barely made my "good" mark to be honest. Still, a good anime to me is still good, and there may be a character or 2 here for me. My friend told me 11eyes was like a different version of persona 3 to me, well it wasn't really the case to me. Still, I liked the concept of the red night, and the heroes trapped in it were some pretty valiant ones.




The coolest guy in 11eyes hands down.

Thats right, heres my 11eyes favourite. Takahisa may be no hero, but he's cool, to me anyway. First impression of him when I saw the opening, "Omg badass fire dude he's gonna be awesomeeeee". Well true enough, he was an awesome guy, though he doesnt show it at first. Takahisa appears at early random segments of the anime, shown briefly for burning up his foes in the red night, and always turned up wounded after the red night ended.

I basically like how he likes to put on this tough guy attitude. He's a delinquent in school, and his foster mother is the school nurse. He acts like a badass, but deep down he cares for those he is acquianted with, like yukiko and his foster mom. Out of all the 11eyes good characters, he is the last to join the party. He fights alongside satsuki and gang a few times with the black knights, but only later on he truly becomes friends with them and agrees to fight with them.

Alas all good things come to an end, while he was the last and final member to join satsuki's party, he is the first to die. When his foster mom got brutally murdered by a black knight, he goes berserk and tries to attack her killer, wanting revenge. Sadly he couldnt do it, and even so, it was an illusion he was fighting. Yukiko begs him to stop, but he can't control his flames anymore, since his emotions were out of control. In his final fit of sanity, he asks yukiko to kill him, and thus ends the life of this valiant warrior, dieing at the hands of the girl whom admired him. Takahisa will always be the coolest character in 11eyes.


Angel beats

Shit, its hard to decide for only ONE character for angel beats, since its such an awesome fcking show! So many cool ass characters....its really hard for me to choose just one. Angel beats was an anime that was suprisingly unique, blending school life and the afterlife together, making a school who dead teenagers with regrets in life to attend.



Haruhi in angel beats?? Guess again.

Yuri was always my favourite character of angel beats in my book. Her bright and funny personality always meant that each and every episode of angel would be funnier. Then again most of the angel beats cast are pretty funny, still, Yuri earns her spot as an amazing character. Despite being cheerful, funny, commanding and sexy, she does her part well. The first person that otonashi meets when he lands into the twisted world of angel beats, it yuri, and she was the one that told him about the mystery and true nature that surrounds the world that he is in.

Yuri is the brigade's commander, and she fits that role very well. In all of the missions she brings the team along for in the episodes, she fares the best among the team. She is in my opinion the 2nd strongest character in angel beats, just a few steps behind kanade (which is godly strong). She is able to go toe to toe with kanade with just a knife, and that feat alone is quite an accomplishment for someone like her.

She also wants to find out the reason behind the world itself, and for her especially, this was a big must, since her past life was the most painful. She had to endure to see her siblings being shot one by one, before dieing herself. It was a sad sad past, and she wanted to confront god to clarify why she got such an unfair life. Still, she gets my vote, as in the end, she makes up with kanade all sweet like, which is a thumbs up.



Beautiful...just beautiful.
One character from angel beats isnt enough! I still need a dose of everyone's favourite kawaii loli angel, kanade. Voiced by the all so awesome kana hanazawa and easily being the strongest character in the anime canon-wise, kanade is tons of awesomeness packed into one innocent young girl. Kanade may not be one with a lot of personality, but by the end of the anime, you CANT HELP but grow to love this girl.

At the beginning, kanade is treated as an antagonist, as an angel serving god. She was seen that way because she could potray all sorts of special powers unavailable to all other students. But after she was successfully framed by the brigade and demoted, naoki took the student council president's place. After those events, otonashi and the brigade grew to learn that kanade meant no harm, and she only developed those powers because she was constantly hunted down by the brigade. The anime does a great job to already make viewers feel sorry for her at this point.

Kanade only ever wanted friends, nothing else, yet she was always treated as an enemy. Plus, during the very ending of the anime, when everyone ascended, with only kanade and otonashi left, the great confession took place, and after that super sad event, everyone could have guessed what kanade's living regret was.....


Ao no exorcist

For the final anime today we have something rather recent. Ao no exocrcist was another great show that seemed strangely similar to the likes of D.grayman and soul eater. Still, no one's complaining, and the show was definetely a huge hit, especially for the ladies (look at the amount ot fking yaoi fanart). Not much is needed to explain the setting for ao no exorcist, if you watched soul eater, is should seem immediately familiar.


Sexy D-cup lady wearing a bikini top with badass tatoos and a slick sword?
.................Sold.

I have a thing for "cool" characters. Shura from ao no exorcist easily fits that role. Not only is she extremely hot, she is one hell of a badass. If there was a character to fit the badass role in the anime, it would no doubt be shura.

Shura appears mid series, and it definetely takes awhile for her to show up. I have been anticipating her appearance the whole damn time when I was watching ao no exorcist, and when she finally showed up, she exceeded my expectations. From pictures I simply thought she was a transfer student or something...but when she took off her hoodie jacket and showed her true self....HOT DAMN! Seeing her fight off amaimon was something, and immediately set a mark on her character for me.

Shura's significance in the story wasnt a really big one after she shows up, but thats how all badasses roll :). She appears as a trainer for rin as he trains his flames, due to her demonic nature and power. She was a previous apprentice of shiro, rin's foster father, and he entrusted rin to her if anything were to happen to him. So now she trains rin, while being a part time exorcist and a part time school teacher as well. Everytime she fights, she whoops ASS. Shura is just awesome. Plus, she's really funny.

Peace out for now, more to come in the future.

Wednesday 7 December 2011

Dark souls boss profiles: Asylum demon


Boss stats

Asylum demon
HP: 800~
Skills: Hammer swing, Downward smash, Foward smash, Flying butt slam
Souls:1000

Difficulty:1/5
Times died on 1st playthrough: None

Welcome back people! As said before in my final demons' souls boss profile on king allant, I will be doing a boss profiles section for every boss in dark souls as well. I finished dark souls, reviewed it, and it was awesome, one of the best games I ever played. Now then, I would like to go through every boss like I did in demons' souls, in hope to share with you guys my experience on how I beat them and how you can beat them as well. Anyway, lets get started on the very first boss in the game, the Asylum demon, the boss of the northern undead asylum.



Thats quite a belly.

Well, the Asylum demon is the tutorial boss in the game, so yeah, he's incredibly easy. And people are comparing him to vanguard in demons' souls. Though they do have similar moves, Asylum demon is wayyyyy easier. It may seem impossible to kill him at first, but once you get proper equipment and a free jumping stab on him, you will see how ridiculously easy this fatass is to kill.

Hammer swing- His main method of damage. No need to fear, its nothing but a lousy hammer swing. It does alright damage, and its slow as hell. A good roll will put this move in its place.

Downward smash- He holds his hammer differently and points it downwards, then thrusts it down. Very very easy to avoid, and he does this very slowly. As usual, roll away.

Foward smash- He does this when you are at a distance from him. He lifts his hammer and jus smashes it foward, covering quite the range. This is his most painful attack, but its easy to avoid it as well. You can roll away, or jus move foward a little. If you are hit by the hammer's stick, it doesnt do much damage as well.

Flying butt slam- Similar to vanguard. He floats up a little then falls down, landing on his ass. This hurts, but its sooo easy to avoid. Just move away when you see him float up. Be aware that if you are near him when he immediately lands, you might take some minor damage for just touching him.


Easy peasy. As usual I will be putting an asterisk on any potentially dangerous move. Fortunately, the Asylum demon has none. Its an incredibly easy fight, possibly the easiest in the game. Not much you can expect from a tutorial boss now, can we?

First of all, you cant properly fight the Asylum demon the first time you encounter him, since you only have a broken sword. Run through the the left door and get your weapons 1st. Note that if you DO kill him without going through the left door, he drops his hammer (which has some sweet stats btw). After getting all your stuff and re-entering the fight via a higher ledge, take the fight to him by delivering a jumping slash, and this easily takes off half his life.

Now the real fight begins, with less than 400 HP left, his fate is sealed. All of his attacks arent too much to be afraid of. His hammer swing is what you will be seeing most of the time, but everytime you see his lift his hammer to the side, just roll away, you will escape unscathed. Keep close to him at all times and just keep punishing him everytime he misses his moves. His flying slam and downward smash are too slow to be of any use, everytime you see him point his hammer downwards or fly, just back off, you wont take a single point of damage.

If for some godforsaken reason you need to heal (you shouldnt, this fight is so damn easy), back off and do it, you should be safe. However at a distance he still can hit you with his foward smash, but a simple roll sideways or a roll foward can easily save you. You will be suprised, rolling foward actually saves you from the main damage, since getting hit by that puny stick handle is nothing. Like all of his other moves, this is very punishable.


You may shit bricks when you first open those double doors,
but don't. This guy is a pushover.

Meh, for a first boss, this guy is nothing. Probably the easiest boss in the game I would say, but don't worry, there are much tougher bosses to come. As a tutorial boss he has to be easy. When you down this fatass you get 1000 souls, a good start to level up when you finally head to lordran. Fret not though, we have yet to see the last of this fatass.

Peace.

Saturday 3 December 2011

Dark souls

Gamespot score:9.5(Editor's choice)

my score:9.0

(+)Pros:-Brand new open world mechanics are an excellent addition to the game,-bonfire system is simple and convinient,-dark and bleak world that is fun as hell to explore,-cool monsters,NPCs and more,-boss fights are just as awesome as the ones in demons' souls,- tons of character customization and different starting classes provide a TON of replayability,-online gameplay is still pretty innovative,- challenging difficulty still persists,-in game story and lore is pretty damn amazing.

(-)Cons:-Framerate issues and glitches galore.

Gameplay time:100 hours+


Now you knew this was coming. You all knew I would give dark souls a ridiculously high score...only because it deserves it. Dark souls is the successor the demons' souls, and while its just a spiritual successor, the game bears a ton of similarities to the original. It has endearing difficulty, an insanely cool world, solid combat and everything else that made demons' souls an awesome game. Dark souls strives to take all of those, and improve upon it, adding more options to combat, an open world system and tweaking the overall game mechanics. Fortunately, it still holds its own, and once you finish the game, you will be mind blown at how much of great time you had playing this masterpiece. Dark souls is no doubt, a triple 'A' game.



Demons' soul didn't have much of a story, same to dark souls. But dark souls tries to implore to us that there is ACTUALLY a story. The opening game cinematics are so fking badass that you have no choice but to sit through it and discover what the hell is going on in this world. Basically, the game talks of the world, once ruled by dragons in the age of ancients,  being changed. The dragons who once ruled the world were taken down by the 4 soul lords, gwyn the lord of sunlight, the witch of izalith, nito the first undead and seath the scaleless. Its a pretty epic storytelling moment, and once the dragons were vanquished, the world became ruled by lord gwyn, thus opening up the age of fire. The world is now in peril, and an undead prophecy  floats around the land, stating that a chosen undead will one day succeed lord gwyn and save the world. As luck has it, you are an undead, locked up in the undead asylum. One day a knight drops a corpse with a key on it into your cell, which opens the way out. Thus begins your journey to become the 'chosen undead'.



Battle big and bad monsters as you roam the land of lordran.

If you played demons' souls, dark souls should immediately become familiar to you. The gameplay mechanics are largely similar, of course, with some tweaks. The first thing you are going to realise is the disappearance of the nexus. No more do you play the entire game through the nexus, the whole of dark souls is OPEN WORLD. Cool right? You start off in an undead asylum as the tutorial level, and start the game for real in the firelink shrine. From there you just go off and explore whereever the fk you want to, and you don't have to return at all. You just go on a free journey, taking side paths that wind you up in some random forest or opening doors that suddenly find you in a dark sewer level. Its that great, you never know where you are going next, and the thrill of discovering new areas becomes overwhelming, it soon consumes you.

To top it off, the world and its areas are inhabited by some crazy monsters and NPCs full of personality. Venture to an undead town, fight off undead soldiers and meet an undead merchant who is suprisingly sane and sells you stuff. Talk to him to gather information as he tells you of what happened to the area, or buy items that help you on your journey. Monsters come in shapes and sizes, even more in variety than in demons' souls. You fight knights, dreglings, living trees, giants, golems, mudskippers, panthers, giant rats, SNAKE PEOPLE and EYE BOGGLING FROGS. This game is nuts, and you know its a good thing.


As usual, you will die to bosses, so don't be mad.

Fortunately the game still carries over many of its great propeties from demons' souls. The boss fights deserve a great shout out. There are more bosses in dark souls than in demons' souls, which is always a good thing. And to say the least, they are just as amazing as they were before. Discovering them for yourselves and finally beating them after dieing tons of times still feel very satisfying. Speaking of dieing though, this game is still tough as nails, if you didnt know. If you hated demons' souls for its difficulty, why the fk are you even buying this, go play something else, you wimp. If you enjoy the challenge the majority of us who like the game, dark souls is still something that keeps you on your toes.

Enemies come in ganks and like to launch attacks from all directions, making each and every battle a tough one that requires stragetic thinking and good reflexes. Still, if you enjoy the game but its really too much for you...the online features are still there. While I try not to seek online help most of the time (I try my best to clear the game alone), they exist for a reason. You can summon others to help you, or put down your sign to help others...and people can still invade you as you can invade them. Theres a catch though, phantoms now cant heal, and I personally think its a great addition. The game's character creation is also, still robust. Tons of jobs and stats that you can add allow you for lots of experimentation and replayability.


B.A.D.A.S.S
Dark souls doesnt have much when it comes to flaws. It is, after all, an awesome game. I'm not listing the difficulty under the flaws, because its stupid. You know its going to be hard, look at demons' souls! But other than that, the game has one glaring and very hard to forgive flaw. Its not that hard to grasp really, play the game and you will know. Yes, the framrate issues. Many a time, you roam through a a cluttered area and the framrate starts to degrade, badly. Take areas like blighttown, or darkroot garden for example. Glitches are also very present in this game. I stuck myself in between stones and walls many times, and the game froze TWICE during the new londo area when I was falling into the abyss to fight four kings. Yeah...its kind of sad.

Dark souls is an amazing game. It is held back by glitches and framrate issues, but these are almost non existant when put next to such a badass game like dark souls. The flaws are easy to overlook, and it shouldnt affect the players too much. Those who enjoyed demons's souls, no doubt, HAVE to get dark souls. Its almost a neccessity. If you found demons' souls too hard though....leave now, this isn't for you. Lets hope for a 3rd souls game.........



Happy gaming!