Gamer--freakz

Capra demon
HP: 1176
Skills: Leaping strike*, Single slash, Double handed slash
Souls:6000*


Difficulty:2.5/5
Times died on 1st playthrough: 3


A month has passed already since the last dark souls post....how time flies. Anyway, one of my 3 major assigments are down and I have only 2 left, so I'm free of some load for now. So...heres a post. Heres the 3rd boss I fought for my playthrough. Straight after the taurus demon I went to challenge the bell gargolyes and got my ass handed to me, so I looked for another alternative, I found myself at the capra demon. Take the key in undead parish and head back to undead burg, open up the door in before the dragon, and head on in, finding the capra demon at the end behind a fog gate. Hes not so tough, but definetely different from the previous 2 bosses before him. Capra demon is the 2nd boss of undead burg.





Your first real legit boss fight, show me your moves!

The capra demon is the 1st boss in the game that you will fight legitly with no tricks whatsoever. You cannot jump stab him, and theres no exploit to beating him, you can only finish him off 1 on 1, man to man. Unfortunately though, he has 2 poison dog pals, and they pose a huge problem. They arent very tanky so finish them off ASAP before the 3 of them start ganking on you. Here's a quick rundown on the Capra demon's attacks.

Leaping strike*- His killer move. This attack is probably unblockable unless you have godly stamina and will do a huge chunk of damage. Even if you have a good shield, you will be staggered after this move. Simply move away as you see him prepping for a jump.

Single slash- He swings his blade normally, doing moderate damage. Easily blocked, you can dodge it too. He may swing twice, but it shouldnt make a difference.

Double handed slash- Another dangerous move, but not as scary as leaping strike. He swings at you with both blades, doing huge endurance reduction if blocked, may even guard break you. It has the same range as single slash so dodge accordingly.


The only potentially difficult part for this fight is the beginning, with the capra demon and the 2 dogs charging towards you at full force. You won't be able to take them all on at once, and trying to block them all is suicide. Climb up the stairs and lure the dogs up there, finish them off. If you find yourself cornered with both of them you can jump down and climb up again to reattempt killing them as many times as you want. This is actually the most difficulty part of the fight, you can try many things, including firebombs and magic if you need to, since these should one shot the dogs. Just make sure the capra demon isn't tanking the hit for the dogs.

Now the real fight starts, and without the dogs, the fight will go on much smoother. The capra demon isnt the tankiest of foes, and he will surely fall after a few short combos. Any decent weapon should be able to take him. Fight him on the lower area below the stairs, the arena is rather small, but its better than fighting on a small stairs and a narrow pathway. Take note that when you need to heal take the stairs up and gulp down a few flasks before going down to continue your manly battle.

Fighting the capra demon is a matter of patience. Alone, his attacks arent hard to dodge, but they hit rather hard and he is VERY VERY hard to stunlock. Take things slowly and hit him once or twice, then back off. There is a slight opening after each of his moves, where you can land a hit or two. His leaping strike is the one to look out for, it hits the hardest, but leaves you the biggest opening. After leaping strike you can land 2 hits. Single slash and double handed slash would only give you the opening for one hit. If you're feeling adventurous you can try to go for more, but be prepared to either take some damage or roll away quickly.





Fight the battle to its epic conclusion!

All in all its not too bad. If you drag the fight out and do it the safe way, you should emrge victorious. He hits hard, but he doesnt have alot of moves, and he has no OMGWTFBBQ mode where he goes super saiyan when low on health. Beathing him earns you 6000 souls according to darksouls wiki, in the old patch he only gave about 1000 souls or something, lucky new players. There really is nothing much to this boss, beat him and get the sewer key, but don't go there yet, we have alot more bosses to beat before we venture deep below!


Peace.


gamespot score:6.0(Fair)

my score:8.0

(+)Pros:-Dungeon crawling feels great,-unique and refreshing environments per sector,-demon negotiation is fun and addictive,-demon fusion is back and as good as ever,-alignment system makes for some intense choice making and promotes more gameplay time by providing different endings,-incredibly lenghty main story.

(-)Cons:-Excessive backtracking to previous sectors,-character personalities are rather stiff.

Gameplay time:50 hours+

Sorry for another late post, school is taking up alot of my time. Luckily though I got another 2 games under my belt for reviews. When it comes to dungeon crawlers, no one's done it better than atlus, EO is a superb series, especially the most recent 3rd one. Needless to say when they worked on a dungeon crawler for their star SMT series, they didnt hold back, strange journey is indeed one heck of a dungeon crawler. With tons of cool mechanics going for it, strange journey is a great dungeon crawler, and I'm sure as heck gamespot is underating this gem of a game when other sites are giving it 8s and 9s.




Mankind is plagued with a crisis, and an unknown anomoly is causing the planet's highest classed individuals a huge uproar. Up in the south pole, the schwarweltz is expanding, and its pretty much worrying everyone. To prevent that, the federation has grouped up the world's best soldiers, scientists and researchers to go INTO the schwarweltz, which happens to be a big black dome on unknown. Armed with state of the art equipment and survival suits known as the demonica, these ambitious group dives into the schwarweltz. Split into 4 ships, you play as an american soldier, aboard the red sprite, one of the 4 ships. Upon entering the schwarweltz though, a distortion takes place, and the 4 ships are split apart, causing a huge disalarm. Upon a crash landing, the red sprite gets attacked by demons, and a strange voice sends out a demon summoning programe to all occupants of the red sprite. Since then, they are able to see demons, and thus begins thier adventure on the schwarweltz.




No SMT game is complete without our favourite snow fairy!

The premise of FPS dungeon crawlers like strange journey are all the same. You explore sectors in schwarweltz one by one, named alphabetically, A for Antlia, B for bootes, C for Carina, so on and so forth. There are 8 sectors in total, and each sector is ridiculously long, each with its own side quests and unique layouts. Moving in these sectors feel great, as you move foward step after step, you encounter contraptions like conveyer belts, teleporters, or gates that show you a different side of the map.

These little things make exploring all the more fun to do, and stuff like forma search really take the experience even further. Each and every sector you discover feels and looks great, ranging from ice caves, to shopping malls (this was my favourite), to heaven like sanctuaries. And each of these sectors and infested with thier own varieties of demons, each present in previous SMT games, and thus begins the horror. This game is hard, but like other FPS dungeon crawlers (EO for example), this is expected. And lets be honest, most SMT games are really hard.





Shape your destiny in battle with SMT's familiar formula.

Battles are the basic same SMT stuff you have seen in other games. There are plenty of types of attacks in this game, and each demon is unique to its own strenghts and weaknesses to these attacks. These have been seen many times already, so I won't really go in depth. Demon fusion is back, and it inherits the same characteristics and the one in other SMT games like persona and devil survivor. Now, if you train a demon a lot, it will give you its source, with some of its select skills. You can transfer this source to demon fusion, and have it inherit the skills in that source. Its neat, and using this repeatedly can help you out with fusing your ultimate demon with select skills.

A sweet new mechanic in strange journey, is demon negotiation. This is the first SMT game I played with this feature, and its actually pretty sweet. Anytime during battle, you can communicate with a demon and have him/her do you a favour, be it giving you items, macca, or joining your party. To do this you have to sweet talk them, and talk to them about topics they are interested in. When you are successful, you can ask your favour from them.  These topics are relevant to the type of demon you are talking to. Big badass demons (those gangster kinds) like straightfoward and casual answers, while sexy lady demons like you to suck up to them and compliment thier figure, the more casual lady demons want you to do the opposite though, talk to them about anything other than thier figure. Lets be honest here, thats freaking cool.




Me! Me! I would want a lilith to be my demon!

While the story for strange journey isnt bad, the characters of the story, are some not to look up to. Character models are stiff, and they aren't very full of personality. Other than jimnez, you have an absolutely boring crew, and its no fun to ever hang out around them. Finding other soldiers on the field also makes no different, since they all look the fking same, and conversations with them go nowhere, since they all almost say the same damn things. Another annoying thing about this game is the backtracking. You will be visiting old sectors ALOT, be it for sidequests or story, its no fun to be in a sector you've already been to before, and having spent  tons of hours there. You get what I mean.

Strange journey is far from being a bad game. It is a gem of a SMT title, and no one should overlook it. With a metacritic score of 8.0, gamespot clearly just hated on this one. Strange journey is a unique SMT title that any fan would enjoy, especially if you're a fan of the first person dungeon crawling adventures like EO or class of heroes. Strange journey is a journey worth taking, thats for sure.



Happy gaming.

Gamespot score:9.5(Editor's choice)

my score:8.0

(+)Pros:-Outstanding level design,-great soundtrack,-fun and unique boss fights,-simple and fun gameplay mechanics,-tons of levels (and hidden ones too),-unlockable characters add replayability.

(-)Cons:-Erm......super hard,-linear gameplay.

Gameplay time:10-20 hours

Indie PC games have indeed taken a step foward over the years. Look at stuff like braid, limbo and bastion. These games are like gems in today's gaming society. Super meat boy is one of games. Scoring an amazing 9.5 on gamespot, you'd all expect it to be one hell of mastepiece right? Right???? Sadly, no, gamespot is bullshitting to you. For meatboy to surpass games like Uncharted? Battlefield? Final fantasy? Let me say it up straight, HELLLL NO. Super meat boy is a gem of a game, and is a great platformer on its own, but unforgiving difficulty and linear gameplay make it a game thats not as great as its cut out to be. While it boasts some great level design and long gameplay hours, super meat boy is not a game I can recommend to everyone.




Super meat boy doesn't really have a solid story. Its just like mario all over again. Meat boy likes bandage girl, dr fetus hates meat boy, so to make meat boy sad, dr fetus kidnaps bandage girl. Meat boy, not standing there and taking it, goes to rescue her, mario style. Simple right? Fetus flees from one area to the next, and meat boy chases him left and right to get his precious bandage girl back. Its not much, but its not a bad story either. Given the simple game that it is, it doesn't really need a deep story to shine. Instead, little clips of cartoon cinematics that play in between boss fights and levels show a bit of the comedic side of the game, and can be cool to watch.




Saws! Lots of saws!

Super meat boy is easily one of the most linear platformers around, taking a straightfoward approach leaning more towards the side of mario. You traverse through levels world by world, each world having 20 stages, a couple of hidden ones, and a boss level. There are 5 worlds including a 6th finale world which is far shorter than the rest....so yeah, expect lots of stages. Not to mention that even after end game there are even more post game levels for you to attempt and die more. Each stage is short and can be cleared in a couple of minutes even after dieing to it many times, but combine that with the insane amount of stages....you get easily over a dozen hours of gameplay.

Not to mention, each and every one of these levels is well designed, introducing new elements exclusive to that world you are in, and including saws whenever possible. Each new level tests your skills and helps you improves on them to prepare you for future HARDER stages...and believe the stages DO get ridiculously hard....especially the omega. *shudder* The worlds you get taken to are well made too, giving a fresh new atmosphere different from the previous one. From forests to hostpitals, salt factories, hell and an apocalyptic world. Yeap, feels great. However, it would be better to use something else, instead of saws all the time.



Yeap, the bosses will clobber you.

To go with the great levels, the gameplay itself is simple and addictive. Meat boy just slides along the ground and walls, being the piece of meat that he is, he is generally slippery. You jump and avoid hazards like any other platformer, and can wall jump like megaman X to get to higher or unreachable positions. And this can yield you to find stuff like bandages or secret levels, that make you go retro style. Awesome. Bandages are collected to unlock new characters, each playing differently from one another.

These characters are from other various games, and thier appearance in the game matches thier abilities in thier own game. Head crab from half life, tim from braid, the knight from castle crasher, commander bit trip....and many more. These cameos can be more than just fun to play, and provide new methods to solve levels. Another great thing, and probably the best thing about this game, is the great boss fights. These are scarse, but provide the game with its much needed variety, instead of just a ridiculously hard level after another one, bosses help loosen the pace and place you in a fun and engaging battle. While most of these are just dodging until you get an opportunity to get back at them, it doesnt change the fact that they are probably the stuff I look foward to the most when ravaging through the levels.



Presenting.....more buzz saws!

The bad thing about meat boy is so obvious and simple. Its....hard. Its so ludicriously hard....I don't know why the creators made it so. Was it for us to become mashocists? This was even harder than shit like demons souls and maybe even prinny! WHY??!? The difficulty can be rage inducing at times and I turned off the whole damn game more than once due to dieing at a stage. Unreasonable difficulty at early levels and the level just keeps raising. By the end of the game stages become nearly unclearable, and some are long as hell. With no checkpoints or any other shit, it just pains me to play a stage over and over. Other than that, its the linear gameplay. There arent any different modes and variations, so the entire game is just you getting from point A to B, over and over. Now that, my friends, is linearity.

Inflicting pain and fear unto gamers, Super meat boy is one of the hardest games available out there. Even old school megaman fans will cringe when playing this game to the final stages. Even so, one cannot deny that the simple but solid platforming and wonderful level design make this title one thats much more than just decent. With some of the best boss fights available in platforming games, and a great soundtrack, PLUS the tons of levels and unlockable characters, you've got a game with a fairly good amount of content. Super meat boy, is a great game and platformer.




Happy gaming.

Opening songs
OP 1-Higurashi no naku koro ni (Eiko shimamiya)

Ending songs
ED 1-Why, or why not (Hiroyuki oshima feat. Rekka katakiri)

Genre: Drama, horror, mystery, physcological, thriller

Episodes: 26


Sorry for the late and rare posts, been abit busy and hooked onto disgaea 3 lately, its crazily addictive. For today we are going through an anime not for the weak minded. Fools who get scard by horror movies and scream at the slightest bit of blood, go away now. Higurashi is a show unlike no other, it holds on to your sanity and plays with your mindset, eventually making the whole show into one giant ball of mind fuck. I'll say it up straight, its creepy, its bloody, and it stays in your head, literally. Definetely not recommended for everyone. But, if you're feeling adventurous, brave and confident, tackle this show, and you're in for a treat. If you can stomach its gore and scary story, higurashi ni naku koro ni is one of the best animes ever made, with incredibly deep story elements.

The opening song for  higurashi is higurahi itself. With a similar name as the anime, the opening song tries to be creepy (just like the anime). Its a great song, it feels scary at first because of the opening animations (it made me shudder during the 2nd arc), but after seeing it repeatedly, its awesome, and definetely worth a listen. The ending is another song that does not fit my style, so I'll skip it (Slow songs should just go away IMO).

Rating: 9.0/10

Fucking awesome. Its been awhile since an anime sucked me in so deeply. Simply a genius title, higurashi is an amazing prequel to the koro ni kai, its sequel. It may not be the newest of animes, but even up to date there aren't many anime that can rival this, its just that good. A gripping story with incredibly diverse characters and gruesome events make this a thrill to watch. The deaths and wounds of characters you grow attached are creepy and pain staking at first, but as you watch on you grow used to them and instead of feel sorry for them, you try to look into past events and figure things out. Its hugely interactive in that way, every death has a cause, and figuring them out only to have them showcased is pretty damn cool.

Prepare to be mind fucked in more ways than one.

Starring in this gory and sadistic show, we have Maebara keiichi taking the stand. This UNLUCKY young man transfered to the town of hinamizawa, a peaceful countryside town far away from any big city. He attends a school as a transfer student and runs into many good friends whom he learnt to like and cherish. One day though, he finds an article about a construction worker for a dam project being killed brutally, having his limbs cut. The dam project was canceled because it was supposed to be built over hinamizawa, meaning that the city would be submerged, the citizens protested against it and passed. Upon learning of this, keiichi asks his friends of the incident, and none gave him a proper answer. They start acting weirdly, and everytime he brought up the topic, his friends would stare at him coldly and not answer him. Things start to get fucked up when he starts to find out more about this deserted and strangely peaceful town, as he discovers its secrets and wrong doings.

Higurashi no naku koro ni is an incredible and awesome anime. Its insanely violent and the story is so full of mind fuckery, but overall, when you finish it, you can't deny what kind of a masterpiece it was. The different arcs link VERY well together and it all pieces together in a crazy chain of events. The story was one of the best I have ever seen in an anime. Definetely a recommendation from me if you don't mind heavy blood and violence. If you have the balls, do yourself a favour and watch this.

Peace.

Gaming in this day and age has evolved into something so awesome its unexpressable in words. Awesome graphics and gameplay on consoles, handhelds and PC games give gamers so many choices! If so, why bother about flash games, who needs them when you have so many wonderful titiles out there, right?

Yes and no. As a student, I implore that in school, you're bored, the teacher is RAMBLING non-stop about some boring ass subject you don't give a shit about. Coincidentally you have a PC in front of you, what do you do? Some go to facebook, some twitter, but as for some like me, we look up internet flash games. They are simple, convinient, free and can be accessed just by a click of the mouse. These are criticized as poor men PC games, don't let them get to you. Flash games are still a great distraction when you don't have any of your big gaming tools around (PSP,NDS,PS3).

I have been playing these dumb flash games for a loong time, since I was a student in uniform. I have played countless flash games, and here are my favourites.

Big props to http://armorgames.com/.

This is where I play all flash games since young, keep on rocking those games!

Epic battle fantasy series & Spinoffs*

Epic battle fantasy
http://armorgames.com/play/3776/epic-battle-fantasy
Epic battle fantasy 2
http://armorgames.com/play/4353/epic-battle-fantasy-2
Epic battle fantasy 3
http://armorgames.com/play/6897/epic-battle-fantasy-3
Bullet heaven
http://armorgames.com/play/11073/bullet-heaven
Adventure story
http://armorgames.com/play/12763/adventure-story


Probably the series I dumped my most time into all these years in the armor games website. As a final fantasy fan and JRPG fan, the entire epic battle fantasy series appealed to me greatly. The 1st one was a little questionable, with both Matt and Natalie being at maximum stats. However 2 and 3 were improved upon significantly and the new character Lance was just a awesome as Matt and Natalie. With countless references to other games and anime, this game is just filled with fanservice. The gameplay was old school FF style, which I absolutely loved, and while the story was mostly a casual and easy going one, everything else seemed to good to be a free flash game. The author said a 4th one was on the way, I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope its up soon so I can play it.

The spinoffs were pretty damn good too. Bullet heaven is a bullet hell game (ironically), and strives to potray the heroes of the series as ships in a bullet hell game. It was a terribly hard game, I'll be honest, I never finished it, but it was good fun. Adventure story was the author's latest game, released not too long ago. It looked alot like a maplestory clone, which I didn't really like. All in all though, it was a decent platformer, and I finished it (with the difficulty set to easy for the last boss, he was too fked up). I grew to like it for its tough as nails bosses.




The worlds hardest game series*

The worlds hardest game
http://armorgames.com/play/1043/the-worlds-hardest-game
The worlds hardest game 2
http://armorgames.com/play/1982/the-worlds-hardest-game-2



Ohhhhhhh damnnnn thisss gammeeeeeeee. This is...another game I spent alot of time on. It may not be the longest game around, but its definetely the most challenging. Do not get me wrong the game is by no means, cheap, its just really hard. Every level can be done by observing the dot patterns and manuvering your ball properly, but it just takes alot of patience and peseverance to finish this monstrocity. I finished the 1st one, but not the 2nd. All in all it may not be the worlds hardest game, but it definetely IS high up there as one of the worlds hardest games.

Salutions, my fellow viewers! School means lesser posts, please bear with the lack of posts for awhile. For today, we're doing another "Tiers in fighting games" post. Last time we did one with MVC 3, the top AND bottom tiers. Today's fighting game of choice is Blazblue:Continuum shift II, the current newest iteration of the blazblue franchise. Unlike with MVC 3, we're doing things a little differently with BB:CSII. MVC 3 CLEARLY had its laregly unbalanced roster with many overpowered characters and underpowered ones as well.


To me, and I think to most of you who actaully play BB, blazblue has a very balanced cast. Since the cast is relatively small, there isn't much room for any superbly strong or extremely weak character. Well, I will be covering the 3 characters that I think are the current top of the food chain today (all my opinion, I looked up a tier list, I didn't agree with it).


Without further ado, let me tell you the 3 characters whom I think are the best as of now (No order whatsoever).


1.Hakumen

First up is Haks. I think hakumen is pretty strong. Too strong in fact. He has the highest damage dealing normals in the game, and they all have some godly range, some reaching half screen. He lacks in mobility, but he has a good air dash, and the ability to counter almost any move in the game with his drive. His combos are easy to pull off, and they do a ton of damage. Who let this badass in here? And, to make things worse, he is one of the highest healthed characters in the game.



Ima poke your ass with mah normals.

 I was always one to like Hakumen's design, but man, did they have to make him so strong? I mean, I use Hakumen from time to time (I use majority of the BB cast), and he was the character whom I spent the leaast time on and was able to find combos that do the most damage (7K without a DD, wtf?). Evo 2011's BB champion was a Hakumen user, I wasn't suprised. He had some sick combos and loops, and boy this only made me think higher of this white armored bastard. My bro mains hakumen, him and my Hazama have been going head to head with each other all the damn time, and our results are always equal, since his haks always does such fked up damage.


2.Hazama


Yes, I main him. Yes, my friends and brother think he is OP. Yes I see him high up in dustloop tier lists. So, Im just gonna put hazama in here. I don't have much to say here, I don't know how Hazama is OP, but I gotta say he does have some slick moves that give him a good advantage in a match. His normals are rather slow, but in BBCS 2 they made his H OTG, which is cool. He has crap mobility, but is compenstated by ouroborous, which allows him to zip across the field. This alone gives him some crazy opportunity and mixups, and allows him to engage his opponents at a safe distance without putting himself in danger, since you can always ouroborous your opponent until it hit confirms, then fly in for the kill.



You can't run from the ouroborous.

 Hazama is the ultimate troll in the BB story, and is quite the troll in gameplay as well. He can play keep away and poke you until you die. If you refuse to come to him, he will poke you over and over until time runs out, and he wins by life advantage. If you get too greedy and go to him, he'll ainti air grab you, send you flying across the screen, and OTG with eternal coils of the dragon serpent for easy damage. His combos may not hurt alot, but they hit alot of times, allowing him to build meter really fast. I always manage to build 50 meter in 1 combo, yes thats how sick this guy is. Hazama is pretty popular in the tournament scene as well, but sadly he didn't make it far for Evo in 2011. He may have some below average life, but his crazy moves make Hazama one strong character.


3.Jin



I fking hate this guy. Jin kisaragi is a complete douchebag. Go online, and all you see are ice cars. Ice cars ice cars ice cars, FCK THIS SHIT. High level jin play is great, nonetheless, but I think jin has a little too much priority. Everything drive related for jin FREEZES you, and sets you up for a free combo for him. All his ice moves are so spammable it makes me sick. Hands down jin is one of the most annoying characters in the game to face. Plus, his japanese voice actor sounds so gay.




NOO TAO, JUMP! JUMP OVER IT!

I nicknamed jin the 'spammy mcspam no.1' of blazblue. He spams everything ice related at you so damn much that its sick. And the moment he even CATCHES you with something ice related, its a free combo, guranteed. Any of his moves combined with D costs 25 meter, but who needs that when the H version is almost the same. He has good mobility, some OK normals and average-below average health. Thats a great deal considering how retarded his ice moves are, so sick. Jin is a very beginner friendly character, and thats what makes him so sick. See a random 1st time player pick jin and spam ice car, then see the ice car go through anything that opposes it. Sick, dat priority.



There we are, the 3 strongest characters in the game as of now for BB:CS 2...in my opinion. Now don't go hating, is it so bad to have opinions now? Anyway, here are shououts to some other really strong characters that could have made it.


Makoto (once you get in its free damage all the way)
Noel (Miss spammy mcspam No.2)
Valkenhyne (You kidding? This old man hits HARD)
Arakune (Bees!!! So many BEEES)
Bang (And people say hes low tier, fck all y'all)

And here are those characters that I think need just a littlleeeeee more to be better.

Rachel (MY FAVOURITE LOLI, WHY YOU NO MAKE HER TOP TIER)
Carl (Don't get me wrong, he's damn good, but he needs a lot of effort to be good)
Taokaka (She got nerfed bad from BBCT, I used to user her, but not anymore)

I won't be doing a low tier list, since BBCS 2 has a very balanced character list. Those 3 I listed may not be fantastic, but they are STILL viable in tournaments, and are seen quite a lot. Not like in MVC 3, where you hardly see thors or arthurs in tourneys cause they are so painfully bad, BB tourneys have us seeing all 17 characters used multiple times. Props.

Peace.

Opening songs
OP 1-Disillusion (Sachi Tainaka)
OP 2-Kirameku namida wa hoshi ni (Sachi Tainaka)

Ending songs
ED 1-Anata ga ita mori (Jyukai)
ED 2-Hikari (Jyukai)
ED 3-Kimi to no ashita (Sachi Tainaka)

Genre: Action, romance, comedy, drama, supernatural

Episodes: 24


I have begun my anime spree once again, so I have to step up anime reviews. The world has no shortage of fighting animes in modern day settings, and fate/stay night is one of them. Aired quite a long time ago, this gained a huge amount of popularity due to its many different spinoffs and iterations. Yes I used Saber as my choice for an opening picture because she is just that fcking gorgeous. Fate/stay night isn't worth all the attention its getting, in my opinion. Not to say the show is BAD in any way....but its starts off boring, gets interesting, then in the end it looses me again. Its one of those shows that either starts loosing steam when its reaching its climax. Thankfully, the action is half decent somewhat exciting for majority of the fights (final battle is cheesy), and there is actually some REAL romance in this! Nice. Now onto the goods!

The songs used in Fate/stay night aren't really that good in my opinion. The endings are totally not for me, and the openings are subpar...to me. 'Disillusion' is a pretty slow and mid-tempo song to be used for an opening, and its not great. I skipped it all the time after the 3rd episode or something. 'Kirameku namida wo hoshi ni' is better and turned out quite alright, but after a few listens it gets old. Both are by Sachi tainaka, whom I know nothing of. Im not going to go to the endings, because you all already know Im not into these kinds of songs.

Rating:7.5/10

I'll be honest, I expected alot more from Fate/stay night. The plot seemed promising, and seeing as to how much fan reaction this one got, I thought it was going to be phenominal. To me it was just alright, I have seen much better stuff in my opinion (I even think needless is better than this). The beginning is boring, the fights are too short, and totally seemed fast-fowarded. There isnt much going on at first, and you'll totally mistake this for some budget harem/fighting show. Luckily it picks up and gets interesting, with the battle against rider being an epic one, the following fights got much better and the plot just keeps heating up. Sadly towards the end there isn't much incentive left, and our final battle we get as viewers is so disappointing. However, the real romance elements thrown in are nice to have and actually made the plot a more emotional one.



Its all about knights in armor, clashing swords with one another.

 Lets get down to our usual plot summary. Fate/stay night features Emiya Shiro as the main character. Shiro is just some random high school student with a stupidly high sense of justice. Dude cant stand watching someone get bullied. He lives a regular life with his friend sakura, and his teacher, taiga, that visit his home everyday for meals. Quite a good life, living it with 2 pretty ladies coming over everyda. Shiro however has a special magic ability, allowing him to tap into the structure of items to strenghten them. Even with something so minor, this still makes him a magus (one who manipulates magic). One day, during the beginning of the holy grail war, a servant was summoned to shiro, and her class is saber. Saber fends off lancer, a servant sent to attack him, and explains the nature of the holy grail war. Being a "champion of justice", as he calls himself, he now fights with saber to prevent the holy grail war from hurting any innocent people.


Fate/stay night is a good anime, but I simple expected more. Fate/zero is already airing and is now taking a break, and is to resume in april this year. Fate/zero is tons better so far, I highly recommend it, you can't compare it to fate/stay night. Fate/stay night is still good for those searching for a little diversity, and of course, some real romance. While its just a small bit of the anime, its worth noting out. Lets not forget action, and throw in some small bits of daily life fooling around, we get fate/stay night. All in all, its still something good to watch at your own leisure.

Peace.

Gamespot score:n/a

my score:8.0

(+)Pros:-Deep and engrossing story that revolves around past and present events,-incredibly unique gameplay that combines bullet hell and strategy,-great character and item variety,-character system is super in depth and prompts you to make some important descisions,-lenghty main story.

(-)Cons:-Learning curve is stupidly hard and the tutorial is long as hell,-sometimes get a little draggy.

gameplay time:20-30 hours

Happy new year to everyone! I hope 2011 was a good year for you guys and lets all wish 2012 will be just as awesome or even better. Today's game is knights in the nightmare, and if you guys remember, a while back I did a greatest game character post on Maria, one of the main characters of this game. Knights in the nightmare is so unique, you have never seen gameplay like it. Its a port of the DS original, and has some additions to make it stand out a little. The original DS version got a 8.0, and while the PSP one didnt have a review, I would say this one very well deserves it too. I never played the DS version, and playing the PSP one really left quite an impression on me. And needless to say, the impression that it left on me was a pretty damn awesome one.




The story in knights in the nightmare is hard as hell to follow at first, but once you grasp the roots of the story, it quickly becomes badass. And the way the story is told is so awesome, as it weaves back and forth in time, telling past events and showing the lives of previous knights that soon lost thier lives in battle. Knights in the nightmare is actually part of a series of games, and while the story is not directly connected to them, there have some sort of relevance (yggdra union, riveria, gugnir). Anyway, the story stars a wisp of the main character, and as the wisp, you no freaking idea who you are. All you know is that you can revive the soul of dead knights of the royal guard of Aventhiem, and have them fight for you against monsters and demons. The kingdom of Aventihem is in turmoil, and monsters now roam the land, its no longer a safe place, and as a random wisp with such great power, you do not know your purpose or identity, but all you know is to head toward the Aventhiem castle. And so you press on..lonely wisp, as you encounter souls of knights, heed their assistance, make them part of you army and try to search for the purpose and truth of your existence.




Each item is superbly in depth, and there are huge varieties of them.

 KITN has some of the most unique gameplay I have ever seen. KITN is a mix of strategy RPG elements, and bullet hell gameplay. Bullet hell games arent so common outside of japan, but if you go see shit like touhou, you should understand what I mean. This game is so hectic, it has you doing so many things at once. The regular game phase has you going through stages of battles, each filled with its own share of monsters. Each of these stages has a knight or two that you are able to recruit (more on this later), and maybe a few empty slots for you to place knights of your own. Other than that there will also be crates and other destroyable items (also, more on this later). A stage is split into turns, and you have to clear a stage within a set amount of turns, if not, you lose.

Before each turn, you equip up to 4 weapons into your 4 item slots, and during battle, you use your wisp and grab those weapons, located at the 4 ends of the screen, drag them to a knight who can use that weapon (only some classes of knights can use some weapons), and have that knight charge up energy, then let go to have that knight dish out some hurt to the attack area he/she can intiate. Sounds complicated, yes it is, but its not that complicated if you do it on screen. So the basis of combat is that try to defeat enemies that keep getting caught in the attacks of your knights. Note that your knights CANNOT MOVE (unless they use a moving attack skill), and enemies can move, so you have to wait for the monsters to move into your knight's attack zone before you unleash your fury.

Control the tides of battles using your wisp, dodging bullets and unleashing attacks from your knights.

Of course, this just means that enemies can attack too. But enemies do not attack your knights (there are some who do so, but these are super late into the game), they attack you. As the wisp, you must dodge enemey attacks, while deliveing your own. Note that doing attacks from draggable weapons require MP, and to get that, you have to normal attack enemies with your knights, in either chaos or law state, to get MP gems. Note that in chaos or law forms your attacks and skills get different variations, and note that some skills can only be used in either law OR chaos, not both. Complicated right? Getting hit by enemies will reduce your timer for that turn, and if your timer reaches 0, its turn end. After you defeat enemies in a turn, you will be sent to the enemy roulette screen, where you have to select more enemies to retake the ones that just died. This sounds endless, but usually defeating one roulette row of enemies will already cause you to win, so the roulette is another thing you have to take careful note of.

Now onto the character and item system. Items come in many shape and sizes, and there are even key items that let your recruit knights in later stages. Weapons have durability, and using them in battle will only wear them down, and later get destroyed. You will receive weapons from destroying crates and other objects in stages. For your knights though, its a different case, if your knights keep attacking, they will lose VIT, and if they have 0 VIT, they die permanantly. Knights will not restore VIT even at the end of battle (except for maria, whom I shall not spoil), this forces you to switch up your formations in battle. And if a knight you really like is going to die, you can sacrifice other knights to give VIT to that one, and even make them stronger, gaining abilities of the scarificed knight.




Sacrifice knights permanantly to preserve others.

There is only a few notable flaws in KITN, and one of them is the ridiculously long tutorial. There are over 40 friggin tutorial stages! And the thing is, you can't fking skip them! Its not compulsary, but still, if you want to play the game without the tutorials, you won't know shit. When scene 1 fires up, you will stare at the screen, clueless. The tutorials are pretty much required, and the fact that it needs about an hour to read it all through...is kind of a pain. The scenes also drag quite abit. While the story heats up and all the different shit going on is so damn cool, you are stuck killing monsters for another 3 or 4 scenes before you get to face off against an epic boss. The dragging pretty much sucks, and while sometimes killing monsters can be pretty cool, its painful when you want a piece of the action of the story, but cant. 

KITN is a gem of a title. Its a unique game that blends two genres that others thought would not be possible. The deep and engrossing story combined with brilliant gameplay mechanics make it both fun and refreshing to play. To top it off, the main game is packed with over 40 scenes, meaning that you will be occupied for quite a long time. If you missed the DS original, all the more reason to pick this up. With additional content to play as yggdra (I don't see the point in this, but I guess it adds a new perspective), DS players can have a little something extra too. Knights of the nightmare a great addition to the dept heaven series.



Happy gaming!