Gamer--freakz

Opening Songs
OP 1 - Moving Soul (Minami Kuriyabashi)

Ending Songs
ED 1 - Two By Two (Yumeda Koha)

Genre: Action, Comedy, Fantasy

Episodes: 10



So the time has come once again. At the end of the first season of "Fate Illya", we got a teaser of what seems to be a confirmation of season 2, which is what we have here. "Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya 2wei!" is what its called. Despite its ridiculously long name, quite a lot has changed in this second iteration. There are a lot less fights, there's a new major character, and a lot of time is spent on this new girl. If you ask me, its a lot more of a character building season , which can get kind of boring and/or cheesy at times, since the fights are a little less interesting than those in season 1. Does that make it a bad run though? Nope, far from it. You'll feel for our newly added Kuro character, and as more of her character becomes fleshed out throughout the series, she easily the best character in the show. Definitely a worthwhile addition, if they intend to keep her for the long run (looks that way).

Fate lolis have never been this badass.

The opening theme is "Moving Soul" by Minami Kuriyabashi. Considering that there aren't many opening songs by her nowadays, "Moving Soul" is a good song, though its not really much better than most of the songs that she's done in the past. The ending theme, "Two By Two" by Yumeda Koha, is a standard affair of a slow paced ending theme without anything to write home for. Not my cup of tea here.



Rating: 7.5/10



As the story in the "Fate Illya" universe keeps going on, you can only notice a few things in this season. Things are definitely a lot more peaceful here. Without the treat of the servant cards going berserk, there's not quite much danger that our heroines are in, except for Kuro, a new character that's introduced in this season. As mentioned earlier, by the end of this season, she's easily my favorite character, since she brings such a sassy personality into the fray and mixes things up quite a fair bit. As far as character development goes, this entire season is dedicated to Kuro, and a little bit of Illya. There's a lot less in terms of interesting battles against really badass opponents. While the previous season had 3 really good fights, this season only has one, and its right at the end (it spans over 2-3 episodes at least), which I guess makes for a good finale. All in all, its more or less what we got in the first season, with more characterization and less action.

Never a dull moment with these 2.

Its been a month since Illya became a magical girl with Miyu. With all the servant cards successfully
captured, here's no longer any threats out there that would require their magical girl powers. With the cards out of the way, Rin and Luvia were instead tasked to inspect the ley lines, new instructions from the order. During their inspection, something goes incredibly wrong, and Illya was forced to activate her Archer class card to protect herself. Incidentally, when she reverted back to normal, another version of herself, with more tanned skin, appeared right beside her. Her goal is to kill Illya, and she never really states why. With her being smarter, faster, and more unpredictable, who knows what Illya has to do to get out of this one?


So this second season did pretty well IMO. At the end of the series, a 3rd season was teased. With more to solve on the horizon, I can safely say that I'm actually looking forward to this season 3, more than I did when this second season was teased during the end of the original. Let's see what Illya and her friends can cook up next time.


Peace.

Gamespot Score: 8.5 (Great)

My Score: 9.0


(+) Pros: -Great story that's easy to follow, - Simple, yet addictive gameplay, - Visually impressive battles, - Incredibly amount of depth to relationships and character customization, - Addictive class system, - Diverse characters, - TONS of content (even without paid DLC).

(-) Cons: - Too easy on default difficulty


Gameplay time: 40 Hours +

I know I'm really late on this game, and god knows what I've been missing out. "Fire Emblem:Awakening" is known as one of the best games on the 3DS, and I can see why. I was really reluctant to pick this one up, because I've never played a single "Fire Emblem" game before. Luckily, even for a newcomer like me, "Awakening" was f**king amazing. It does so much right in one game with almost no wrongs at all, and from a newcomer's perspective, there's is SO MUCH that the game has to offer. Almost so much to the point where I could not put the game down for weeks straight. For the strategic SRPG market, its safe to say that "Fire Emblem:Awakening" is currently one of its strongest contenders, right next to powerhouses like "Valkyria Chronicles" and "Xcom".



The story puts you in the shoes of Robin, an enigmatic mage who's also a tactician. The beginning sequence of the game has you playing as Robin with a man called Chrom, who is the prince of Ylisse, the kingdom that you're fighting for. Chrom claims to fight against "Destiny", and you're both pitted against a sorcerer known as Validar. Little is known at this point, and when you both take down the vile sorcerer, Robin seemingly betrays Chrom at the last minute and attacks Chrom, under the assumption that Robin was manipulated by Validar when he was slain. Of course, with the cliffhanger in mind, the game transports you to the present, where Robin awakens in the middle of a plain, and is taken into care by the very same Chrom, and his little sister Lissa. What lies in store for the amnesiac Robin?

All right...here we go.

The "Fire Emblem" series is a SRPG series, that much you should at least know, even from a newcomer's standpoint. Its a SRPG series with a lot of choices for your character though, know that your character has quite a few chances to alter the game's outcome in terms of story and gameplay. And holy damn the story. For a first timer like me, I never expected such a good story! I mean, it is rather cliche at certain points, but all in all, it was beautiful, especially dialogue between characters (Lucina's speech with Robin as her mother when she was threatening her almost brought tears to my eyes). The best thing of it all? You don't have to play any of the previous "Fire Emblem" stories to get most of it.


So you start off the game creating "Robin", the default name for your avatar, which is the character that you're going to use to represent yourself. You have multiple options here, but the most important thing is Robin's gender. Being a male or female in the story can change a LOT of things, especially in the romance and parenting department. Its highly recommended that you play the game twice, just for the experience, as both genders. If you want to play once and be a completionist, I suggest female Robin, just saying.

Sumia! You can't make your feelings any more obvious!

As mentioned earlier, this is an SRPG game. It shares the very same feel that games like "Final Fantasy Tactics" or "Tactics Ogre". You stand above a playing board, with all of your units displayed out in spaces on a grid. During your turn, you move your units around, attack enemy units, and when its the opponent's turn, they do the same. Like most SRPGs, the game play here is simple to learn, its addictive, but its also deep to a certain extent. When attacking other units, stats come into play, like strength, magic, skill etc. Faster units strike more times in a single attack, more skillful units dodge more and get more critical strikes. Stronger units hit harder, units with more defense take more PHYSICAL attacks.


Whenever you attack an enemy in "Fire Emblem", they strike back at you. Also, know that if you're playing classic mode (you should), characters die for real when they fall in battle, which means that every decision you make in battle actually counts. You will think before having one of your units attack a strong enemy unit. There's a simple rock paper scissors system in this game to help get you started. Swords beat axes, axes beat lances and lances beat swords. There are also other factors to take into account, like how flying units are weak to bows, so on and so forth. Just so you know, magic dominates everything, and I do think that they need to tone magic down a fair bit.

Ready to take the pain?

And whenever you attack an enemy, a battle animations plays out. I have to be honest here, for a 3DS game, the battles look pretty damn good. They fully crisp in 3D (though I must admit, do NOT turn on 3D for this game, or any f**king game for that matter), and the different styles of attack come into play here to make the game look more diverse. Sure, for most melee battles, its just unit after unit of hitting each other with a sword or an axe, but when skills activate, or when you critically strike an enemy, that extra flair that's added to the visuals make everything look more impressive. Also, the battle animations sometime take too long, so its a good idea to speed things up a notch, unless you're keen on stacking up the play time.


For battles in "Fire Emblem", characters that are paired up with one another or just stand close to each other in the battlefield will sometimes help each other out. Be it assisting in an attack, blocking an incoming enemy attack, or just being there to provide buffs. As you do this more often, the characters build support points with one another, and they get to know each other more. When these characters build support points to a certain level, you will unlock support conversations between one another. These can go up to a few levels, and the more of these support conversations that you build between each other, the better they help each other out when paired up again during battle.

Some parental love here I see.

Of course, if you keep going this way, and the characters happen to be of the opposite sex, can you guess what happens? Love happens, of course. This is how characters get married to one another in "Fire Emblem". And when characters get married, they get kids. Considering the insane amount of characters in this game, there are a crazy amount of possible pairings that you can actually create. Yes, since characters aren't "canonically" paired with one another through the story, you get to choose who marries who. You can do this purely out of your fantasies (I still think Lonqu is the best fit for Miriel), or you can do this the way the game wants you to. As you pair characters with one another for marriage, they pass down stat attributes and skills to their children. Taking into consideration what your desired child actually WANTS to learn or inherit...making children in "Fire Emblem" can be serious f**king business.


Then there's the class system, which you can spend HOURS playing around with. Sure, its not the most complex thing around, but its still incredibly fun to experiment with what kind of skill set you can cook up. Basically each character starts off with their own class, and can switch into a set of classes that are available to them from the start. Basic classes promote into advanced classes, and as you level up in a class, you gain skills. You can change to any class available to you as long as you hit some pre-requisites. Its one of those games where you can get a Knight's skill on a Sorcerer, or an Assassin's skill on a Sage. Its just a matter of grinding for them skills, but if you've got the perseverance, you can create the ultimate team of bad asses that will NEVER f**king die to anything.

Face me! FACE ME IN THE RING!

If you even need a reason to care for your characters, don't fret. Each and every single character has a personality of their own, in conversations between other characters. You never know how someone is going to react when they've been confessed to, or when they confess to somebody? How is someone as crazy as Henry going to treat his kids? Would Cordelia make a good wife? You will care for all, if not most of your cast enough to grind them up, have them pass down awesome skills to their kids and make for a big, bad ass family.


Then there's also a shit load of content without counting the paid DLC. Paralogues allow you to solve problems outside of the main campaign to recruit new allies. As mentioned, there's the experimentation of the skills in the class system. There's also additional content via spotpass, where you get to fight against "Fire Emblem" characters of old, and even try to recruit them into your army when you demonstrate your strength. There's SO much to do, and when you've felt like you finally need a real challenge, go challenge Priam and his 50 man squad.

Yes please. Hell, f**king yes. Note: I chose Sumia as my wife for my male character.

There's nothing much that's bad about "Awakening", actually. Since this is my first "Fire Emblem" title, its difficult for me to compare it to previous titles and see where it hasn't improve (or gotten worse).  What I can tell you, however, is that if you play on Casual, there's no risk involved. You can play as nonchalantly as you want and the game becomes a breeze, because in all honesty, even on classic, the game is TOO EASY on normal mode. Even if you need to weigh your options carefully, its not difficult to get through the game without a single death, as long as you plan ahead. If you want a more "fulfilling" experience, hard mode works, though you should prepare yourself to spend even MORE time on the game.


"Fire Emblem:Awakening" is an amazing game. Its easy to see how its one of the most well regarded titles on the 3DS, even today, more than 2 years after its release. The amount of depth in its game play, the class system, the support system, and the crazy amount of content just makes this game a blast to play. And you'll be having a blast for a pretty long time too. Now I'm kind of hyped for a new "Fire Emblem" game, if they ever decide to make one (I'm sure they will, considering how well this game did).

Opening Songs
OP 1 - Re:Remember (May'n)
OP 2 - Replica (Maaya Sakamoto)

Ending Songs
ED 1 - Ego-izm (La La Larks)
ED 2 - Sable (Nano)

Genre: Drama, Horror, Magic, Mystery

Episodes: 24



"M3: The Dark Metal" was just one of the shows that I wanted to end, so bad. As if that isn't an obvious enough opening statement, yeah, I don't like "M3", at least, not enough for me to "pass it off" as decent. There's quite a lot of things this anime does wrong, or poorly, or ridiculously. For whatever it does right, its completely written off by its wrongs. Don't get me wrong, "M3" does have its positives. The animation is pretty solid, mecha designs are great, and it has a nice voice cast...unfortunately, its just not very f**king interesting or intriguing. The times where you are supposed to get "the feels", you just feel awkward. The times where you are supposed to sympathize with the characters, you just don't. This anime at many times is just SO F**KING BORING. And overly serious, let's not forget that. There are NO redeemable characters, the story shows SOME promise at first but then derails into the most depressing, "I don't give a flying f**k" thing ever. Even if you are a mecha nut, there's just not much reason to get into this one, seriously.

Yeah, have a go at these characters. Not too interesting at first sight? Don't worry, they stay that way throughout.

You can tell that they were trying to go all out here, JUST with the opening songs alone. "Re:Remember" is one of May'n's darker and more serious songs. Honestly, its great, and it fits the dark theme of the show, definitely one of my preferred songs from May'n to date. The second opening is "Replica" by Maaya Sakamoto, and yes, since it IS Maaya Sakamoto, I'll just go ahead and say that this is another great opening song. Its not her best work, but considering how long I've not heard a song from her, it does well enough.


They didn't even let up the ending themes. The first ending is Ego-izm by La La Larks. Its a decent song, but what's really amazing here is the 2nd ending theme, which is "Sable" by Nano. For one, its a pretty damn addictive and badass ending theme. It could easily take the place of an opening song, since I'd say that its about as good as the two opening themes.



Rating: 6.0/10



If you don't know, anything below a "7.0" by my standards is pretty bad. I'd call "7.0" a decent score, so a 6 to me is below average. As I said, its not like "M3" is totally unbearable, its not. I actually watched through the whole damn thing (why else would I be here), with a stoned expression throughout. Two major, glaring issues with this anime. One, the plot is just riddled with f**king bullshit. I just could NOT stand the way the anime gets rid of certain characters, and so conveniently at that....FOR NO REASON OR EXPLANATION. And the final showdown? Its nothing short of a gigantic "wtf", that's all I'm going to say. The mecha action is average, and the Corpse is a really cool enemy, but that's about it. The second major issue is the characters. Oh, my, god. I could not STAND most of these kids. Their personalities are so freaking plain and unnoticeable, just like paper and plastic. There was NOT a single interesting character here, and let's admit it, for the most of the anime, most of these kids are downright hate-able. I'm not even joking.


Akashi? WTF IS WRONG WITH THAT GUY MIDWAY THROUGH THE ANIME?! Emiru? Maamu? They only become likable after 75% of the anime, by then you've lost a good deal of interest. Heito? F**K HEITO. Sasame? Meh. Minashi? Oh god why (to avoid spoilers, I won't say a thing). Raika? Iwato? I'll admit, they were the only two I could stand, but their relationship progress was just way too weird.

Ah yes, I f**king despise these two.

The main character  is Akashi, aka generic high school kid with a sad past number 1592. Ever since the parting of his brother many years ago, he now lives on as a student with his brother's old girlfriend, Kasane. He is enrolled in a school meant to train mech pilots to combat against the darkness that has swallowed the world years ago. The departed will become demonic beings and wage attacks against humanity, which in turn, forces more of them to appear. The infected are plagued with black crystal, as the slowly devour their body. The best of research companies managed to locate 8 individuals who will be said to be able to save the world from this crisis. Without prior word or warning, Akashi is selected as part of these 8 to take part in a different training regime, where he, along with 7 others, have to bond with one another and pilot a new series of mechs. The first one is known as The Reaper, Argent, and it chooses Akashi as its pilot.


"M3:The Dark Metal" isn't fun, intense or very action packed. In fact, even as a semi-depressing kind of anime, it just lacks all the important factors to make it interesting, like good characters or at least a semi-functional plot. If you really want to watch this, just go for "Valvrave". Its more light hearted, its almost the same shit (high school kids, robots), it has more grand scale battles and a better story.
"M3" just doesn't please anyone, I'm surprised its actually getting a Vita release.


Peace.

Golden Time

Sorry that she didn't get the guy she wanted.

Even though I do support the Koko x Banri pairing, I still believe that "Golden Time" would have went to shit long ago if not for Linda. Correction, I may support Koko x Banri, but Linda to me, is the best character in the show. If the entire anime were to be described as a "LoL" team, Linda would be the support that makes all the plays, because I can't count the number of times she has saved Banri's hide from going down the drain.


Before Banri lost his memories, Linda was his best friend. She was the girl that he confessed to, she was the girl that Banri LOVED, she was the girl that he was ready to entrust everything to. She was EVERYTHING to him...of course, then he had to go and have his accident, losing his memory and all. So that meant that when Banri moved to Tokyo, Linda already had a head start before everyone else, she knew Banri inside out, even though he lost his memories. Whatever problems Banri was going to have in the future, she had the remedy for it all.


Every time Banri loses his shit, who does he go to? Linda. Who comforts him when he has problems? Every time is feeling down, who does he go to? Every time he wants to ask for professional advice...who does he go to? The answer is always Linda, actually, and if you actually see how she acts as his emotional pillar of support even though she knows that his heart now belongs to Koko...its a little bit disheartening. You gotta feel sad for her sometimes, and you can only wonder...what if Banri never lost his memories?




Hitsugi No Chaika

When do I get to kill shit?!

There are quite a few great characters in "Hitsugi No Chaika" (I could have chosen Akari or Toru, they're both pretty awesome), but at the end of the day, I'm just going to have to give my favorite character slot to everyone's adorable loli dragon, Frederica. She's the easy way out for Toru's team, just because well, she's a mother f**king dragon. If she ever decides to go all out, she'll decimate any and every foe Toru's team comes across, but of course, she doesn't do that. We have to keep things interesting, after all.


Frederica's back story is pretty saddening: her master, one of the previous heroes who defeated the demon lord, passed away. As her dragon, she decided to honor her master's image, and decorated her mansion filled with portraits and sculptures of her master. As if it wasn't enough, she disguised herself in her master's image. Of course, when she learnt to let it all go, she decided to follow Toru's group, following his promise that he will some day face her again in combat.


Despite being an adorable little loli dragon girl, she is of course, not something her opponents can sneeze at. At any time she wants to, she can turn into a massive dragon and do whatever she wants with her pine sized enemies. Step them, pick them up, crush them...anything she wants. And with her being so snobbish all the time, she's just nothing short of kawai. The best thing about her is that she's a drifter. She doesn't pay attention to Toru and the others too much, and only interferes if she really needs to, or mostly when Toru begs her to. Oh yeah, she can change how she looks like too, pretty fancy.




Jojo's Bizarre Adventure:Stardust Crusaders

Yes, I can!

So Avdol is probably the sexiest, most egoistic and also the most glorious, badass, black man to ever be represented in an anime, TO DATE. He just doesn't give a f**k! He's the most cautious of the group, and acts as sort of an elder brother figure to most of the characters, constantly warning them of dangers/risks of certain actions. In that extent, he excels and f**k Polnareff for being the immature ass that he is when Avdol was just trying to be nice. Of course, even when he DOES die, he doesn't, that's just how fabulous this guy is.


Avdol is only so badass because of his contrasting personality. Most of the time he's this calm, rationale person who's always advising the team, other times he is a cocky, smart aleck "I told you so" bastard when he destroys his enemies. He is also shown to be merciful, when he first fought Polnareff, he admired Polnareff's sense of knighthood and chivalry, thus sparing him from burning to death, after hearing Polnareff say that "it would be disgraceful to not get burned by the flame, that which you spent so much effort to conjure and hammer onto me".


Avdol's Magician's Red is a very powerful, fire based stand. That said, it is only fire based, so even though its destructive power is incredibly high, there aren't many situations where using it would be practical. Well, he IS smart, so usually he can work around the flaws of his abilities. And then there's the scene where he FAKED being dead just so he could trick the other stand users, then appeared at the last second to f**k shit up and save Polnareff (once again). I must say that his reappearance scene was just MAJESTIC.

Opening Songs
OP 1 - Rising Hope (Lisa)
OP 2 - Griletto (GARNiDELiA)

Ending Songs
ED 1 - Millenario (Elisa)
ED 2 - Mirror (Rei Yasuda)

Genre: Action, Comedy, Romance, Magic, Science Fiction

Episodes: 26



So...yeah. You all know how I adore these types of animes with these kinds of settings. A school where kids attend to hone their supernatural abilities, or anything that's along that line. I absolutely love these types of anime, but lately, there have been too much disappointments when it comes to the "high school combat" genre ("Seikoku No Dragonar", "Blade Dance Of Elementals", "Trinity Seven", just to name a few). None have managed to capture me as much as a show like "Index" managed to do...that is, until I met "Mahouka". Never have a I found myself so engrossed into an anime of this genre AGAIN, since "Index" and MAYBE "Strike The Blood" (must be a Dengenki Bunko thing). "Mahouka" brings out the style and the substance that it needs to both visually impress and tell a good story. There may be some issues, such as the overly bloated character cast with too little time to develop all of them (there are plenty of throwaway characters), or maybe the occasional bore here and there due to the over complicated lore explanations (basically too much talking too little fighting). But! All is good in the land of "Mahouka'. If you require your dose of high school life with a little bit of blood, magic and intense scenarios, "Mahouka" will be sure to entertain you.

Ah yes, at least its not another harem.

They kind of went all out for the opening and ending themes here. The first opening theme is "Rising Hope" by Lisa, and hell, its been awhile since I was so entranced by a Lisa song (the last one was "Oath Sign"). Instead of her usual fantasy themed songs, we get one where she kind of goes crazy and tries to rock us out, which if you ask me, sounds great. The second opening theme is "Griletto" by GARNiDELiA, which is also a pretty good songs by their standards (not a huge GARNiDELiA fan). Its hits harder and faster than most of their songs, which may or may not fit "Mahouka", as its a rather slow paced show.

The first ending theme is "Millenario" by Elisa. Well, its been awhile since we heard from Elisa, but from what I can tell, "Millenario" still sounds pretty similar to most of her older songs, moderately paced, mid-tempo alongside her strong voice. The second ending theme is "Mirror" by Rei Yasudo. Honestly, its rather catchy, especially the starting few seconds, and it only gets better throughout. IMO, its the better ending theme of the two.



Rating: 8.5/10



I might be a little bit biased here. Hell, maybe I am, but I honestly think that "Mahouka" might possibly one of my favorite animes this year. Its certainly one of the more "complex" high school animes out there, with A LOT of depth in its lore, as well as having A LOT of characters. Sure, most of these characters aren't fleshed out too well, because lets be honest, even if its 26 episodes long, it isn't quite enough to elaborate and develop such a massive cast (don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to "Mahouka for having a huge cast, its been awhile since we've seen such a diverse cast of characters). There may also be some segments that might feel a little bit too "boring" for certain viewers, because there's a lot of science and politics involved in "Mahouka"; there's going to be quite a bit of talking. Other than that though, the fight scenes are superb, the overall feel of the show is fairly consistent, and the arcs are well represented. They do the light novels justice but cutting out as little content as possible, and honestly, this is a fantastic run. Tatsuya may be a little bit of an overpowered character, but hey, I like my main characters to NOT be useless.

Tatsuya knows his way around the ladies.

The story stars the sibling pair, Tatsuya Shiba and Miyuki Shiba, as the protagonists. Both enroll into first magic high school, a place where only the best of the country's magic users are trained. Because of its competitive nature, the school's student population are split into two halves, the better halves are known as the course one students, the "Bloom"s, and the lower halves are known as the course two students, the "Weed"s. Miyuki, having superior results in her entrance exams, enrolled as a "Bloom", while Tatsuya, having rather poor average results, enrolled as a "Weed". There is a clear discrimination between "Bloom"s and "Weed"s in first high school, and of course, Tatsuya is a source of discrimination by the "Bloom"s, especially because Miyuki is a highly popular "Bloom" student and she always hangs out around Tatsuya. Of course, Tatsuya chooses to keep a low profile, until he is scouted by disciplinary committee. With nothing to lose, Tatsuya accepts, and little does he know, he is about to impact the school in a way that no other student has ever done before.


"Mahouka" is easily one of the most interesting, intriguing and exciting animes of 2014. There's a lot more to be shown here than it did, and I can safely say that we haven't seen the last of Tatsuya. After all, "Mahouka" was quite a big hit, and we can all see why.


Peace.