[Afterthoughts] It’s not just about the cake.

So I finally decided to take a break from my usual gaming and anime schedule to make a post. At least that twitter app on the side bar is helping me with my mini-posts. Anyhow, I’m taking a bit of a break from Titan Studios’ Fat Princess. I’ve been playing it a lot recently. And with all of those battles under my belt, I thought I should share some advice on how to enjoy a good match.

Everyone go to work
At that start of the battle, if over half of your team grabs the worker hat, you’re in for a fast fight. I found that the team who gathers all of the stone resources at the start will usually win. On every map, there is a central location where all of stone is mined. By preventing the other team from controlling this point, they are much slower at upgrading their classes.

Stop exploding you cowards
Famous lines from the great Zapp Brannigan and it holds true to Fat Princess. There are two meanings behind this. One is to know when to retreat. It is faster to run back a few steps, hold still to recover health, and head back into the fight. Dying in Fat Princess makes you wait 5 seconds before you can respawn. Then you have to go pick a hat and hike across the map. If you stop dying, you’re more than likely to unlock the Thuggee trophy (kill 88 enemies in a single online game without dying).

The second meaning behind the quote is about the siege bombs. When the worker class is upgraded, the dispenser will start to drop bombs. They’re mainly meant to blow up the other team’s doors. But they’re mostly abused and are thrown blindly into the frontlines. If you ever see one come at you, just run. Stop what you’re doing and run. These bombs have a nasty habit of causing friendly fire. Be especially careful when fire wizards are around. One fire blast and that bomb will explode in your hands. Also get rid of any bomb piles that accumulate at your base. I seen one pile that was spread in such a way that the resulting chain reaction annihilated the base, leaving it empty for raiding.

Build a three-man outpost turret
On certain maps, there are outposts along the main path. Have two upgraded priests and a ranger sit together at the top of the tower and you can kill any target in less than a second. Dark priests can drain the life of a target fairly quickly. So having two will leave the target with a sliver of life instantly. But dark priests alone can’t make the kill. Have the ranger spam arrow shots and mayhem ensues. When all three hold on the lock-on button, everyone will always target the same person. One priest may have to pull double duty and spam the group heal from time to time. But watch out when the enemy charges together. Two or three fully charged mages attacking simultaneously can break this setup.

Soccer slaughter abuse
There are some trophies that are hard to do in regular battles. Setup an online room full of bots on a soccer map they will blindly follow the soccer ball, making them easy targets. This is the easiest way to get the Ring Sting, Who’s Your Daddy?, and Thuggee trophies.

Don’t be stale, mate
One major complaint I’ve been hearing a lot from other people are the matches ending in stalemate. Technically, battles of attrition do have one side winning with the combined point total. But these long matches are a pain to deal with. If you’re not willing to endure another extended match, play the other modes like Team Deathmatch. That “Jump In” button always seems to put me in the usual “Rescue the Princess” mode, so I have to mess around with the custom game settings.

I hope Titan Studios continues to update the game with new maps and items. After playing Fat Princess every night, things are getting a bit mindless. Maybe some cake will fix things.

Don’t Mind Me…

Things are a little messy while I’m linking all sorts of social networks together. Anyhow, there isn’t much for me to say about E3 since everyone else has pretty much said everything. And, after years of observation, I finally created a youtube account for myself to upload my Anime Evo 09 footage. Fun times are here at last.

As a tease of my uploads, here’s my favorite clip from the Final Fantasy Tournament battles.

[Afterthoughts]What’s new Bub… and Bob.

In my early days of gaming, Taito’s Bubble Bobble on the NES holds a special place for me. It was one of the few games that my mom played. And with co-op, we spent many summer days going through the 100+ levels together. So when Square-Enix released Bubble Bobble Plus for WiiWare, I was quite excited to try it out. (And if you thought that I was going to talk about the new Wolverine game, sorry about that).

-New Graphics
Bubble Bobble Plus follows in the footsteps of Bionic Commando Re-Armed and Megaman 9. The updated look is great on the new tv screens. But this also made things more difficult to play (I’ll explain that later).

-A Lot of Levels
The game uses the arcade’s 100+ classic level layout as well as the “super” versions. Also included is 100+ levels of 4-player “arranged” mode with its own “super” versions. That’s over 400 levels to play through. And then there are two extra 50-level packs for that special challenge. It costs 600 Nintendo Wii Points to get the initial 400-level mix and 200 Nintendo Wii Points for each of the level packs. A grand total of 1000 Points for 500 levels seems like a fair deal to me.

-Additional Game Mechanics
In the “arranged” levels, there are sloped platforms. The player standing on those slopes blow bubbles in parallel with the slope. I haven’t figured if this is a good or bad thing yet. At least it makes those new levels feel really different than normal flat blocks.

-Modified Collision Detection
Thanks to the new 3D graphics, I found out the hard way that the game plays very differently from old NES counterpart. Enemies can clip slightly into the walls and platforms but will kill you the instant your pixel and their pixel touch. That made many awkward deaths very frustrating. Also, bubbles will pop the instant it leaves the mouth instead of appearing for a brief moment. It fundamentally changes how certain levels are played. For example, in the “JUMP” level of the classic set, I would jump and blow bubbles through the circular block to climb my way up on the NES version. The bubbles would momentarily stay while I jumped up leaving new bubbles as platforms. The remake version would have those same bubbles pop before I have the chance to jump on them. One last thing about the new collision system is that the collision priorities are rearranged. In the NES version, I can do the “kiss of death” on stages with stair-like platforms. Standing right next to a step, I would blow a bubble right at the moment an enemy “walked down the stairs”. I tried doing that in the remake and got myself killed.

-More Aggresive Enemies
It seems like the enemies movement patterns have changed in the remake. Instead of always blindly walking back and forth, the new enemies will make more attempts to jump from below and give chase. Certain enemies would the hug the walls a lot longer or throw projectiles more often from a greater distance.

-Different Item Effects
This totally messed me up the first time I encountered them. The thunder crash item, where lightning bolts fly through the screen to kill enemies, doesn’t actually clear the level if enemies are in the corners. The fire bubbles doesn’t stay on the floor for a long time like the NES version. And it is impossible to walk through the fire since the stun animation forces you to stay in place. The same goes with the thunder bubble. The stun animation is a lot longer than the NES version to the point where it often made me mistime my jumps and landings.

-Arranged Gravity Physics
Falling in the world of Bubble Bobble Plus is completely different from the NES version. There is slight acceleration the moment a body leaves a platform. Although terminal velocity is reach really quickly, the falling speed is bit faster than the NES version. For example, there is one classic level where a tower of enemies would fall together the moment the level starts. However, each enemy falls one at a time with gaps in between instead of all of them falling at the same time and speed. One more thing about the new physics is about the jumping. On the NES, with the speed shoes item, overall player player speed is increased including jumping and falling. In the remake, only the walking speed is increased. That one little change completely made my years of practice useless.

-Missing Sound Effects
This is really a minor thing, but there are certain memorable sound effects that don’t play in Plus. So far, I noticed that the red ball of death the white cloak monsters roll out won’t make an exploding noise. The earthquake spellbook doesn’t make the loud thundering thud. Even the bouncing spark doesn’t trigger the enemy death sound when it happens.

-No Password Level Select
Or any form of level select as far as I can tell. A neat thing about the NES version is that a password is given when you ran out of lives. I had little notes written all over the place to help keep track of my progress and favorite levels. Seeing that Bubble Bobble Plus is more like a remake of the arcade game rather than the NES, I guess that’s why there is no way to select levels. Also, BBAJI is forever burned into my memory.

I guess Bubble Bobble Plus could of been worse. I remember trying the DS version and not liking the coloured bubbles mechanic. I wish someone ported Bubble Symphony with online play. That would be awesome.

It Must Be Hard To Stay In Character

In my music collection, I have several character albums from various anime. One day, my friends asked “why I like to listen to these songs?”. My response was that I love the talent of the voice actors.

A unique aspect of character albums is that the voice actors have to sing in the same tone as the character they are portraying. But to fully appreciate the effort, I have to know the context of the characters from the series. Without that, the song itself sounds like any other generic pop track.

Then I was asked “why take the extra step to enjoy a song?”. I answered that I love to find tracks of characters that wouldn’t normally be singers in their world. I wanted to hear if the voice actor is capable of giving a pleasing song while still being in character. Since I’m not a voice actor, I could only imagine how difficult to pull off such feats. In some cases, a song doesn’t sound right because of the character restriction. So when I do find a pleasant song, I get a warm fuzzy feeling that always makes me smile. Its another example of how I like to march to the beat of a different drum.

[Afterthoughts] I’m Late to the Lagann Party

With all of the fan art and collectible figures floating around the web, I finally decided(read: caved in) to check out Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. And if I had to boil it down to a single word, it would be “RIDICULOUS!”(in caps).

There is so much eye candy and fan service in Gurren Lagann that it is almost a sensory overload. Everything from sexy flirts to the camera to massive mecha explosions, the show keeps cramming the absurdity level down your throat. And with a plot so fast, you don’t have time to choke on it. The plot never explains everything in detail and Gurren Lagann accepts it as the way things are without question. There was not a single episode where I didn’t throw my hands in the air while I screamed for my sanity.

But to get all of that strangeness work, Gurren Lagann heavily borrows themes from other anime and games to keep the show familiar enough so that it won’t break the thinly stretched suspension of disbelief. To prove that, I present the following case:

*This is a spoiler warning, so I leave you with this*

*Now that’s out of the way, back to spoilers*

Where have I seen this plot before?
- Eureka 7’s Renton Thurston storyline
- Xenogears’ entire concept
Why does everyone look familar?
- Xenogears’ Fei Fong Wong vs. Gurren Lagann’s Rossiu Adai (actually all of Xenogears when I think about it)
- Captain Harlock vs. Simon(older version)
Want something similar but with an opposite style storytelling?
- Watch any Gundam series
- Ergo Proxy’s end of the world
Huh? You want even more ridiculous plot and fan service?
- Yumeria’s bizarre fantasy dreams
- Vandread’s gender separation(or not)

By the time I has realized any of this, I wouldn’t care anymore and just wanted enjoy the ride. And what a fun ride it is.

[Quick Impressions] The King of Fighters XII Experience

A couple of weeks ago, my favorite arcade installed a King of Fighters XII machine. Much like the Street Fighter 4 cabinets, the machine was using a 4:3 CRT monitor instead of a widescreen setup. It made jumping and judging distances awkward. But the setup also made Goro Daimon and Terry Bogard look less bulky. And when I got my chance to play this latest iteration, I promptly got my butt kicked. But not because of the skewed resolution (though it did have an affect).

The major reason why I lost so badly is because this new King of Fighters game is a true series reset. Instead of the frantic tag-based gameplay used in the last entry, King of Fighters XII plays a lot more like the KOF’94 and KOF’95 games. For example, special moves that use heavy attacks have a significantly slower wind-up compared to their light versions. Also, every character seemed to have gone back to the basics, reverting back to a 3-5 move set list. This was especially true for Kyo Kusanagi. The most probable and sensible reason for that is SNK’s dedication to keeping the game in 2D. The game would take way too long to complete if every move and character in KOF history was animated.

In the end, my experience was quite a slap to my face because, from watching the trailers and youtube captures, the game still moves pretty fast despite a feeling like a slower game. I still haven’t figured out how to pull off those Critical Counter moves. [Update]: I managed to hit with a Critical Counter the other day. It plays almost like Capcom Vs. SNK 2’s A-Groove Custom Combo system. It feels weird trying to intentionally hit with it. I suppose it would be better once I get some more practice in.

By the way, the King of Fighters XII machine was setup with English audio. It sounded kinda odd at first. Luckily, the place was pretty loud so I barely heard anything that was too distracting. I just hope that the home versions will have both Japanese and English localizations.

Ow. My Ears.

Much respect to Aksys Games and Arc System Works for their work on the Guilty Gear series. But their latest effort with BlazBlue just seems like audio diarrhea.

Keep Rotating Those Passwords

Whooo~ Another two months with no posts. Capcom’s Q1 releases has really kept me busy. But that is a tale for another time. I’m here tell a story of my MSN Messenger account and the dreaded error code 80048831.

At home, my MSN account automatically signs in when my machine turns on. I know that’s probably not the safest thing to do, but I trust my family to know not to mess around with it. Anyhow, I was logged in on a remote machine with my MSN account when I noticed that I got signed out. I figured someone must have turned on my home machine. I thought nothing of it. However, when I got home, my machine was not turned on. How mysterious. I flick the switch and MSN Messenger throws the error code 80048831 at me. Searching the Internet yielded some scary results. Most of the results say that the password and/or account has expired. The suggested solution was to get into direct contact with Microsoft or make a new account. I wasn’t in the mood to do either solution. So I thought to try the “Forgot your password?” route to verify that my account was indeed locked for good. After messing around with a few questions, I managed to successfully change my password and log in. I felt an immediate relief knowing that I didn’t lose all of my contacts.

If this MSN error ever happens to you, just hope that you set a good safety question or linked your account to a non-Windows Live ID email. Otherwise, you really would need to make a new account.

[Review] The Logitech Playgear Headset

I have been searching for a replacement for my old pack-in PSP headset and I thought I give the Logitech Playgear Mod headset a try. Although it’s not the perfect audio setup for my PSP listening needs, I found it to be the perfect match for my DS gaming sessions. I wrote a page of my rambling thoughts but here’s a quick summary.

My recommendations for the Logitech Playgear Mod headset:

• Listening to podcasts
• Listening to any bass heavy tracks
• Any audio sampled at 96kbps
• Great for DS gaming
• Stylish ear warmers for the winter season

It’s too bad the headset is marketed to PSP users because it is so perfect for playing Taiko no Tatsujin DS.

My Gaming Backlog Update

Phew… I went a whole month without posting anything again. But I got my gaming backlog to back to a manageable pace. So let’s get started.

Valve’s Left 4 Dead
If first-person shooters needed an equivalent to Nintendo’s Mario Party, this would be it. For the first few weeks were the best times for the game. It’s because that’s when everyone one was still trying to figure out which is the best path to beat the level. But the game got dull quickly since I saw all there was to see in the four release maps. And achievements are not enough of an incentive to keep me going. I’ll probably start playing again when new content shows up. The Macho-man zombies is kinda fun though.

Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia (2008 rendition)
This is one of those “nice place to visit, but I don’t want to live there” kind of games. Playing it for the first time is probably the only time I will ever enjoy it the most. Solving the environmental puzzles is very much like going through a “Where’s Waldo?” puzzle. Once you know where everything is, the fun is gone. Though the same could be said for the other Prince of Persia games too. But the one thing this version irks me the most is not the quick-time-event system but the collect-a-thon game design. Having to backtrack and fetch all of the light seeds to unlock the next area is just a huge pain. With an exception to a few well placed seeds, most of them could be collected just by retreading the same path. However, I will admit that smiled a few times whenever the “Prince” had a conversation with Elika, even if he sounds like a city boy. By the way, my game design classmate worked on the game as a level designer. He even had an interview with GameTrailers. Lucky guy.

EA’s Mirror’s Edge
Keeping with parkour genre, this game is a neat experiment. EA’s strive to recreate every physical activity into a game simulation is a pretty noble pursuit. But I never got used to the controller setup. There were more times where I thought about where my fingers were than where I was in the game. It completely sucked me out of the experience every time, which is disappointing as that was the whole reason for the game in the first place. And getting physically ill from motion sickness every 15 minutes didn’t help much either.

Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
This game took the most time of my December break and I loved every moment of it. Persona 4’s story is more intimate compared to the previous Persona 3. Perhaps the reason is because the story is about trying to solve a small town mystery instead of fixing a world-wide problem. But the thing I noticed most about Persona 4 is that it structurally the same game as Persona 3. Both have similar festivals, vacation, and even hotel scenarios in relatively the same times of the year. It’s like watching Home Alone 1 and 2 and realizing that they are the same movie. Not that it is a bad thing. There’s nothing wrong about having a second helping of the things you love.

Now that the 2008 season of games are over, I can get back to enjoying my anime marathons. I have a backlog in that area on a whole different level.