This week's loot (26th March 2017)

This week's loot (3rd May 2014)

I blame Suparobo.

Edit (3rd May 2014): Just tacking this on; Ended up in Akihabara because it turned out that I'd forgotten to get gold paint for my Hazel 2.

This week's loot (2nd August 2013)

I'd forgotten to pre-order Grimgarden and went to Akihabara searching for it but it was sold out everywhere so bah. Ended up just ordering it off Sofmap.

Almost done with Gyakuten Saiban 5, and I started a new game of XCOM: Enemy Unknown for no real reason in particular (aside from feeling like killing some alien scum).

Edit (7th August): Stuff that arrived in my mail over the weekend (I was away)

 Namori artbook and Idolmaster Visa card book cover.

So yeah! I cleared Gyakuten Saiban 5. It was okay. Better than 4. 1-3 were still better. Kenji 1-2 too. But it was nice seeing Naruhodo again.

Edit (9th August): Figured I might as well squeeze this in here too.

 

Akabee fanclub stuff and I watched Pacific Rim which opened in Japan today.

I was very, very disappointed.

The film was just so... empty. Shallow. The designs were horrid but I figured they might be cool in motion. Nope. The action was just horrible clusterfuck after horrible clusterfuck.

I could see that they were trying to do a thing about survivor's guilt but it was just so hamfisted that I couldn't force myself to give a shit about any of the characters.

In the end it was just... I don't know. Pointless? There was nothing to it aside from ugly robot punching ugly monster non-stop. Nothing at all.

Usually after a movie I'm all "whoa that was great" or "what the fuck is this bullshit" or "what the fuck did I just watch" or whatever. This time though, nothing at all. I just didn't care. Oh it's over, time to go home.

It was bad.

Giant robots. I love giant robots. Giant monsters. I fucking love giant monsters too. In the same movie? Even better! I wanted to like this film. I really did. But I couldn't. It was just too bad a film for me to be able to like.

And so I'm just disappointed.

Princess Maker 4 (2)

I enjoyed the PSP version so much I went and bought the DS version which has more events. No prizes for guessing the first ending I got on it:

But yeah it's only partially voiced and the sound quality is terrible and the graphics are terrible and despite being on two screens the widescreen PSP version is easier to use so I went back to that instead. Cleared it once more, doing stuff I usually don't for a change:

That combination of weight, stamina and martial arts suggest that that's a lot of muscle.

This week's loot (8th September 2012)

Was overseas for the first half of the week, had time to play Fire Emblem: Kakusei and totally loved the shit out of it. As a result I went and grabbed the DS Fire Emblem games as soon as I got back to Japan... and have since then still been playing Kakusei. It's that good. My shitty shitty Tsutaya as usual didn't have anything I was looking for so I ended up heading over to Akihabara to get them and ended up with more eroge because I'm me. Ah well.

Oh and WHAT THE FUCK NEXT OREIMO IS THE LAST VOLUME!?

Edit: Oh right, I also got a laptop off an acquaintance for real cheap (about $300; The guy's four-person family already has like seven computers among them and they didn't need this one which they got free from buying some new appliance)  so I can now surf the internet, watch DVDs and play games in bed. Hooray!

I really need to recall my fucking Steam password.

Today's loot (21st August 2011)

Devil Survivor 2 (4)

Second playthrough clear. Accidentally got Io killed and so ended up doing Yamato's route instead. Got the achievements for no free battles and no-one defeated in battle (I had to restart the final map once because that motherfucker Polaris went and fired a supernova off at Fumi before she could move the first time). Tried fighting Belzebub but with no free battles and not enough decent demons (I was saving for my third playthrough) I got owned upside-down.

Will fight the secret bosses on my third playthrough.

Edit (August 2012): Oh wow I just noticed that I only tweeted my third playthrough's progress and never posted it here.

You can see my tweets (in Japanese) here.

I ended up beating Polaris again in my second playthrough to get enough points (690) for my third. Perks I unlocked were skills, macca, auction, one demon, EXP/level limit, half price, new enemy on Tuesday.

I used up most of my demons and macca creating Satan...

...and ended up taking on Lilith with just him and a bunch of low level crap demons. Used the low level demons' skills to teleport over to her and take her on with Satan. Easy fight.

Belial was an easier fight (he uses fire like in Debisaba 1, note my immunities).

Ended up defeating all the secret bosses on my third playthrough. They really weren't very tough at all, especially compared to Lucifer and his stupid megidoradain in Debisaba 1.

Never did get round to a fourth playthrough. I'd like to start on one right now but I seem to have misplaced the DS card. Gah.

Devil Survivor 2 (3)

Cleared the game.

Final boss was awesome. I sent Fumi in to clear the way and ended up taking out his first two forms with her pretty easily, but then the final form showed up and the infinite range physical attacks wiped out pretty much my entire party except for the main character whose team was equipped with physical reflect. He fended off the teleporting Ganeshas easily and went straight for Polaris A, taking a Supernova in the face in the process, but he healed up easily (had Tokoyo no Inori equipped on him) and took the bastard down in two turns. It helped that the guy only used that powerful physical attack, too.

Ending was eh. Would've been nice to at least be able to see what happens to the characters in the end. Even a small text box like in Suikoden would be nice.

Anyway, time for my second playthrough, I guess.

Devil Survivor 2 (2)

Current progress.


Edit: Up to the last day.

Devil Survivor 2

Current stats.
Enjoying it so far, though the enemies were really annoying at the beginning before I cracked the ranbu skills.

Edit:

Today's loot (30th July 2011)

Loot (20th June 2011)

Loot (4th June 2011)

Loot (1st May 2011) / Stuff (2nd May 2011)

Edit (2nd May 2011): Got Robot Damashii Gawain too. And just for the hell of it, current state of the collection here so far-






Edit (2nd May 2011): Also got these spiffy DIY shelf-things. Not bad at all for 1000 yen each.



Edit (3rd May 2011): Got another two of those shelf things. They may not look very good, but hey, 1000 yen. Also they're probably sturdier than Ikea shit.

Super Robot Taisen L, clear

Cleared Suparobo L.

My aces from right before the final stage.

You can see how they try to make it more playable by turning up the difficulty but they really failed at it pretty bad. It's just annoying now when you keep running out of energy and SP. It's still not tough at all, just really annoying because you have to waste time going back to recharge and resupply over and over again. The older LOL LOOK I CAN KILL EVERYTHING IN THE WHOLE GAME WITH JUST ONE UNIT difficulty was silly but at least more fun.

And it might be harder to just musou through everything, but still not impossible, as you can see from my main character's kill count.






As for the last stage, I sent my strongest units (Rushbird, Dancouga Nova, Gaiking, Linebarrel, Destiny) forwards to tank enemies till the rest of my units got enough kiryoku, then finished off the remaining enemies with Freedom's map attack because I love map attacks.

Final boss was actually kind of tough by Suparobo standards because of the lowered EN and SP for everyone. I chose to ignore the reinforcements and missiles and just tossed everything I had at him, getting him down to 60000 on the first turn and finishing him off on the second, but it was pretty close because most of my units had insufficient EN and SP left- lots already weren't able to use their strongest attacks, let alone with seishin, on the second turn- And the final blow (as in I really had nothing more that could move) did 6500 damage. He had 6400 HP left. Daaaaamn.

I found this a lot more enjoyable than K and J, but W's still better. Then again, W's one of, if not the best of all time.

Anyway, clear data:
I went with all the Linebarrel routes because I've never watched/read it, and the other routes were all Macross F and Destiny. I might go through it again later.

The original stuff didn't stand out very much this time, which is a first in recent years for the main characters (since MX?) and a first EVER for the enemies. It's true that the original characters do stand out too much at times, but that doesn't mean making them not stand out is a solution. Especially when that results in the final boss looking like less of a threat that pretty much everyone you've fought up to that point.

(Beats having this guy around, though)

A couple of more events and attacks for the main characters, and maybe having the Rushbird and Straybird actually combine, and earlier, would have been nice.

Great probably stands out more if you go through the Destiny routes (which I didn't) due to the Archangel chasing after them and all, I'll have to check that out in my second playthrough.

Also, now that I think about it, I only did clear K once. Guess it was just that bad.

Edit:

Oh, and I like what they did with Destiny in L.

I didn't go on any of the route splits because it was usually between Destiny/Frontier and Linebarrel, and of those three Linebarrel's the only one I haven't seen, but after one of the routes splits the other guys came back from Berlin and

Shin: "Oh hey we were in Berlin and that Freedom guy helped me save Stellar, he's actually pretty cool."
Rey: "BY THE WAY WE TOTALLY SUNK THE ARCHANGEL."
Talia: "Actually we pretended to to help them escape detection hur hur"
Shin: "That Kira guy is really nice."

WHAT.

Durandal still goes all HURRRR DESTINY PLAN near the end but only Rey joins him, and once he's defeated he says that while he was fighting for what he believed in deep down he wanted you to beat him.

And on the next stage Neos Gold puts up a shield or something that you can't pierce... and then Durandal shows up and saves your asses by crashing the Messiah into her.

There's no LOL EVERYONE STOP FIGHTING bullshit at all and the Archangel goes around chasing the original enemies instead.

Nice.

Edit: I think I'll start on Graces soon. I tried to start on Star Ocean 4 but when it went "Once upon a time Saddam and America nuked each other HERE HAVE A MILLION-PAGE BATTLE TUTORIAL" I went "no thanks". Maybe later.