うたわれるもの

Landing on Itagaki's face

2012-02-09T16:58:00.002-05:00

From a talk on how Dead or Alive 2 was released unfinished without his knowledge:

"I thought I would quit making games," Itagaki recalls, adding that he began to stay home, drinking from morning to night, and crying as he watched the Bruce Willis movie, Armageddon, with his daughter, and listening to its theme song, "I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith.

No one's forcing you to read this

2012-02-01T17:40:00.003-05:00

I hate this argument.
It is such a trite garbage argument but it doesn't quite fall into fallacy because of the few cases where it can actually apply.
I will let smarter people do the talking for me on this one, as I find it hard to offer a concrete counter to it most of the time.

Because when Google's chairman, Eric Schmidt, told NPR's Andy Carvin, "G+ is completely optional. No one is forcing you to use it", he implied the only time a service should come under critical scrutiny is when it is mandatory.

This simplistic theory of critical discourse is perfectly incoherent, implying that in a marketplace, the only role "consumers" have is to buy things or not buy things, use things or not use things, and that these decisions should not be informed by vigorous debate and discussion, but only by marketing messages.

After all, no one forces anyone to eat at a restaurant, so why should we review it? No one forces you to see a movie, so why have any informed public discussion about which movie you should see this weekend? No one forces you to take a job, so why rank employers? No one forces you to go to universities, so why should we debate which ones are best and which ones are worst?

-Cory Doctorow

Phantasy Star Online 2 Alpha 2 starts

2012-01-27T10:22:00.003-05:00

■開催期間
2012年1月27日（金）16:00～23:00
2012年1月28日（土）18:00～26:00
2012年2月1日（水）16:00～23:00
2012年2月3日（金）15:00～2012年2月4日（土）23:00

As you can see, these are some phenomenally shitty times for someone on the east coast!
To reiterate:
January 27th, Friday (today), 2am to 9am EST
January 28th, Saturday, 4am to 12pm EST
February 1st, Wednesday, 2am to 9am EST
February 3rd, Friday, 1am EST to February 4th, Saturday, 9am EST
Incidentally, today I slept at 6:30AM :V
And woke up at 8 to go to work.
Shhhh...

Anyway let's see:
CONCEPTS that are familiar to me from PSP2i:
Weapon elements.
Fusing weapons together to increase the element.
Upgrading weapons.
Shared storage among characters.
Missions.
Hunter/Force/Ranger.
Skill disks.
Individual drop system along with the same color coding.

New or different stuff:
Weapon mods, sort of like extra stats or perks to a weapon.
Destroying a weapon with a desirable mod to put onto another weapon.
Multi-party missions. (Seems you can link up to 3 full parties or so at once.)
Class system seems to have skill trees and builds now, I already wasted some RA points on accuracy up.
The character creation, I think I spent an hour with the 9000 sliders.

Anyway, hesitant to put vids up cause Sega might drop a meteor on all the gaijins playing.
But yeah it's pretty familiar and cool at the same time.

Succumbing to Twitter

2012-01-23T09:34:00.001-05:00

Ugh, I've started realizing that all the stupid internet links I find relatively quickly are too easily thrown into Twitter.
Help I can't stop posting stupid shit.

Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere

2012-01-02T10:50:00.003-05:00

Warning: This show is weighty.
It feels like reading the beginning of Umineko initially (lots of nothing happening, lots of characters, and you are wondering exactly what the fuck is going on.)
I believe it takes like 4? episodes to cover a single day.
Apparently the "light" novels the show is adapted from aren't "light" at all, we're talking like 3000 pages.
Here's an example for size comparison:

(On the left, Zero no Tsukaima "novel" 16. On its right, Horizon 1a, 1b, 2a. On its right, Owari no Chronicle 7)
That's right, same author, different series set in the same universe set 4000 years before.
Yes, there is an entire who knows how many years of history in the author's head for his universe.

Now right off the bat this sounds like a bad idea to adapt!
Can you imagine say, a Wheel of Time anime?
Because it has about the same amount of characters!
How many episodes until we actually get to Aes Sedai and aren't getting owned in a small village by Trollocs?
But apparently the creator really wanted it to be come an anime.
Like really really.
Like he made an entire 3D model of the country for the anime staff really.
And he brought in tons of notes for the staff, that ended up being something like 20+ volumes of just notes.

So going into this show I had literally no idea what to expect.
Unfortunately, terrible translations on the initial releases left me with even less of a clue (use Commie or maybe Hatena for subs, do not use Hadena).
And it was slow, almost slice of life slow.
There was something being hinted at constantly but it took a while to reveal.
Plus the series is only 13 episodes.
I'm glad I finished it though, because it feels a fresh start to something with huge potential.
Plus the main character is played by otaku Lelouch.

Let's get this out of the way now, the main character looks NOT MANLY AT ALL.
In fact he looks like an absolute dork.
But he has a lot of reasons for how he acts, and honestly at the end I felt like he was one of the coolest characters to exist in a while.
I think the best comparison is really the Umineko sound novels in terms of build-up and delivery, though it's not as troll as Umineko and the Umineko anime was done poorly.

But yeah, for extra help, if you start watching (I originally put reading here I must be tired) this show, go to http://kyoukaisen.tumblr.com/neta for some answers as well.
In short though, the basis for the world is that in the future Earth became pretty uninhabitable, and everyone else except Japan left for the stars, except it seems like they fucked up in space, so instead they had to head to alternate dimensions of Earth, however the dimensions were bound to original Earth through Japan, the sole country that stayed on real Earth.
The people then attempt to recreate the history of old earth so that it will lead them back to space (this is the main "religion," the will of the Testament.)
Someone blew up the connection between the alternate dimension sections of Earth and Japan, so all the alternate dimensions "crashed" back into real Earth, which at this time Japan owned the entire thing.
Japan was blamed for the incident, and so lost all its territories (but it makes sense because everyone's basically thrown back onto real earth, however, the Testament keeps going until the year 1648, where it has stopped (and scared the shit out of the history recreators.)
How's that for a mouthful.
And it's hard to remember or believe but yes, all the nations shown represent superpowers that existed in real Earth around 1648.
Anyway there's a lot of information to digest, but it honestly somewhat makes sense, unlike say, Index's universe, which feels sort of ad-hoc.

Nisemonogatari Trailer #2

2011-12-28T09:56:00.001-05:00

It's out.

On cleaning Malware/Viruses

2011-12-24T23:18:00.002-05:00

So this past week I had to deal with four cases of malware, three of them for a SINGLE remote user.
Now my dad has malware and of course he is asking me to clean it.
I've done this so many times but only now have I really started getting pissed off.
Because it is the most retarded ratio of time used:problems solved in existence.
I use half a day or more to save these machines, where is our Acronis real time image server so I don't have to deal with this garbage?
I should send them all to Best Buy where they will just wipe your drive for 500$ and say "unfixable."
Honestly it's because my success rate is something like 99.999% (I failed ONCE. And that user was remote, I can't teleport.) that every time a remote contractor has a problem, they call iTAC/Florida branch, and then they get redirected to me.
My title says "Systems Specialist," not Tier 1 monkey support.
I actually run NO antivirus on both my desktop and my work laptop (I just use noscript, adblock, and a bunch of clean tools.)
I have gotten infected three times in my entire life.
One was from a game trainer, one was from a game trainer site's ad injection, and one was from browsing Wikia.
Hence my browsing behaviors now. (Don't go to gamecopyworld w/o noscript!)
I've given up looking for prevention against Day 0 shit (I believe honestly there is no difference between all the AVs except their community on dealing with Day 0, with Kasperky ranking at the top of the list while corporate type AVs like Norton and Symantec ranking dead last) and I just have tons of cures instead.

What really fucking annoys me is the sense of entitlement some people have now.
I talk to that SINGLE remote user (who got infected 3 times in a week before Christmas) on a daily basis so it is paramount that our relationship remains good, but it's really been a roller-coaster recently.
At some point in time I just became tired of the bullshit.
In four years how many times have I cleaned your computer for you?
And then you go and blame the laptop for "being junk."
Flat out even if we give you Windows 7 and a new machine I fully expect you to get infected again, just because I'm always here to fix it so you haven't changed your browsing habits at all.
"Where did you go?" "Oh, no where."
How many times have you said that to me when you've gotten infected probably the most times out of every single employee in this company?
I don't understand how you can possibly think this can sustain itself.
One day I wish for the closure of the entire Florida branch so I no longer have to deal with your viruses and the viruses of all the remote people we are bodyshopping.
Hey management let's get out of the low level contracting business already.

White Canvas vs ZUN (not really)

2011-12-21T14:43:00.003-05:00

Initial ZUN blogpost leading to shitstorm
White Canvas response
Full translation

<TempMobileName> ok lol just read that w canvas thing
<TempMobileName> so its contracts dispute
<TempMobileName> faito go go
<MaullarMaullar> poor draftsmanship
<MaullarMaullar> should've retained me
<mauve> heh what happened contractwise?
<TempMobileName> didnt catch all detail but basically white canvas saying it did everything in accordance with agreement with zun
<mauve> of course
<TempMobileName> this part is unrelated to tasofro
<TempMobileName> and didnt know tasofro had management corporation running it
<TempMobileName> i bet tasofro set it up to dodge liability
<TempMobileName> so apparently soon after zun/wcanvas agreement on touhou marketing
<TempMobileName> the company that deals with zun's ip rights changed
<TempMobileName> and things started to blow up from there
<mauve> interesting
<TempMobileName> the new company wanted new contracts with w canvas on stuff related to touhou marketing
<TempMobileName> and if im getting this right, the new contract had provisions different from one it made with zun before
<TempMobileName> that white canvas didnt like
<TempMobileName> dunno if it agreed to it anyway
<TempMobileName> lemme look
<TempMobileName> yeah white canvas didnt sign
<TempMobileName> and wcanvas is saying that if it didnt sign new contract, the old one with zun holds (which gives white canvas more rights i guess)
<TempMobileName> and the new touhou-marketing company is pissed
<TempMobileName> i guess thats the gist?
<TempMobileName> and white canvas is talking to zun's and that marketing company's rawyers
<TempMobileName> and suing is only against tasofro (= limited liability company SUNFISH)
<sibladeko> how is tasofro involved
<TempMobileName> tasofro claimed white canvas didnt pay tasofro whatever money owed
<TempMobileName> from selling rights or whatever
<TempMobileName> white canvas says it paid everything lols
<sibladeko> welp we'll see
<TempMobileName> and mad at zun for spreading unconfirmed shit to general public when he's technically a third party

LoL Aeze

2011-12-11T17:51:00.003-05:00

Someone tipped me off to this hilarious picture on day one of CBT2.

Aeze returns!
Notice how he's only spent 10 cash total and has only 54 games total.
Considering Witch Tower is actually more than 30 floors (35 or more or so) that leaves like...19 games or so of PvP for material farming?
He only lost five times on his way up the tower it seems as well.
But he already has 152 Card Points, in fact he probably has them all in his deck.
Good old Aeze, stretching the suspension of disbelief into superpower territory.

Least we have his account name now, whether Changyou even cares or has the ability to prove anything is up to them haha.

So long Sword Girls. (Part 2)

2011-10-17T10:22:00.005-04:00

Let me begin by saying that the actual launch of Sword Girls wasn't all peaches and cream.
The initial server load was way too much for Changyou to handle, the game frequently disconnected or crashed and was flat out unplayable for a good portion of the time when it started at 6pm PST on the 12th.
Everything was laggy and if you managed to connect you held onto your connection for dear sweet life until the dreaded PageCrash error.
They had to do emergency maintenance a couple times to even get a semblance of a functioning game (it should be noted that this initial garbage period weeded out tons of the initial SO MOE I DIED userbase from the dark pit/voodoo lounge /jp/ on 4chan, so maybe it was for a good reason!)

Around 8pm on the 14th, the above post that I linked was made.
It was a description of a deck designed to beat Ruins, which is initially a pretty hard 30F dungeon that had stomped plenty of people.
It wasn't the strategy conveyed in the post, but rather decklist, that made my jaw drop.
The user was running basically full rares from all the factions in a single deck.
His starting Character was Verika, which required something like 200 mats total to create.
One card, Coin Girl, even requires you to beat a quest that rewards you with special coins to even create.
The quest? Beat Ruins.
The Undertaker card requires THREE ENTIRE SETS of witch cards to create, and witches can only be gotten by grinding both PvP and PvE materials, it is impossible to craft them using booster packs.
Layna is a tier 3 Vita card that is insanely powerful, and he had UPGRADED her, which means he had TWO (you need two cards to attempt an upgrade.)
These cases are the most egregious cases, but everything in the list would take tons of time to make.

And he had done it 48 hours after a troubled launch.

I was not convinced.
The reason I had picked up this game was because the infinite Korean MMO fools Manabe and Lark had told me about it, and had fed me tons of information on the cards, the system, what was good early, who would be good later (Manabe tricking me by saying Darklore is overpowered), among other things.
The fact this person had gotten a full set of rares so fast was absolutely mind boggling, it would not only take some amazing grinding technique but an immense knowledge of the game engine as well to make every fight as fast as possible for materials.
So I questioned his claims.

It was very civil for a while, and it sort of unnerved me, because more or less I was flat out accusing him of hacking, and I know if the same thing was leveled at me I would get pretty indignant in my responses.
He gave meticulous answers that could let one almost suspend your disbelief.
Almost.
When he finally got mad I was relieved to see some sort of emotion because it was exhausting fencing with him and poking holes in his statements.
I felt he had gotten the best of me with his measured responses and I more or less said mea culpa and dropped it.

And then he fucked up.
One of the biggest things about this entire exchange that bugged me to no end was his lack of advanced deck strategy.
Oh he had some idea of what the good combos were, but he overlooked tons of starting combos and strategies that people starting with only the core sets would think up.
If someone asks you "how to counter Vampiric Rites" and your answer includes 50 point rares no one would have, you're getting ahead of the metagame just a wee bit.
It had basically felt like the Cosmic Break beta, where they had given you everything and let you figure stuff out backwards instead of starting from ground zero and working your way on up.
1. Simple missteps like insisting Darklore's most powerful starting card, Vampiric Rites, did not work with other factions.
2. Not knowing that you could lose by decking yourself.
3. Not know that PvP matchmaking was determined by your total deck points, and thus higher cost decks had an extremely hard time in finding actual players to fight and were forced to wait a long time to fight an AI.
4. Insisting Neutral was not a faction.

Extremely basic things like this.
The key post was Sword0924's post.
Sword0924 had credit at the time as being the only other person to have beaten Ruins.
But he did it without a full set of point rares or Size 4s and 5s.
He had quickly figured out how to abuse Vampiric Rites in PvE (I think it's the best PvE card in the game, and I think Shrink is the best PvP card in the game) to basically go for a MUCH cheaper deck than Aeze's.
Aeze showed a marked lack of understanding for what he claimed was a key component of his deck, so Sword0924 went to correct him.
And still Aeze backtracked after each post.
First he said it was because Neutral wasn't a faction.
Then he said it was because Sword0924's monsters shared the same faction.
It had gotten so ridiculous that I purposely made a video of me, using a different Character card, playing Vampiric Rites on Layna to show how wrong he was.
The level of ignorance was unacceptable for someone supposedly so well-versed in the game.

And then the fire started.
People started noticing his bullshit and calling him out for it.
He had been exposed pretty badly in this exchange with Sword0924, and it really looked like he had no grasp of the basics of his main card in his main deck.
Combined with his ludicrous deck and posts it looked extremely bad for him.
This went on for a while, with Aeze's claims growing more preposterous by the post.
Because I had noticed a mod's presence in the thread but no other action, I decided the only way to get anywhere to resolving the issue was to force the GMs hand by committing forum suicide and making a last desperate attack topic.
So I did.

It happened more or less as I expected.
Vault finally realized he had let it gone on for far too long, locked the Multifaction thread, and completely deleted mine.
He did say I was welcome to question Aeze's claims, just not be so abusive, but at this point I didn't care.
You can't be civil to hackers, and what he was doing basically threatened the entire cash shop model the game was built on.
So as I promised myself, I removed myself from the forums and the game.

I'd like to give a large thanks to the multiple people in my other gaming communities who supported me through this, some of the folks on /JP/ who did some "research" for me, and some who actually said they would quit after this debacle went unaddressed.
It was sort of surprising how many people I knew played the game from other areas of the internet.
Special thanks goes out Sword0924, for being probably the most intelligent beta tester in the game, and who basically took the much higher road than I did in dealing with Aeze's bullshit.
I hope he destroys that vs GMs tournament, though he stated he was probably too lazy to become a community representative.

The worst outcome of course would be if Aeze became a community representative.
When someone of that character gets favored status, you're killing your community before it starts.
Honestly though in the end, I think I managed to kill his chances for that, at the cost of myself.

So long Sword Girls.

2011-10-17T09:45:00.005-04:00

Sword Girls is a fun browser based Korean moe card girl game that is being localized by ChangYou.
At first glance it appears almost completely random in nature, coin flip determines turn order, targeting appears all over the place, spells go off randomly, and all you can do is curse the game for not having manual targeting.
But there is definitely a method to the madness.
If Grand Knights History is on one extreme of the Strategy spectrum, Sword Girls manages to be a very good Strategy game, just on the exact opposite side.

There are a few pseudo random constants:
Enemy monsters will more likely attack the monster in slot 3 first, non buff spells generally go off before buff spells, spells always go before attacks, stuff like that.
But really the beauty in the game is that a lot of the play is spent on thinking how to best minimize "WHAT HAPPENS IF EVERYTHING GOES WRONG" type circumstances.
And go wrong they can.
I described this part of the gameplay to mauve and he said, "sounds like a game I would scream at in rage repeatedly."
I find this part of the game incredibly fun though, the planning around catastrophic failure.
And of course you always get hilarious stories.
Last minute spells misfiring and costing people games, last minute spells letting people mount extraordinary comebacks, people winning because they lost the coin flip and went second instead of first, funny things like that.
I think my best stories are the following:
1. Someone snatching defeat from the jaws of victory because he spell switched my worst monster.
2. That same someone snatching victory from the jaws of defeat right after cause he spell switched the RIGHT monster.

3. 3HP vs 1HP, I'm firmly in control in a Darklore mirror, next turn we both play Sacrifice (take 1 damage to deal 4 damage). He wins coin flip, KILLS HIMSELF, KILLS ME, and gets the win for the game.

The game was really fun and easily playable on the sly at work (oh god my boss is a gamer I hope he does not read this) and very simple to learn but pretty complex at the higher levels.
I also enjoyed crafting, deck building, PvP vs PvE differences (can't run spells as a crutch against a dungeon loli who removes spells randomly from your hand!), among other things.
Unfortunately it wasn't going to end on a happy note.

Nokia's crowns new ringtone contest winner...with dubstep

2011-10-10T11:14:00.002-04:00

Sizzi: Well... i made a dubstep version of the Nokia Tune. Dubstep has become massivly popular during the last two years (even if its roots are definetly older) between the "hipsters" from all over the world and the production of a dubstep track is something really challenging, as a producer. I just thought as a sound designer that a sparkling, up-to-date and with a certain coolness version of the Nokia Tune would have been perfect to attract young and "cool-hunting" customers. I just thought:http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif if you want to give the fresHest product to a costumer, you better make it "sound" as freshest as you can, also!

Click http://nokiatune.audiodraft.com/ to listen to this "interesting" entry.
Also you can listen to other non wubwubwub entries there as well.

Moving

2011-10-03T12:02:00.002-04:00

So I moved from Monmouth Junction to Somerset, a grand total of like...5 miles.
Or something.
Lease expired, housemate didn't want to stay, what can you do.
So yeah my rent doubled, but I have more space than I know what to do with.
I fucked up though, I forgot how slow Verizon FIOS techs take to get scheduled, so I don't have internet at home until the 11th.
I will go crazy.

In the meantime, Fate Zero has started to air.
I'm killing all the crystals in Grand Knights History.
Acceleration of Suguri 2 patch 1.3 is out with Sumika added.

I need shelves, too used to single room life (even when I was in a double) and now everything is just laying on the carpet.
Maybe a couch too.
Or a TV.

Team Sp00ky's Stream Gear Seized by the Department of Homeland Security

2011-09-27T16:21:00.002-04:00

There are a lot of jokes that can be made here but right now all I can think of is:
WHAT THE FUCK?
Your tax dollars at fucking work people, stealing your friend's streaming video game equipment on the way back from Canada.

Good shit Illuminati.

British TV confuses Arma II footage as "IRA Film 1988"

2011-09-27T15:20:00.002-04:00

In short, British TV documentary about Gaddhafi's support of the IRA includes movie of IRA members supposedly shooting down a helicopter with Libyan-supplied weaponry.

Except the footage is from a FRAPS video of the game Arma II.
It looks so hilariously terrible as well I don't see how you could believe it's live action footage.

Avalon gets first place for the first time since release!

2011-09-26T13:28:00.005-04:00

Wao~
Also I think this is the first time since release that Logress has gotten last lol.
Crazy turnaround, didn't think I'd ever see it happen.
It seems like you get a nice bonus in the equipment shop as well if you're in first!

wwwwwwwwwww yohukasi-san ちょっとお前ら!

Nexon, NCSoft refuse to fully cooperate with South Korean gambling probe

2011-09-24T14:23:00.002-04:00

And no one was fucking surprised.

XSeed teasing Grand Knights History

2011-09-22T10:13:00.004-04:00

So their hangman anagram is more or less solved, and spells out the three nations in GKH war.
I wonder how they will handle online, Japan already has an IP ban and everyone stateside who imported is using proxies to get around it.
Will they host their own servers?

Testing PSP capture, look at me run from everything in existence.
Focused on objectives, I am!

Also Risica moe.

Grand Knights History 2

2011-09-22T00:33:00.003-04:00

I beat the main story with my second party, at level 10.
This is the power of Deliberate Defense and 13 trainings!

Grand Knights History

2011-09-21T10:05:00.003-04:00

This is just going to be an information dump on general play.
First things first, it's highly recommended you play this if you can go online with your PSP (doesn't go through PSN.)
Second, there is a complete IP block on non-Japanese IPs, look up how to connect online through a proxy on your PSP, and even then your results are mixed.
Third, JOIN AVALON. (Inoue Kikuko mage nation)
I know ikemen Sugita is cool and all but Logress is way too overpowered right now.

Anyway, at its core, Grand Knights History is initially a lot about stat tweaking, and becomes purely about strategy in the end-game.
Think of basically versus Etrian Odyssey or 7th Dragon where you can bring up to 8 parties.

The way the "War" mode works is this.
In general you will always have one "Main" party, the one you are directly controlling.
But you can also set up limited AI routines for your other 7 parties.
Because humans generally should be able to beat the most well-crafted AI parties, human players are encouraged to fight multiple AI parties in a row for greater rewards (up to ten), all the damage and Brave lost is saved from the last battle so it is dangerous if you aren't prepared to handle certain types of AI parties.
Alternatively, you can stop your streak early to heal but get less rewards for it.
You can run around in a currently contested territory and just free PvP random AI or human teams (online and offline!, offline just saves a snapshot of the world state), don't worry if you lose because you're not affecting the actual front line.
Keep in mind the enemy parties you face will scale to your level.

Front line war for contested territories is separate, and is more or less directly decided by wins and losses for each side in frontline battles on a real time basis, losing here hurts your team.
Here's a rundown of a sample front line war phase.
1. I go to a location in the contested territory where a battle line is and attempt to beat ten (usually AI) teams in a row (that's the maximum streak you can have I believe, and stopping to rest takes valuable phase time.)
2. At the same time I have set up my other 7 parties for AI routines, hopefully enemy human players will meet them when trying to get a ten streak and are sufficiently hurt or damaged by them that they are forced to stop continuing their streak or die.
3. Occasionally I will meet a human party, though you never quite know if its human or not (some of those AI team setups are really well built).
4. The number of wins and losses are tallied on each side at end of phase, whoever has more Wins pushes the morale? nation meter at the bottom toward the enemy's direction.
5. Nation with more meter at the end of a certain number of phases wins that battle and the territory.

So that's online war, problem (or not problem) is right now there are tons of bad AI AND human-controlled parties, so in fact a lot of people are cannon fodder.
To become not cannon fodder you need the offline component.

I'd be lying if I said the single player for Grand Knights history isn't a lot of OCD stat tweaking and build testing.
Each party you make in single player mode has a "training" period of 60 days.
When the training period runs out you have the option to send your characters to the above "War" mode.
Sending a character to "War" removes them from the single player world, they are now permanently only able to online or offline PvP and are no longer able to return to dungeoning.
However it frees up a character slot, you can only have four active characters in single player mode at a time.
You actually want to send your first four characters to war fairly quickly (don't get attached), as they will suck.
Enemy stats scale way better than yours with level, and honestly the first party you make is going to get stomped, maybe even as soon as level 5 (if you can't figure out the system).
You can use quite a bit of strategy to get far with your initial party, but in the end you're going to reach a stopping point (mine was about level 20, way higher than usual for a first party).

What you want to do with your first party:
1. Maybe complete some of the storyline quests to unlock new formations and new locations.
2. Maybe level up some to unlock new weapons and items.
3. GET AT LEAST 13 TRAINING PERMITS.
4. Send them to war after the 60 day training period is over, unless you want to farm more training permits.
5. Try some offline or online war, you might even beat a few AI teams if you're smart, but be prepared also to lose to some hilarious setups or just outright better equipped and better statted teams, AI or human. Like four hammer wizards, or a team that spams multi-hit instant death crossbows, or a team that basically Don't Acts your entire starting turn. Because the teams of your enemies scale to your level, if you leveled quite high in story mode you're going to meet some later generation teams using training-boosted stats.

What you want to do with your second party:
1. Buy enough Brave recovery items.
2. Use the 13 training permits on your entire team and get Marvelous card spins for each character until the training period runs out.
3. Look at your stats, and realize you are still level 1.
4. What you have more or less is an uber twinked team of level 1s. You can send them to war and their stats would destroy any first generation team on level 1, but keep in mind that it's highly unlikely someone sent their first team to war at level 1. Instead you'll probably run into other similar stat boosted teams as yourself, plus none of you will have any skills besides the default so it's sort of a coin flip. Hold off for now.
5. Use your level 1 super team to do just story quests until you get the ability to leave the country so that you can unlock the entire map to find the shops that sell the highest offline non-war equipment. Your home country's store scales with your level so it will still sell garbage. Run from anything you can, and only fight forced battles that show up in story. Do not worry about Brave loss, to not have qualms about running out of Concentration, do not worry about returning home at any time (training period is already up.) Because enemy stats scale way better than yours, but you have a huge initial boost, you should be able to one shot any normal encounter with 1 AP skills (not that you should bother), and you should be able to win Story battles with very little difficulty (those golems at high level would normally stomp your face.)
6. Read the Min Max thread to get an idea of what you should be really aiming for. As said, while 13 permits is a wonderful cost efficient way to get a jump start on party two, those going for extreme stat optimization will either aim to farm at least 36 to 72 permits for their later war teams.
7. It's probably not worth leveling to 49+ to unlock the last two tiers of buyable offline non-war equipment, do that on a later fully optimized party...when you feel like going to war just send them up (preferably low level), masteries build much faster in war and you can start seriously unlocking the war only skills and being a real competitor (not cannon fodder) online. Make sure you have the desired amount of permits for your next party as always.

All the parties afterwards will be pretty optimized starting stat wise to your liking, so you should concentrate on making multiple viable war parties to fight online.
Also, you should probably delete your first party from War, maybe even your second or third if they are not stat optimized to your liking.
Do this only when you have something like eight War parties hanging around.
As always, experiment like crazy with your builds in War, there are good AI farming teams, there are good AI-controlled enemy player stalling/stopping teams, and there are good human vs human teams.

List of stuff to note:
In War there is a rotating list of skill bans for Auto-Battle, be sure to update your AI routines if it affects you.
The Support skill that drops all your AP costs by 2 after a Defend is godlike, and it only costs 3 support points to learn.
There is a Support skill that makes you dodge 100% for the first turn...it's up to you whether you think it is worth it. A lot of day 1 AI teams were running it on all four of their characters and royally screwing with new players.
There is also a Support skill that makes you dodge 30% for the first three turns.
Combined with the skill that gives you 1AP for each successful dodge (multihit attacks on multiple or single targets count as multiple dodges) and you can see some very powerful combinations here.
Just a note the 1AP dodge regen skill and the first turn full evasion skill were both sealed week one, along with instant death.
Speaking of instant death, it's an archer support skill that each attack can proc instant death. As mentioned before, multihit attacks count as multiple attacks so a very powerful AI-killing team was spamming multishot instant death crossbows.
Judgement is an all-hitting low damage spell that has a chance to paralyze. (random chance of not act.)
Mirage creates a 1Hit barrier for your entire team.
Drain Act drains one to three AP from your opponent but costs 4AP to use, you really need to two be effect but then you can cause lockdown loops if your wizards are fast enough.

New rotation of sealed skills is the two dodge skills, plus the Wizard doubleact spell.

Super Battle Opera scandal, staff can't count to 32.

2011-09-17T13:27:00.005-04:00

There's a lot of rumors flying around about the AE brackets for SBO, but this is basically the confirmed truth.

SBO staff had 33 teams for a 32 team bracket.

The problem starts in the Last Chance Qualifiers.
Normally, a single "wildcard" spot is reserved for all the teams who didn't get into the main bracket through the red/blue ticket qualifying tournaments in sort of a battle royale.
This tournament is called the Last Chance qualifier.
To make matters worse, because there are usually tons of people or teams trying to qualify, chances to even play in the last chance qualifier are drawn out of a hat.
So you have to have good luck to even play in it.

For AE, they had already written up the brackets with an unprecedented two "wildcard" LCQ spots, so the top two teams of the LCQ tournament would get to be in the main bracket.
Furthermore, Daigo and Iyo, who did not qualify through normal tournaments, were given a guaranteed spot in the LCQ bracket.
This means the hat drawing was actually for only 15 teams in the LCQ.
This is why poongko didn't even get to play in the LCQ, his name wasn't drawn from the hat.

So the top two teams out of LCQ are Daigo and Iyo's team and Neurosis and Shiro's team.

And then shit hits the fan.

They forgot to put the Taiwanese team into the final bracket list from at LEAST a week ago, so they now actually had 33 teams instead of 32 teams in the main bracket.

When they realized their mistake, they decided to REMOVE the American team that qualified from Planet Zero, namely, Hsien Chang and Jose/BananaKen.
Keep in mind that for SBO spots, while Planet Zero compensated travel for the Blaz Blue spot, they said they would not for AE spots.
Hsien also qualified for BB at Planet Zero so no problems there, but Jose basically spent 1K plane ticket to NOT BE IN SBO.

Anyway, fubarduck negotiated with SBO staff for a long time and in the end, the decision was made for the USA team to fight the Kuwaiti team, who also had a legitimate spot.
When Bananaken said that was unfair to the Kuwaitis, SBO flat out said their alternative was not playing at all.

SBO REFUSED to have the two Last Chance Qualifier teams play each other so that there would be a single Last Chance Qualifier team entering the tournament.
Instead they chose to fuck over two foreigner teams who already had guaranteed spots in the main bracket (Both their team names were already in the program menu), and who had paid 1K+ to fly there.

Aquapazza qualifiers

2011-09-15T21:50:00.005-04:00

Posting this because Novril wanted a translation in IRC and I already did the work on the fly.
More known aliases are also listed.

■Area　Block【Player（Character・Assist）】

■A-01　【LEO（Arawn・Camyu）】
■A-02　【shieru/kaimaato（Konomi・Ma-ryan）】
■A-03　【JEO（Tamaki・Ulthury）】
■A-04　【butter（Konomi・Mizuki）】
■A-05　【wars（Konomi・Satsuki）】
■B-01　【tomo（Riannon・Yuki）】
■B-02　【reinforce（Touka・Yuma）】
■B-03　【ogawa（Konomi・Mizuki）】
■B-04　【mouken（Touka・Saki）】
■B-05　【Ryougi Shiki（Arawn・Mizuki）】
■B-06　【Blacky（Touka・Rina）】
■B-07　【shadow（Riannon・Rathty）】
■B-08　【tono（Hakuowlo・Mizuki）】
■B-09　【miyuki（Touka・Camyu）】
■B-10　【No Name（Touka・Yuma）】
■C-01　【katen ou（Morgan・Satsuki）】
■C-02　【masao（Riannon・Yuki）】
■C-03　【andou-（Riannon・Yuki）】
■C-04　【iwao（Konomi・Ulthury）】
■C-05　【kyamei（Konomi・Yuma）】
■D-01　【GO1（Riannon・Yuki）】
■D-02　【magikinJ（Multi・Mizuki）】
■E-01　【kubo（Morgan・Ulthury）】
■E-02　【deguchi（Hakuowlo・Camyu）】
■F-01　【emujima（Riannon・Octavia）】
■F-02　【karate kenji（Karulau・Ulthury）】
■F-03　【kaichou@HK（Touka・Octavia）】
■F-04　【yakumo（Konomi・Satsuki）】
■F-05　【chloe（Touka・Rina）】

Mains
7: Konomi, Touka
6: Riannon
2: Hakuowlo, Arawn, Morgan
1: Tamaki, Karulau, Multi
0: MANAKA T_T

Assists
5: Mizuki
4: Satsuki, Ulthury, Yuki
3: Camyu, Yuma
2: Ocatvia, Rina
1: Rathty, Ma-ryan

Nisemono Gatari and Kizumono Gatari announced

2011-09-15T12:59:00.004-04:00

http://www.nisemonogatari-anime.com/
http://www.kizumonogatari-movie.com/

Hrm, why Nisemono gets a full season and Kizumono only a movie who knows.
Still, much love for all monogataris.

Still waiting for the fallout when they animate Medusa lolol.

PERSONA 4 U

2011-09-15T01:35:00.003-04:00

Tons of system technicals shown off here:

Four buttons, layed out in a square:
AC
BD

A - Weak attack
B - Strong attack
C - Persona attack
D - Persona Rush

Lifebar, you get the idea.
SP gauge, used for EX attacks and supers.
The gauge below your lifebar is the Persona gauge. If you drain it, you enter PERSONA BREAK and you can't use your Persona or burst.

S ATTACK: Mash the A button for easy combos! Something about being able to cancel it for 50 meter into a big flashy finisher.
BURST: ACD. Gold bursts are available. Something called "One More Burst," "the moment you hit, you can really beat the fuck out of your foe"
R Action: B+D. An invincible move. Drains from the HP gauge briefly; will recover over a short time.
Beatdown Rush: pound AB after hit, then C or D. Pound AB for an overhead attack, then hit C or D for a followup. C is a launcher, D knocks opponent to the side (wallrush?)
Awakening: Activates at low life. Increases defense, Awakening moves become available (SDMs?) SP gauge max goes up to 150SP, and you gain 50SP for free.

Persona Break: When your Persona's out, damage to it or you decreases the Persona gauge. (Jojo's?)

Other misc functions:
P Combo: Gatling strings (A->B->C).
Sweep: Down + A + B
Quick Escape: A + C. "Moves to dodge attack."
Mini-jump: Down + A + C (hop?)
Air Turn: A + C in midair. You turn. IN THE AIR.
Throw: C + D. Unblockable (duh) and can be done in the air. Break with C+D.
Ukemi: Push a button while falling/hitting the ground.
Guard Cancel Attack: Forward + A + B while guarding. Costs 50SP. Has some invincible frames.
One More! Cancel: A+B+C. 50SP. Roman cancel.
Super Cancel: "Buffer certain supers during a special move: cancel into super, costs HP"

IaMP English patch deconstruction

2011-09-14T01:25:00.003-04:00

Mauve with a more thorough dissection of the hilarity that is Tasofro's programming.

Every spellcard name was also an image. I wish I were joking on this one. I bet Hal did too. So that’s an image for every choosable spellcard for every character plus four versions of every story spellcard for difficulty selection. This also meant that the position of the text on screen had to be stored somewhere, and every single alignment and reference to the size of the image needed to be modified in order to fit extensions to fit the longer English names. Since Tasofro was being economical with their development, they saw fit to place the card HUD elements inside, of all things, the character’s frame data.

WTF

2011-09-11T23:06:00.000-04:00

Perry cuts funding for firefighting by 75% while Texas burns.

2011-09-08T11:57:00.004-04:00

I think this is probably the easiest soundbyte I've heard in a while.
Like this could have come straight out of someone's campaign machine, doesn't it have an amazingly simple ring to it?
The GOP has always been way better than the Dems at making one-liners like this, so why aren't we seeing this amazing line being used in the GOP Presidential debates?

Because it brings up the fact that:
1. This is what all the freshmen Republicans (and quite a few of the Presidential candidates) have been running on platform wise. (NO TAX RAISES, ONLY SPENDING CUTS, INCLUDING TAX CUTS, WHICH AREN'T ACTUALLY SPENDING CUTS.)
2. You need federal aid sometimes when your state is hit by a hurricane or on fire.

So basically this soundbyte is off-limits to everyone in the GOP primary right now (especially Ron Paul).
But man if Perry wins the primary...I wonder if Obama's side would be willing to use it.
Probably would be, seeing as they're scraping bottom.

Bastion is amazing and you should play it.

2011-09-01T11:54:00.003-04:00

The game is flat out gorgeous and really well done.
Very nice music, amazing narrator and story, tight controls/gameplay and pacing.
All in all an immensely entertaining experience from an indie for 15 dollars.
Buy it now off Steam or if you're making poverty excuses I'll buy it for you.

Persona 4 Fighting Game

2011-08-30T23:37:00.004-04:00

Wow they're really going in!
Might be kusoge but godamn I'll play it anyway!

Extreme VS tiers

2011-08-29T18:38:00.006-04:00

This is just going here so I don't have to dig up a text file every time this game is mentioned.
Coming December!

3000 Cost Suits:
S: STRIKE FREEDOM DESTINY
A: MASTER TURN X ＞ 00 UNICORN Quanta
B: NU V2 ＞ Zero (Endless Waltz Version) Turn A DX

2500 Cost Suits:
S: Tallgeese III
A: Zeta Crossbone X-1
B: God Deathscythe Hell (Endless Waltz Version) Cherudim ＞ Full Armor ZZ SAZABI
C: QUBELEY Kshatriya ＞ Infininte Justice Crossbone X-2 SINANJU

2000 Cost Suits:
S: Char Geloog
A: Susanowo Heavy Arms (Endless Waltz Version)
B: MESSALA(tentative) Dragon Gold Sumo Delta Plus Strike Virsago Chest Break ＞ HYAKUSHIKI Providence F91 Gunner ZAKU Warrior Astray Red Frame
C: PHYSALIS EXIA ZEPHYRANTHES FULL-BURNERN Forbidden Gundam (Original)

1000 Cost Suits:
S: ZAKU II FZ LaGOWE
A: Hildolfr ＞ Gouf Custom
B: Berga Giros ＞ Ez8 Qubeley Mk-II (Ple Two)
C: ZUDAH Alex ACGUY Gun Ez

AoS2 1.1

2011-08-24T11:26:00.007-04:00

Things fixed:
1. Hime's SA infinite was "fixed" by moving the dash cancel window way later in the animation. What this has done is basically made her a sitting duck on chain whiff, however the infinite still exists, albeit with much stricter timing, because the hit stun on SA is still very high. Hime's SAA target combo dash cancel window has been entirely removed so the lazier SP WA WA infinite is gone.
2. Saki's WB now pushes the opponent back after a certain number hits, it feels frustratingly inconsistent. Saki's dash SB pushes back after a certain amount of hits also. Mefidex thinks the dash SB infinite is still doable but I think this more or less kills both of her infinites handily. What I don't like though is to combo off WB at all now you're basically forced to mash D everywhere because of the knockback pushing them away.
3. Alte/Mira Advanced mode bug fix. Too used to Standard for Mira by now anyway (one button tornado hyper!).
4. Sora laser hyper changed from 9f to 18f startup. The laser animation actually appears before the hyper hits, meaning it's pretty easy to move on reaction now. Still comboable into and out of.
5. Sora delayed missile speed slowed considerably. Don't know if this was needed.
6. Sham Sprite and Dwarf HP increased. Still Sham tier.
7. Iru slow-moving missile of doom now explodes (and still hits) if you destroy it before impact.
8. Kae can direct where the opponent files after her SA combo with directionals.

Overall, pretty welcome.
I believe Sora delay missile didn't quite need the nerf, just the hyper, which was dealt with.
I still have not quite figured out how to adjust as Saki to the knockback on WB.
The Star Breaker players have a legitimate complaint in regards to sticky mines sticking on Nanako's idle bits, though I mean they'd stick on her Eater Reef anyway (Edit: SB homing bits do NOT stick on Eater Reef), it just makes it a tiny bit less silly.
Tsih infinite was not fixed. Does it need to be? I honestly don't know.
Hime still has no anti-ballistics besides beam, I wonder if it's intentional now.

AoS2 full

2011-08-15T01:03:00.005-04:00

Anyway version 1.0 is exactly the same as the Demo with more characters, which means NO NERFS to expected dumbshittery.
Hoping for the Sumika patch (story mode patch) to help shit.
List of stuff I want fixed (starting with just game stuff then gameplay balances, warning theory fighter):
1. Fix advanced for the characters that it breaks on. Alte and Mira in advanced have no access to neutral (Hyper+WA) hyper at all.
2. Fix netconfig.exe crashing after you open a port.
3. Fix netconfig.exe randomly erasing the netconfig.txt!
4. Fix Saki's infinite. I really like how she plays though, introduce some sort of pushback if you do two or something, I don't know.
5. Nerf Sora's hyper. It is a 9 frame full screen ungrazeable hyper. Get out.
6. Make Hime's WA kill missiles again. Hime has absolutely nothing to kill ballistics except hypers.
7. Buff Mira's melee. Speed it up, increase the range, make it so she's not running away from non-melee characters or continually losing out to Kae mashing dash melee, this is absurd for a ninja character.
8. Buff Sham's everything. I don't know how you'd do this, make the blocks homing? Make them faster, make them explode when destroyed? She's just ass.
9. Nerf Kyoko and maybe Nanako and Mira's meter build. Feels downright absurd at the moment.
10. Fix Hime's infinite. It's pretty match viable and doesn't really address her faults at all.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

Grief Syndrome

2011-08-11T13:39:00.001-04:00

2ch Nadeko thread EXPLODES over Otorigatari

2011-06-30T12:17:00.002-04:00

Nadeko thread before:
Nadeko howahowa

Nadeko thread after:
yabai yabai yabai yabai!
Nadeko maji yabai!

DFO again

2011-06-30T10:11:00.002-04:00

2nd impact, and removal of fatigue.
I couldn't be happier really.
Maybe this will finally let me overcome my Frozenheart trauma that left me unable to ever play this game hardcore again.

Anyway for rogue, pretty sure these are post-patch rogues.
Shining cut hitbox way smaller I'm instantly noticing.

Anyway I dug up my old Korean builds (but they are in Korean encoding!) and remade my rogue.
Probably will make a necro just to get the weapon as well.

SCOTUS strikes down California video game law

2011-06-27T12:22:00.002-04:00

One study, for example, found that children who had just finished playing violent video games were more likely to fill in the blank letter in “explo_e” with a “d” (so that it reads “explode”) than with an “r” (“explore”). The prevention of this phenomenon, which might have been anticipated with common sense, is not a compelling state interest.

Tons of funny stuff in this judgement striking down California's ability to legislate video game sales to minors.

A penny for your interesting metaphors

2011-06-22T12:03:00.003-04:00

<OBVIOUSLY> i discovered a couple of good tracks from watching old miku concerts last night
<OBVIOUSLY> i hella sperglorded out on that shit
<sibladeko> old miku concerts
<sibladeko> sperglord
<OBVIOUSLY> world is mine remix was nice i actually could listen to it
<OBVIOUSLY> i usually hate that song
<sibladeko> lol
<sibladeko> which remix out of 9000
<OBVIOUSLY> it's the mike ross of vocaloid music
<OBVIOUSLY> slopfest central
<OBVIOUSLY> blah blah blah eat cakes
<OBVIOUSLY> blah blah yadayada i have no melodySEKAIIIIII DE ICHIBAN NO HIMESAMA
<OBVIOUSLY> the live concert remix in 09
<OBVIOUSLY> the live accompaniment did wonders
<OBVIOUSLY> and cleaned up vocals
<sibladeko> hahaha
<sibladeko> that is probably the most bizarre metaphor i've read in a while
<OBVIOUSLY> you know it's true

Best Buy sends Newegg cease and desist letter over their newest Ad

2011-06-10T12:09:00.001-04:00

Said advert.

Do not use Amazon Prime in the tri-state area if you see A-1 Courier Services as the shipper

2011-06-06T19:39:00.002-04:00

Yelp Reviews of this "service."
Amazon discussion/(now a rant) thread on this company.

Is delivering at 6:30-7:30PM acceptable to a business address?
8:00PM?

I ordered my new mouse Sunday night, I chose one day shipping with Amazon Prime for today.
Right now it is 7:42PM in the Office and they are still not here.
Absolutely fucking amazing, how much did they underbid UPS/FedEX by in this area?

Senran Kagura sadlife seiyuu lineup

2011-06-06T17:23:00.001-04:00

Chihaya was Chris?
No wonder Chris is so amazingly adorableeeeeeeeeeee.

CERN traps antihydrogen for 15 minutes.

2011-06-06T17:14:00.001-04:00

Everything is the will of Steins;Gate

Senran Kagura...

2011-06-06T10:47:00.001-04:00

Obviously it is time to get a 3DS now right?
Right?!

How do you psych yourself out so hard?

2011-06-05T15:44:00.001-04:00

ジュースボックス☆ゲッダン☆

2011-06-03T12:21:00.000-04:00

Who did this?
Was it you ikusat?

Dangan Ronpa

2011-06-02T17:54:00.005-04:00

Sort of late to the party, but basically the premise of this game is:
15 students, each specializing in a certain area, are trapped in the same campus for life.
The only way to graduate is to murder someone.
Once someone is killed, a "school trial" is held.
If the true culprit is found out, s/he is only PUNISHED. (Not killed.)
If everyone gets the wrong culprit, that person graduates, and everyone else left gets punished.

The main character however says fuck it and resolves to only find true culprits, and refuses to murder others.

This system is pretty wacky to me, because it basically encourages:
1. If at first you don't succeed, try and try again!
2. If you make the first move and fail, you are returned to the pool. Meaning someone else can try and frame you for it pretty easily.
3. The main character is basically saying "no one leaves here on my watch," which can be viewed as noble or suicidal given the environment.

Anyway I only know about this game because Urobuchi Gen started twittering about it plus they got the 74 year old Doraemon voice actor out of retirement to play a psychotic bear principal.

Magical Madoka Marathon

2011-05-30T02:24:00.003-04:00

So I had to work Memorial Day Saturday just for stuff, 8pm-1am, after I went home I marathoned Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
Keep in mind this series has been finished for a while now, though I still waited till it was entirely finished because I had heard the scenario writer was good old Gen and didn't want to get episode blocked by earthquakes.
I was pretty spoiled on certain aspects of it by then also, almost impossible to avoid on the JP blogs I read.

That being said all I did was cry a bunch while going through it.
Pretty...amazing.

Maybe not subtle, but they accomplished a lot in 12 episodes.

Godlike

2011-05-27T22:49:00.000-04:00

Chinese prisons using prisoners for WoW gold farming

2011-05-27T12:05:00.001-04:00

"Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour," Liu told the Guardian. "There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day. We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never turned off."

Surreal.

Steins;Gate novel/anime differences list and random theories part 2

2011-05-26T19:27:00.004-04:00

5. Baiten senshi (our part time warrior)'s first half of her introduction is cut out. The two main story points lost from this are:
a. Mr. Braun wasn't actually advertising for a part-timer (I mean no one even buys anything), but Suzuha actually begged him over the phone for the position when she called.
b. Two lines get said in the VN but not the anime:"I don't know anything about this organization or whatever, but if anything troubles you I can take care of it." Not only that but the line after basically says "This includes dirty work." The tone sounds like either offering assassination services or bodyguard work.

6. Okabe learns of John Titor on @channel through his phone. The posts show that "John" has no knowledge of Akihabara slang (so kwsk and w and such are lost to him). He also learns of John Titor's disappearance from the year 2000 through searching on his phone, not the computer. Not only that, he is reasonably well-versed in Titor to know what a IBM 5100 is already.

7. Moeka shows the picture of the IBM5100 to him and he asks what is that, she replies "An IBM5100." She ALREADY knows what it is. Not only that, Okabe already knows what it is as well and replies with, "The computer John Titor's looking for?" Keep in mind that in this world Titor just appeared on @channel, so honestly no one should know about IBM5100s in detail or be looking for them.

Steins;Gate novel/anime differences list and random theories

2011-05-25T15:26:00.005-04:00

That's not to say they are doing a bad job.
It's just that the novel has so much stuff crammed into little corners that they probably couldn't keep it all.
The figure I kept hearing was "50 hours of text," so try to put that into 24 episodes of 30 minutes each and well yeah.
Anyway this will be updated semi-regularly.

1. I am 99% certain that the girl on the rooftop preshift (before the first worldshift) waving off spectators from the roof explosion (where you see an intact device), is Baito Senshi. In the anime it shows someone with a hat over their head making an "X" gesture with their arms, in the VN however you hear her voice, although the scene is not drawn. It sounds like her a lot, the anime seemed to exchange "sounds like her" for "looks like her."

2. When Chris first asks Okabe preshift in the anime about what he wanted to talk to her about 15 minutes back, she says the phrase "it sounded really important." Literally, the phrase was more along the lines of "your face looked really anxious." However in the VN, Chris says something more along the lines of "you looked like the world was about to end, and were about to cry." To me this is a pretty huge distinction in depiction of an emotional state. It conveys a sense of desperation.

3. The first banana experiment actually ended up with the bananas being frozen. This is because Mayuri had put them in the freezer, and then they had removed them to thaw and then warm them up. Of course, this royally fucked up all their future analyses, because they couldn't recreate frozen bananas. Instead they got gel bananas, so they were wildly grasping at straws such as "change in density" (Okabe even says isn't that what a normal microwave does anyway!?)

4. Okabe actually visits the shrine (the first time we are introduced to Ruka) because he semi-believes he is possessed. This is because not only is Chris not dead, but she is vigorous enough to crush him in an intellectual debate. Of course he's half joking here and the whole evil arm thing is just having fun with Ruka.

Theory Fighting:
I'm doing all in my power to avoid spoiling myself ahead of time, but these opinions will contain spoilers as I progress further in the anime/VN of course.

1. Baito Senshi is on the rooftop with the device? satellite? as this story begins.
2. Chris's life or death effect on any timeline is huge. This is evidenced by when the first shift happens, John Titor disappears more or less from the year 2000, and a satellite crashes into the conference hall. To get more of an idea of her importance however, consider an example of where you went back in time and saved the inventor of the time machine. This means her butterfly effect is huge, if it was small, there would be no way a further event in the past would be completely changed, but it was.
3. Okabe's first message about Chris's death saved Chris from dying. However, it might not have saved her directly, but through butterfly effect. I believe this because something is not right about the supposed first time Okabe talked to Chris. The chronology goes something like Okabe tries to desperately talk to Chris, gets interrupted somehow, then 15 minutes later Okabe meets Chris again but has no memory of their previous discussion, then Chris dies, then first world shift from the text. Given the rules of how their text time machine works, what should have happened if it had saved her directly was 1. Okabe never talks to Chris or never enough to catch her attention 2. Chris dies 3. Okabe D-Mails 4. Timeline changes to one where Okabe gets a text from the future, has talked to Chris, and has prevented it. 5. World resynchs and Okabe doesn't remember 4.

One of the frustrating (or intriguing, and I find it clever) features of Okabe's time travel memories is that every time the world shifts they are more or less false. This means that he has to figure out what HE HIMSELF has been doing in the new timeline from the point of change up until he resynchs with the new timeline.
This is why the first occurrence of non memory is odd. Normally when Okabe has no knowledge of what he has been doing, it is because a new timeline has been created, and Okabe "synches in" after a period of time has passed with no knowledge of anything from the point of change up until his synch moment. In this first situation however...there is no synch in. Flat out, Okabe is listed as having done something he has no memory of, but there is no synching in, he is perfectly aware of what he has been doing (walking around with Mayuri) up to that point, there has been no shift, he is not stuck in limbo, he is in control of his faculties.

To me this points to the "15 minutes ago" Okabe as actually being a physically different Okabe, rather than an Okabe who has been given a text from the future. Which implies at some point that the lab gets access to a physical time machine.
4. Baito Senshi is from a future where Chris fucks up (not hard to make this hypothesis.)
5. Moeka did not send the message she said she would (to not buy a new phone 4 days in the past) This is a strong guess because neither Okarin nor any of the lab members actually look at her text before she sends it, and also the results of the message have a surprisingly high change factor.
6. Probably obvious, but Okabe is actually really self-aware of his idiosyncrasies, but enjoys them anyway. I can't really call him delusional or insane.

That's it for now.

Steins;Gate is pretty good

2011-05-25T11:07:00.004-04:00

だが男だ

I Have Few Friends character design, lost in transition?

2011-05-24T10:04:00.003-04:00

Anime:

Original:

Some people are sort of annoyed that the anime version of Boku ha Tomodachi ga Sukunai's character designs are done by the Denpa Shoujo guy.
I don't know, the original designs, while amazing, feel really hard to animate easily.

Nonprofit sees Comcast funding yanked, restored after critical Tweet

2011-05-20T09:37:00.000-04:00

Shaming us on twitter!
Good Heavens!

I Have Few Friends gets an anime

2011-05-18T12:28:00.003-04:00

This series was pretty quirky and funny but not remotely finished.
When it got a drama CD I was intrigued though by the voice choices because that usually signals who is going to play who in the future if an anime comes out...and they had some serious star power.

Guess like I was right.

7thDragon2020

2011-05-10T23:22:00.001-04:00

So a 7th Dragon prequel was announced for the PSP and wait what?

Is that fucking Tokyo Tower I see?
Did someone mix up my 7D with TWEWY/Persona nonsense?

Cheerleader Has To Pay $45,000 To The School That Kicked Her Off The Squad For Refusing To Cheer For Her Rapist

2011-05-10T01:01:00.002-04:00

Ugh, rage article of the day.
So I think arguing this on first amendment grounds probably fails but...at the same godamn time:
"You speak for the school, and the school promotes former rapists, and if you don't believe in that, then you're off the team!"

The worst part is none of the lower courts said the suit was without merit and dismissed it.
Meaning the Federal Appeals court is GOING OUT OF ITS WAY to screw her over.

DynaMarisa 3D Weapon Mod list

2011-05-05T12:05:00.007-04:00

マナアンプ：威力上昇
速射機構：弾速上昇
高速供給回路：リロード速度上昇
高精度照準：精度上昇
大容量魔力炉：弾数上昇
強化炸裂弾：爆発範囲上昇
ロングバレル：飛距離上昇
加速射出機：飛距離上昇(弾速も上昇？)
バンピライザ：敵体力吸収
ライフアンプ：体力上昇
シールド展開：ダメージ軽減
ラストドロー：最後の一発の威力上昇
強化貫通弾：弾が敵を貫通
バースト機構：一回で二発発射、弾も二発消費
リミット解除：威力、リロード、爆発範囲上昇、精度低下
ハイシーカー：誘導性能上昇

Mana Amp: Attack up
Rapid-fire Mechanism: Faster rate of fire
Quick Supply Circuit: Faster reload speed
High-precision Sight: Increased accuracy
High-capacity Magical Furnace: Increased clip size
High-explosive Rounds: Increased blast range
Long Barrel: Increased range
Accelerated Shooting Machine: Faster rate of fire and increased range
Vampirizer: Absorb enemy HP
Life Amp: HP up
Shield Deployment: Damage reduction
Last Draw: The last projectile in the clip will deal significantly? more damage
High-piercing Rounds: Projectiles will pierce
Burst Mechanism: Fires two projectiles at once per shot, uses twice the ammo as well
Limit Remover: Attack up and faster reload and increased blast range, lower accuracy
High Seeker: Homing ability increased

Some notes:
Mods are more about addressing weaknesses then amplifying strengths in this game early on.
Mana Amp is always solid.
Rapid fire helps a lot on slower knockback weapons.
Same with quick reload on slow as hell rocket launchers.
Increased accuracy I find useless.
High capacity is generally solid, at low levels it won't increase a clip size of 1 above 1, but the higher levels it will, which can make it worth it on certain one shots.
I'm not really feeling high-explosive rounds.
I guess long barrel could be mildly useful on assault rifles, but I got a demon gungnir early, so...
Accelerated long barrel is a double mod so it's good
Early on vampirism is good, later difficulties it is useless.
Life Amp is ehhh.
Shield is ehhh as well.
Someone on JPBBS reports Last Draw 2 increases Demon Gungnirs last shot by about 3x. (12k)
Piercing is amazing. Even level 1 (pierce one enemy) is useful with the right weapon.
Burst is decent, sort of like a ghetto pierce. If you combine the two however you can have some real fun.
Limit remover is generally good because accuracy isn't that important.
High Seeker I've only seen on a single gun.

Shit you want to be looking for on Masters:
Demon gungnir (if you have piercing and burst fire the better), piercing and burst shotguns, DEBMAX, piercing and burst assault rifles, Master Spark, Leviathan?, Ragnarok, Nothingness gungnir

Bananakira...

2011-05-03T00:15:00.002-04:00

Needs no explanation.

Nichijou makes no sense

2011-05-02T00:25:00.000-04:00

Shirts

2011-04-30T13:05:00.000-04:00

ふり～だ aka frieda aka Qlee0914 going to Evolution!

2011-04-23T09:46:00.003-04:00

Japan's best Lise player is going to Evo!
For MK9 and MVC3 lol but hey I told him we have a side tourney.
Also apparently he taught tokido MvC3 before he came to the USA (JWONG responded that he taught tokido MvC3 after he came haha)

But yeah hype.
Also rob I don't know if I'd bet on you for winning Arcana at EVO anymore.
Just sayin'

Bakuham

2011-04-20T09:44:00.002-04:00

A Denny's and Bakuman collaboration?

This one's for you Rithli.

Portal 2

2011-04-19T12:59:00.000-04:00

Idolmaster Anime PV

2011-04-17T12:01:00.002-04:00

The legendary sadlife game that I never got, even when pressured by other sadlifes.

Looking good, at least looking not like a Xenoglossia.

Motomu Toriyama supervising new Squenix smartphone game

2011-04-15T13:16:00.005-04:00

For the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android, interesting platform choice there. No titles yet, just the tagline 心が世界を壊す (kokoro ga sekai wo kowasu), something like "Hearts that Rend the World Apart," well if you read the EN page for it that is. Then some French that means "This world is an illusion. The dreams (of night) are real."

In the view page source there's a further subtitle that says "Shid and Shiera's new story, along with the genre as "adventure game book." English source doesn't really reveal anything more than the Japanese source, feels like a machine translation more or less.

So the last time I saw the names Cid and Shera they were in Final Fantasy VII building rockets. Sure as hell don't look like the two characters there...also it should be noted that in FFVII(J) Shera's name was シエラ as opposed to シエラ─. Still that girl is holding a moogle AND the tagline is "new story," implying there was an old story to begin with.
Who knows.

Hyperdimensional Neptunia gets a sequel

2011-04-14T13:02:00.005-04:00

Apparently Neptune was Idea Factory's highest-selling game, kusoge as it was.
So obviously a sequel must be made...starring anthropomorphized handhelds instead of consoles, because their big sisters have been kidnapped.

Makes sense right?

Sort of biased though, as MS has NO handhelds.
Also Neptune once again makes up shit out of thin air with their handheld being called Nepgear.
Meanwhile of course Sony and Nintendo get to show off their lolis I mean handhelds in spades.

DS: "Touch suru yo"

3DS: "Tobideru yo"

What the fuck did they do to that slime?

Nendoroid cafe

2011-04-14T10:42:00.000-04:00

Words fail me.

Plasma

2011-04-13T16:57:00.001-04:00

mfw we have finished installing the new plasma for the office rec room and the first thing my boss does is go to my youtube channel and watch Soku. :V

Persona 4 anime incoming

2011-04-09T21:03:00.001-04:00

http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
By the way the reason it's 100% is because their little countdown site: Mayonaka TV, fucked up for certain JP cellphone users and displayed an announcement.

The World God Only Knows

2011-04-07T12:32:00.000-04:00

Shiomiya Shiori anime arc was amazing.
That is all.

DynaMarisa play movie

2011-04-05T04:09:00.001-04:00

Obviously the new vogue in April Fool's jokes is announcing real things.

Kizumonogatari announced for 2012

2011-03-30T09:45:00.003-04:00

11/03/30
「傷物語」映画化決定

「傷物語」映画化が決定しました。
2012年公開予定です。

FUCK YES.

Koei offices defaced

2011-03-28T13:42:00.005-04:00

I'm loling pretty hard here at what was spray painted, I guess someone takes severe issue with Koei's lawn-mowing simulators.
死ねゴミ
天誅
くそげー
卑怯者

Arbitrary units of DEATH!

2011-03-18T19:57:00.004-04:00

The reporting on this thing has been atrocious.
I thought this was a troll at first but it is an actual fucking chart.
Arbitrary units of what?
For fuck's sakes you're not even trying now!

List of places I am going to not fucking listen to arbitrary units:
NHK, Katz, TBS
NHK sort of slow early on, getting better.
Yokosonews is katz, he's pretty up to date.
tbstv I honestly think has been down forever.
SA thread
Yes I know it's SA forums, but the first post is worth reading because regardless of the situation science doesn't change.
It's a good way to get a quick idea of what can happen in the worst case scenario and what the points of contention are between JP news and the USA news outlets.

Also here's a great example of the type of "reporting" that is being, dare I say it, "crowd-sourced" by nearly every godamn media outlet out there.

AP Photo of TEPCO's director weeping and description.
Looks pretty standard right? (By the way, I don't really trust TEPCO for shit.)
Here is the same photo, now turned into its own article by the Daily Mail.
Apparently Daily Mail is something the equivalent of the National Enquirer over there in Britain but not like it matters!
They're a reputable news source now!
This shit has been mass linked on blogs and other news sites repeatedly; I think the bitterest irony is all the blogs who are always for breaking down conspiracies by the media are swallowing shit like this from the Daily Mail hook line and sinker.
That press conference was translated live on an independent stream (not NHK) and none of the fearmongering garbage in that article was present.

And this is just a single example.

Japanese death toll to exceed 10,000

2011-03-14T12:00:00.003-04:00

This was a lot more serious than I thought...
Tokyo didn't really get hit, just structural damage.
But several outlying communities just got completely washed away by the tsunami wave.
Plus explosions at the nuclear power plants as well.
And it actually moved the entire island plus threw the Earth off its axis...

I have naturalized Japanese relatives (they changed their Taiwanese given names to Japanese), I do not know how they are doing.

All you can do is just hope.

The Perils of Staying Sadlife

2011-03-11T13:52:00.003-05:00

So Japan had an earthquake at 8.9 on the Ricther scale.

Honestly I'm laughing at other's misfortune and I feel bad.
Click the link for more sadlife catastrophes.

Keiji Inafune writing a book

2011-03-07T15:21:00.003-05:00

The book is called "Inafune Keiji Comcept(Concept?)" and will be released in April, hopefully not the 1st.

Dragon Nest Japan's GMs pull upgrade "hack" stunt

2011-03-04T10:41:00.004-05:00

So basically right now in Dragon Nest JP is an event where the first team to beat the new boss "Seed Dragon" get 1000manen. That's 10,000,000 yen, aka rounded down 100,000 dollars. For beating a video game boss. Pretty fucking crazy promotion. Apparently though Seed Dragon is some crazy unbeatable boss with 30 life bars; it has been theorized you'd need a full party (actually I think you can bring 8 people against him) of at least +12 or so equipped characters against him. Equipment in this game breaks at level 6.

Anyway in game, someone of the name of ハヌホメsdaa was upgrading basically the final tier of equipment, presumably for an attempt on the Seed Dragon. Global messages indicating +12, +13, and +14! Apocalypse Mace had been reached (Priest weapon) and people went crazy with excitement. And then someone posted in global chat: "Try to block the dude who got +14." And lo and behold, "YOU CAN NOT BLOCK A GM." appeared. Moments later the character (who was max level), was deleted. People flipped out. Why would a GM be upgrade haxing a final tier weapon in game? The first idea that came to everyone's mind was, "So they could win the Seed Dragon contest by rigging it with supposedly normal players who happened to have really high upgraded equipment." If they announced the winners and honuhome san showed up, no one would be surprised since they saw a fucking +14 in global. Shortly after this there was an "emergency maintenance," that supposedly addressed "security exploit." The community more or less called bullshit and said it was a coverup. According to the community, honuhome san was also a notorious upgrader in Arad Senki way back before the game was transferred from Hangame to Nexon.

So more or less everyone is calling Hangame on basically troll fishing the entire community with a rigged contest using rigged GM characters. Truly hilarious.

Kawaii Security

2011-03-03T15:00:00.003-05:00

Apparently the selling point is "NO LESS THAN 30 VIRUS-TANS."

Examu has yakuza connections

2011-02-25T10:40:00.006-05:00

How else do you explain Aquapizza in fucking main Tougeki lineup?

Also, no TTT2, because they say it wouldn't be finished.
Sort of sad, SBO Tekken is like the only time I get hype for Tekken again.
via VersusCity

MBAACC...

2011-02-08T15:45:00.001-05:00

Her sprites look great but at the same time WE DID NOT NEED MORE CIELS.

Square Enix suffers a 76% drop in profits from April to December 2010

2011-02-03T09:31:00.001-05:00

Via Estelle

Grab Bag

2011-01-28T15:02:00.005-05:00

So in the news today (or yesterday):

China passing off Top Gun footage as Chinese airplane "training exercises."

Aquapazza/pizza by Examu/Leaf:

Unfortunately it's on Taito's Nazi Online board NESiCAxLive, meaning that State side operators will have about 0% chance of getting the game (fubarduck already shed a single tear.)
Also Manaka attacking anything is just too weird!

India's most expensive (and most successful) film:

Witness the masterpiece Enthiran.

Taxes

2011-01-18T15:49:00.001-05:00

So I have two W2s, one pointing toward the normal place and one pointing toward Mauritius.

From Wikipedia:

Mauritius – based front companies of foreign investors are used to avoid paying taxes in India utilising loopholes in the bilateral agreement on double taxation between the two countries, with the tacit support of the Indian government, who are keen to improve figures relating to inward investment. The use of Mauritius as a gateway to funnel foreign investments into India has always been controversial. Mauritius's financial regime has a number of the key characteristics of a tax haven, which has helped to facilitate this.

KKIITTAAAAAAAAAA!

2011-01-15T17:51:00.002-05:00

Arcana Heart 3 is out

2011-01-12T16:52:00.002-05:00

<HeartNana> ok
<HeartNana> shit felt PERFECT

And some joy finally starts creeping back into me.

Cosmic Break broke my heart

2011-01-10T11:34:00.003-05:00

Sort of delayed, sort of old, but yeah time to post a final wrap-up more or less.
Cosmic Break broke my heart.
I'd be sort of over this if I didn't keep getting asked questions suddenly by IRL friends from the fighting game community.
"Hay sibladeko what's a good build" x9000.
Imagine my face when I have to tell them that they should never spend money on this game because the people running it are insane.
Where were you clowns in the previous betas when the game was actually good?

In short, Cosmic Break USA's insistence that it was "well aware they were dealing with a different market" was pretty much lies.
True they started out with "discounted" prices but they kept the RT conversion the same and once those discounts end it will go back to the hilarious Japanese pricing of 20 dollars for 5 rolls.
And so ends Cosmic Break.
10 dollars 5 rolls.
Not budging on that price point, that's what DFO uses and that's the border of sanity.
It's only fair too given the lack of a trading system and other bullshit the userbase puts up with.
If they had used that price point I'd be flying around with those shiny wings right now with chocolate Lily instead of playing other games.
But no they think 20 bucks 5 rolls will work here.
Even with the discounted rates (16 bucks for 5 rolls! 12 bucks for 5 rolls, almost there but no cigar) have firmly cleaved the user base by 66%.
And hell I wonder how many of those remaining 33% paid?
The few people who have shiny wings all belong to the merged clan of lagging HKers and iHOP called Everything's(Not)Fine.
That and maybe Middle Eastern Prince *******, he has something like 4 shiny wings on an alt.
Truly the saviors of USA Cosmic Break's economic model.

Quite honestly I spend tons of money on stupid shit, I threw 50 bucks at Ougon (HAHA SUCKER), I'm throwing 70? at Arcana Heart 3 limited edition, just to name my most recent examples of excess.
But I refuse to throw any more money at Cosmic Break USA until they change the pricing, which I don't think they will.
It'd be pretty trivial for me to throw 1000s and get overpowered bots like Everything'sFine and rule a dead game.
Except I don't want a dead game, I want a game that can grow, that can thrive, that can survive a balance change instead of having people quit because their 1000s of dollars are now worthless.
Buy in and you basically reward Cyberstep for their idiocy and their desire to kill their own game.

Edit: Oh yeah as for shit people ask me the most:
If you want to be a winner, Redux will help you win.
Tons of problems in the base game...though changing flat garapon price goes a long way toward remedying that.

Ougon Musou Kyoku

2011-01-04T02:50:00.005-05:00

Is pretty kusoge.
I'm having limited "fun" with it but right now the biggest problems are:
1. Cancel window is retardedly tight and chains actually hurt my hands to do, very mashy game cause of how the command interpreter is.
2. Pressure is extremely linear, the guard meter builds hella fast so there's almost no reason to open someone up, just make them block. You basically block low 99% of the time in this game waiting for the obvious tag overhead.
3. Attacking someone gives them more meter than you.
4. Bursts are omega free, with the amount of meter you get in this game there is no reason NOT to burst. If a game has both sides bursting like 5 times per match there is a problem.
5. Metaworld is staggeringly powerful for certain characters, there is no reason to NOT counter meta if you have the meter and even if they have more meters to redeclare it throws off dash timing like a bitch and shortens the duration of it.
6. Everyone's combos are the same, though I don't mind it that much. No meter combo is 2a5b2b5c tag 2a5b2b5c2c special if you have it. One meter on your main? 2a5b2b5c metaworld dash 2a5b2b5c tag 2a5b2b5c2c metaworld super into dizzy. One meter on your sub? 2a5b2b5c tag 2a5b2b5c metaworld dash 2a5b2b5c metaworld super into dizzy. Ange has limited chains but she has rejumps. Probably one of the more interesting characters in the game.
7. Hitboxes are all over the place. True there is a slash wisp I believe in the actual move, but look at that thing. Same with a lot of the other moves, I think Battler's tie is something like impossible to attack head on.

8. Netplay is disconnecting garbage with no spectate and no way to copy paste IPs in (you have to mash up arrows on the number fields)
9. Limited joystick support, when's the last time I've played a doujin fighter that couldn't realize the directionals on both my pad and stick? Maybe 10 years ago?

Pluses:
1. Presentation is slick as hell, looking at the sprite work confirms this. Plenty of cool in-jokes and story moves as well, the characters really have a lot of their stuff from the sound novels.
2. Music is amazing, although it is in uncompressed WMA!?!?! Lol why is the continue song 2.5 minutes. It's like they didn't care. Plus a 7 minute stage song for a game with a 180 second timer. Do not understand.
3. Voice acting is top notch, everyone sounds in character and the ones who are annoying are annoying as hell nyehheheh (silly rabbit).
4. I really really like the meter system in that you only build meter for your partner. It really does promote the "tag" aspect of the game, however everything else sort of falls, especially of how metaworld is handled. Maybe doing metaworld super ends your metaworld immediately, because at the moment Beatrice has infinite momentum, Battler and Ange have free instant full screen punishes on anything you do that isn't down back, etc. etc.

The game has potential, I don't even want to think of how Melty Blood was when it first came out.
Right now though it's a pretty limited, though gorgeous, experience.

Arcana Heart 3 Test

2010-12-22T04:12:00.002-05:00

Microsoft Taiwan makes a Silverlight Christmas dating sim

2010-12-17T11:40:00.002-05:00

What the fuck? I didn't even know there were four Silverlight sisters.

Rollcaster

2010-11-30T11:26:00.002-05:00

It’s possible for a sound to get played and then get canceled out by a rollback, which would of course be very confusing. I had to add some code that not only tracks every single instance of a sound being played, but what’s even more fun is that it has to check to make sure that the same sound wasn’t started on a later frame, so it doesn’t accidentally cancel something out that was just moved up a bit.

So you want to program games?
Hope to God you are as hardcore as mauve.

UMINEKO FIGHTING GAME PART 3

2010-11-23T19:27:00.004-05:00

Voicework

God Beatrice sounds hilarious.

Anyway further shit:
Ange: Stun Boost (She gets a lot more hit stun on her attacks)
Battler: Resurrection (He heals life)
Beatrice: InfinitySP (One super she chooses costs nothing?!)
Lucifer: Attack Touch (Can tag in even if she is in waiting status)
Kanon: Silent Attack (Seals opponents SP gain when he hits them? Or makes them gain less, not sure.)
Shanon: Auto Guard (What it says...sort of vague, I don't know if it means you don't have to block mixups yourself or what.)
Eva: Berserk (??? Probably more damage)
Chester: Break Boost (Almost positive that she does increased guard damage)
Virgilia: ??? (???)
Ronove: Counter Boost (??? Guessing he does retardo damage off CH)

Serious thoughts.
Siesta looks ridiculous, guard damage is really absurd plus arrow spammy character along with rushdown type normals.
Not sure about Beatrice, she sure is elegant looking though.
Also if Shannon's shit lets her not have to block mixups she will be easy ass scrub character.

UMINEKO FIGHTING GAME PART 2

2010-11-23T03:38:00.006-05:00

Actual play footage.

So Keits posts three times about this game on SRK front page and Stupid Retarded Kids explode because of too much anime.
Also lol, Japan more pessimistic than #Umineko because "oh no combo game."
Also damage is spelled DAMEGE aka DAME GE- aka "do not want game"

Anyway analysis:
It is a tag game, lifebars seem shared between characters, super meter is not.
There are three life bars total per pair.
Tagging is called "Touch."
Canceling an attack into a tag attack is called "Attack Touch."
Bursting out of hitstun into a tag switch costs two meters of your sub and is called "Damage Touch."
You can combo into and out of tags.
There is a life gain mechanic of some sort.
There is a guard meter.
There is a shitload of projectiles.
The toolshed stage either phases in and out of normal and ritual or it's some type of game effect (think arcana activations in AH1 and AH2).
Backed up by the fact that in the clip after Lucifer goes into snap finger pose and the background changes.
Beatrice has something called "Infinity SP"
Battler has something called "Ressurection"
Kanon has something called "Silent Attack"
Shanon has something called "Auto Guard"
Eva has something called "Berserk"
Chester has something called "Break Boost"
Lucifer has something called "Attack Touch" (different than normal attack touch?)
Ronove has something called "Counter Boost"

UMINEKO FIGHTING GAME

2010-11-21T03:29:00.003-05:00

Holy fuck get out of my head Japan!

Murderface

2010-11-14T01:33:00.002-05:00

Taiwanese news, again

2010-11-11T11:00:00.000-05:00

Asians don't age, they in fact reverse age!

2010-11-05T12:10:00.004-04:00

From elderly white man to young asian dude.
And here I thought the plot of Mission Impossible 2 depended way too much on the face change gimmick.

My guess is either:
1. Chinese political dissident or criminal or something
2. North Korean

Chinese hands NK escapees back to NK, I wonder if you were able to seek asylum in Hong Kong before the revertsal of ownership.

Frontier Aja has more money than God

2010-11-03T03:03:00.002-04:00

Touhouvania II cast:
Sakuya Izayoi: Sawashiro Miyuki (Mint of Galaxy Angel, Shinku of Rozen Maiden, Aruru of Utawarerumono)
Remilia Scarlet: Kitamura Eri
Patchouli Knowledge: Rikimaru Noriko (Manaka of To Heart 2)
Flandre Scarlet: Kanemoto Hisako (Ika Musume of Ika Musume)
Hong Meiling: Satou Satomi (Ritsu of K-ON!)
Reimu Hakurei: Satou Rina (Negi of Negima, Haruka of Minami-Ke, Mikoto Misaka of To Aru Majutsu no Index)
Marisa Kirisame: Shintani Ryoko (Xianghua of Soul Calibur, Milfeulle of Galaxy Angel, Sae of Hidamari Sketch)
Alice Margatroid:　Tomatsu Haruka (Ai from Idolmaster DS, Nagi from Kannagi, Lala from To Love-Ru)
Yukari Yakumo: Endou Aya (Leanne from Resonance of Fate, Miyuki of Lucky Star, Sheryl of Macross Frontier)
Yuyuko Saigyouji: Shiina Hekiru (Haruka from Dream Club Zero, Hikaru from Magic Knight Rayearth)
Youmu Konpaku: Hirohashi Ryou (Kyou from Clannad, Rakka from Haibane Renmei, Sora from Kaleido Star)
Ran Yakumo: Kobayashi Yu (Setsuna of Negima, Mariya of Maria Holic, Kaere Kimura of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei)
Chen: Shintani Ryoko
Komachi Onozuka: Tomatsu Haruka

RRRAAAGGGEEE

2010-10-29T13:09:00.002-04:00

Mizuumi site redesign

2010-10-25T12:22:00.001-04:00

Bellreisa's making a serious attempt to make Mizuumi somewhat legitimate.
Wish him luck.