games, figures, translations and reviews
Friday, June 01, 2012.
May pickups, because it's June.
blog, Figure, フィギュア, STG, XBOX360
Picked up Max Factory's Kureha (unopened) for 9800 yen off an Amazon.jp, which I'm actually really happy with! Considering the only other times I've ever seen this figure is on Mandarake for around 15,000 yen ― it's from 2007, so I'm not surprised. They actually listed this for 12,800 yen but changed their price a few days later, there's nothing wrong with it though. I think they did this to compete with another third-party seller that had one around 11,000 yen. I'm not really into Tony Taka's art but I did enjoy Shining Wind, stumbling upon the game randomly in 2005 before the massive influx of "Shining" figures still coming out. I should probably try emulating Shining Wind at some point, I think it's aged pretty well. This figure in particular is one of the few of Kureha that I like, all the others seem "off" somehow.
Saber Avalon wasn't cheap (12,000 yen) but that's because it's Saber. I purchased this after having started watching Fate/Zero in recent times. I spent a fair amount of time comparing various Sabers before settling on this one. As per a previous entry of mine, I did say that I was considering contemplating my pre-ordered Saber Nendoroid with an actual figure. And yet, I might just leave Nendoroids on my desk, they make for surprisingly good desktop material. It's also the first print ― you can tell by the Capcom logo top-left and "Fate/unlimited codes" logo. On the reprint, the Capcom logo is replaced by a Type-Moon logo and has "Fate/stay night" instead. Also, I'm pretty sure the reprint will also have "Fate/stay night" on the figure base, as this has "Fate/unlimited codes" on my base.
Mushi HD is great. Not "MMP/PS bundle" level of greatness, but my first impressions of this are still very positive. It was my first Cave 1cc, so I'm glad they're seeing off the 360 with the game that made me discover the franchise in 2004. I'm really liking the graphic overhaul and Arrange soundtrack. I never understood the autofire rates, they seem to be different from the PS2's ones. I think Mushi Ultra's difficulty scaling is much better than Futari Ultra's scaling. Mushi Arrange is probably my favourite arrange second only to Ketsui's X-mode, in my book.
I'm in two minds as to what I think of 1.5 though ― I like that there's no clear victor between the shot types, unlike regular Mushi where W-Power is clearly the victor in every scenario. It just seems as if they're borrowing heavily from Futari Black Label Original, wherein everything is based around point-blanking. Bullet Soul also has point-blanking but it's not a Cave game therefore it's bad, right? It's also present in a number of other Cave games: Daioujou and shooting enemies during their "invincible period" as they appear (in order to maintain chain), Deathsmiles 1.1/MBL 1.1 did the same. Ketsui consists of point-blanking for [5] chips. It just feels like point-blanking is to Cave what grazing is to Touhou. I don't know, I think I'd rather be grazing. Aggressively grazing bullets is quite different to aggressively destroying enemies to collect gems from an imaginary window.
I also purchased Diablo III, and that's where I've been. I plan on reviewing Diablo III at some point, just not right now, probably because I'm entirely infatuated with the game. I played Diablo II for years, having to see it every day back when I worked in an Internet cafe, knowing people that played Diablo II, etc. Diablo III is basically my 15 year old self-experience revised into HD. It's difficult to describe just how much attention to detail they've put into making this a modern game without differentiating itself too far from the Diablo II formula. But I digress, I'll get into that some other time.
Monday, May 14, 2012.
Small tip for non-US residents wanting US PSN funds without any markup.
As I've just managed to pull this off myself, I thought I'd let others know. If you're in the states this entry isn't going to be much use, but if you're like me, you live in a country with higher prices on games ― games of which get released at a later date, unfortunately for a higher price, meanwhile the US release has deteriorated in value. Well, for those with a Vita, PSP, or PS3, using an American-based PSN account is now even easier. They'll charge you 1:1 to the US dollar you're paying, just as if you were really using an American-based credit card. There's no longer any need to use sites like eBay or Play-Asia for codes.
Make sure the card you're buying is being sent digitally through email ("Download Content"), with "Sent via e-mail for redemption" in the description. What I did was, I created an account (with anything for zip code, since American zip codes are longer than my local ones are), then added the cards above into my cart, and went through the check-out process. During the check-out process, it'll ask you for your credit card and address. According to their International page, their specific address can be used, along with your own personal credit card. I used my NZ-based card for this.
- To complete your online purchase:
- During checkout, in place of your non-US billing address, use this exact billing address:
- 10780 Kempwood Dr.
- Houston, TX 77043
For phone number, you should be able to use your local one, as I did. I entered XX-X-XXX-XXXX (country - area code - phone number), 10 digits. (thanks to Kilvear for pointing this out!)
Assuming the process was successful, you'll receive an email with your confirmation, and afterwards another email with your code.
My code here has been used, so I'm not entirely sure why I just bothered to censor that, but whatever. This is the second email you guys should receive, including your code. That's really all there is to it! Just use their specific address together with your own credit card.
Wednesday, May 09, 2012.
Got my Vita! Impressions, etc.
I always intended on buying one of these, but come launch there wasn't anything I was interested in. Certainly not something to justify the purchase. And as yet, for the most part, there's still nothing coming out that I'm interested in beyond DJMAX Technika at this point. It came to light recently that Technika is on schedule for this year, and I was shown a deal on Amazon.de for a Vita, 8GB memory stick, and any game of my choice. For 192 Euro (300 NZD) shipped I couldn't say no, especially since the Vita itself sells for $380-400 by itself here.
I had to pick a game. I chose Rayman because, well, a bunch of shitty sports games or Lumines were the others on offer. Unsurprisingly the box is entirely in German, but apparently the game switches languages depending on the console's main language. My god, German classification labels are ugly. I mean, look at that game. Just look at it. It's taking up a quarter of the cover. I might end up selling it though, just to bring down the overall cost. The case is really light, I haven't opened it just yet but I can feel that there's no manual inside. You can immediately tell by holding any Vita game that they're really pushing for a digital-only future.
As for the console itself, I'm actually really impressed (and surprised) by how it feels. The dpad is far superior to the PS3's dpad, although it doesn't take much to do that. It feels almost like using a dpad with micro-switches, and doesn't require any breaking-in. The analogues feel as if they have more grip compared to the PS3 ones and are completely incomparable to the laughable faux-analogue thing they tried to call an analogue stick for PSP. PSP games look perfectly fine - I downloaded the Ao no Kiseki demo and played that for about an hour. Bilinear filtering is also an option but I hate that shit so I'll never use it. There's also an option to change the game's "color space" (basically imitate LCD), but I didn't notice any difference.
I also downloaded some apps off the marketplace: LiveTweet and Niconico. I've yet to check out Niconico, I'm just going to assume it'll be slow though. LiveTweet is great although it's a little bright for my tastes. I just love how the interface of the Vita feels like I'm using Chrome with a bunch of tabs. I'm going to assume this is thanks to the quad-core processor, but being able to pause a game, switch to a different application (ie. LiveTweet), check it, and switch back to the game without closing anything is really appealing. I like the whole multi-tasking direction they've taken here, especially because I have to deal with this daily (work and browsing stuff).
I don't plan on having another physical game collection so I'll probably just buy everything digitally. At any rate, I'll have to get a second memory stick and some Canadian points at some point, just to download some localizations. Actually I'm going to take this time to make a list that I can refer back to.
- Corpse Party
- Fate/EXTRA
- Trails in the Sky
- Monster Hunter Freedom Unite
I haven't actually played any of those beyond Corpse Party. I checked out the total filesize of the above games and it's little under 4 gb, so there's still a bunch of room even on an 8gb card. I'm not really sure what else to bother with at this point.
For my main (Japanese) account, I'll definitely grab:
Again, not really sure what else to bother with. I'm going to pick up Monster Hunter as there's an option to map the right analogue stick to the dpad (THANK YOU); meaning it's possible to control the camera with the right analogue stick, instead of being forced to use that awful "claw style" Monster Hunter fans use to control the camera with.
Now, as for what I don't like: the start/select buttons are horribly designed. They're almost completely flush with everything else, making them difficult to press. If it were up to me, I'd make tapping the screen/back panel a certain number of times trigger start/select (of course, it'd be possible to disable). Again, this is a very, very minor but they really are hard to press. I'm also kind of confused as to why the Welcome Park tutorial thing has trophies. They're giving people trophies completing tutorials. How sad. I closed it when it started asking me to take pictures of things that look like smiley faces. I mean, get real.
And back into the box it goes. I don't have anything to shelter this in just yet; I'll invest in a case. Also, since this came with a foreign plug I'll probably just charge this through USB. I'm pretty much going to be using this for PSP games until something other than Technika rolls out, also I'm really not expecting anything worthwhile to come this year. I think it was a good buy - at least in my case. I wouldn't recommend one for Vita games at this point, but rather only if you're able to find a deal equal or better value.
