WataMote

I still like to watch anime, but I don’t seek it out like I used to.  Nowadays I basically watch whatever is placed on Toonami.  But while trotting around the web recently I unintentionally came across a show that caught my attention and had an impact on me that no show has done in a while.

WataMote is a slice of life/comedy anime that follows the daily life of Tomoko Kuroki, a freshman high school student.  Thinking she’d turn into an extremely popular person when she became a high school girl, she realizes two months into the first semester that she hasn’t made a single friend.  Not helping her situation is her crippling social anxiety that prevents her from having a conversation with anyone besides her family and her one and only friend from middle school (which they currently attend different high schools).  There is a small item to note though: she’s a rotten individual.  Seen an introvert, most of the dialog is in her head, so you’re hearing every mean opinion she has about everyone: people in her classroom, her younger brother, even her own friend!  But on the outside she is seen as a very shy, quiet individual who keeps to herself (again, because of her social anxiety).

The show basically follows her hair-brained schemes on how she can become popular; though because of something of her own doing, her plans fail in the MOST EMBARRASSING WAYS POSSIBLE!  Holey moley are some scenes hard to watch.  On one hand you feel bad for her, but on the other its kind-of deserved.

People who have watched WataMote say they can relate to Tomoko, and I guess I’m in that camp too.  Minus the whole gender thing, my time in high school mimicked hers in a few ways.  But I think the experience of adolescence is very similar to most and that’s probably why so many people say she is a relatable character.

In terms of show production, it’s well done.  The animation is superb and includes a hodgepodge of styles.  I really like how shades of light -- like from her computer monitor -- glows and are in shapes like hexagons.  The music is fantastic and includes some extreme music for the frantic scenes, but most tracks are mellow and fit the slice of life genre well.  The voice acting is great too -- especially the voice actor for Tomoko, Monica Rial.  I only watched the English dub, but I’ve heard great things about the Japanese voice actor as well.

I highly recommend WataMote.  It may not be for everyone, but with it being only 12 episodes in length, it tells its story well without any filler episodes.  In fact, I may check out the manga that the show is based on, No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular!  Wow, that’s one heck of a title!

Heap of yuck

I’ve been living in this apartment for a little over a year now and for the most part it’s a good place, but the appliances that came with included with the unit are towards, what I believe, the end of their estimated life spans.  The fridge runs longer than what it should, the dishwasher’s Jet-Dry sprayer isn’t doing the job anymore, and the washer-dryer combo has started making more noise when the wash cycle is going.

I decided to check the washer to see if there was a quick solution to making it quieter, but to no avail.  It is, however much cleaner now after I cleared out a bunch of crud from underneath it.  It’s a such a narrow gap, but so much crap seemed to have gotten wedged from under it over the years, many of which came from previous tenants.  For example, there were a number of colored markers and a a lid for a very small cup.  This leads me to believe a kid was living here at some point.  There were also a lot of lint balls, dryer sheets, and OxiClean wrappers to stun me, trying to figure out how so much garbage was able to accumulate in such a tight space.  There was also some funky looking fabrics that make me think someone was wearing a shag carpet for a jacket.

I’m sure a landfill is located underneath the oven also, but that’s a task for another day.

No arguments here

As a companion piece to the Q Entertainment feature I posted last week, check out this rad write-up that Evan Narcisse from Kotaku wrote regarding Rez.  I completely agree with how he feels it being a timeless classic.

An assessment of Guilty Gear Xrd

Been playing Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- for a few weeks now, and I have to say I am very impressed with it.  After years without a proper game for the series, and it taking a back seat for an additional number of years because of the BlazBlue franchise, it seemed like 2014 was the right time for GG to make a comeback.

In fact, I personally feel Guilty Gear X2 was the last proper game before it spun out of control with a number of odd ball games like Isuka -- where they introduced a two fighting plane to the gameplay -- and Guilty Gear 2: Overture -- where it moved away as a fighting game and more towards a Dynasty Warriors styled RTS.  This means I haven’t cared for the GG series since 2003!

Sure, I was into BlazBlue when it first debuted in 2009, and it perfectly scratched the itch I had for a new GG styled game, but it too quickly fell into the same feature creep trappings as its predecessor franchise.  But like the Street Fighter franchise, taking a long hiatus is sometimes a benefit, and Guilty Gear surely gained from its time off based on what I’ve seen in Xrd.

To get it out of the way: this game is absolutely gorgeous.  Believe it when I say both the background and the characters are polygonal 3D models and not just hand drawn 2D.  They show off that it’s a 3D engine during certain events like character intros or when you perform certain moves.  The camera would begin to spin around that characters, showing how there is more to see from the default angle when you are playing.  It’s truly the “wow” factor of the game and is a neat thing to show to people who are unaware of it not being a polygonal game.

If you’re familiar with the Guilty Gear series, then you’ll feel right at home.  I jumped straight into arcade mode and was able to beat the game with my go to character, Ky Kiske.  If you are new to the series, then there are an excellent number of modes to try out to get familiar with.  The tutorial mode is the place to learn the absolute basics fundamentals of, not only Guilty Gear and its crazy systems, but for fighting games in general.  Tutorial mode is very hand holding and will walk you through each lesson with audio discussions, on screen text, and some helpful tips after you’ve succeeded the lesson.  I’m glad I checked it out as there was some new stuff like understanding the different types of roman cancels.

When you have a grasp on the basics, then you could improve on learning a character’s combos and special attacks with challenge mode and then go into mission mode to learn how to deal with certain situations like breaking defenses with overheads.  Of course there is good ol’ training mode if you just want to pick a character and have a training dummy take your abuse.

The meat of the game is found in modes like arcade, multiplayer, and something called M.O.M.  Arcade is your default pick-a-character-and-fight-8-dudes-till-you-see-credits.  Multiplayer can be the versus mode for local matches or to go online with Network mode.  Network has everything you’d want for an online fighting game.  Ranked matches?  You got it!  Spectator mode?  Yup.  Additional features like searches and messaging?  Uh-huh.  There’s a lot more to network mode, but just know it basically has everything most people are looking for in regards to online fighting games.

M.O.M. mode is a fighting game RPG of sorts that allows you to collect and earn items and weapons, and to level up your character’s attributes like strength, magic, technique, etc.  Currently I’ve been mostly playing the arcade and M.O.M. modes.  I haven’t tried out story mode yet, but it I believe it’s basically a movie that progresses on the story from arcade mode.  In all, every mode is fully fleshed out and each can give hours upon hours of play time.  Every one of them is worth trying out at least once for fun or for a learning experience.

As one would expect from a Guilty Gear game, metal covers the soundtrack and does it well.  You get more whimsical music with a happy-go-lucky character like May, but in contrast have heavy guitar tracks with a big, hulking character like Potemkin.  Remixes of certain stages can be heard and are welcoming to old fans of the series like myself.  There are also a few tracks that include vocals.  While the lyrics aren’t necessarily important, they are a nice touch to an already awesome soundtrack.  The PS3 version does get a point deducted as the music is extremely compressed.  I play games with headphones on and it’s horrible to hear such fantastic music get treated as garbage through means of highly compressed music files.  Hopefully this is not the case with the PS4 version; which I plan to play again whenever I get around to purchasing that console.

The presentation in Xrd is highly polished and really gives you your money’s worth.  Mechanical gears are a reoccurring theme and you’ll see them throughout the game.  The menus are fully animated and give cool little effects when you scroll through them.  Everything is organized and categorized so well that all modes are easy to find and to where you can quickly jump from one to another.  I know these are minute details to note, but they are what I notice when playing games.

There’s an in-game currency called World Dollar (W$) that you earn when you play the modes.  This can be used in the gallery option to unlock things like character vocal tracks, character portraits, and classic GGX music that can be used during battles.  As a carrot and stick tactic, the game is keeping me jumping through each mode to earn enough money to unlock the character, Sin Kiske.  Sure, I can buy him from the store with real money, but that’s the easy way out (plus I’m cheap).  My only complaint is that there isn’t a gallery for the soundtrack.  I would definitely earn some serious W$ to unlock those prizes.

It’s been a while since I played a Guilty Gear game and have played many other fighting games since then.  2009 really buried the franchise when games like Street Fighter IV, The King of Fighters XII, and BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger came out.  On top of that, I’ve been getting into other Capcom fighters like Darkstalkers, 3rd Strike, and the Marvel series of games.  Add on the DOA and Virtua Fighter games, and now Guilty Gear is buried so deep that it can be drilled and harvested as an energy source.  2014 was the perfect time for a new Guilty Gear game and could not have done any better to live up to my expectations for the series.

Back with another one of those block rockin' beats

With 2014 now behind us and waving its goodbye reflected from the rearview mirror, I figured it’s now safe to list all the songs that caught my attention from last year.  The list is a little short compared to previous years because I wasn’t paying attention to new music until around the time fall season started.  So I guess this is my “songs of the last quarter of 2014.”  Some artists are new to me while some are familiar from last year’s playlist.  In all, it was a good year in music (at least from the time I was listening).  Looking forward to what 2015 will have in store for us.

Tom Vek - Sherman (Animals in the Jungle)
Kimbra - 90s Music
Tom Vek - Let’s Pray
Amp Live - 100,000 Watts
TOKiMONSTA - Drive
Atmosphere - Southsiders
Bonobo - Pelican

What the Q?

My Appreciation for Q Entertainment

A surge of creativity can be felt when you play a game from developer Q Entertainment.  They somehow figured out the formula to perfectly synthesize both music and games into a product that’s not only worth buying to play, but to keep and cherish in your gaming library.  With a focus on puzzles, these games age well to where even Q’s earliest releases (as far back as 10 years ago) are still as fresh as the day they debuted.

Check out this feature that, based on the title, shows my love for this little indie developer who quickly made a name for itself with its unique style of combining puzzles and music.

Bits of nothing

Haven’t posted much in the last week due my current hunger of consuming lots of media from a number of formats.  It includes catching up on TV shows, reading, playing a huge number of games, and DVDs.

Coming soon is a new posting for the games section and I want to generate a list of all the new music I listened to and enjoyed that came out throughout 2014.

In the meantime, here’s a non sequitur of two pics that show Jeff Gerstmann and Steve Carell in a similar stone cold stare.

Not about Burger King

Been loving this podcast I’ve been listening to lately. Named, No More Whoppers, this show has everything I like: games, Seinfeld, and lots of sound drops! It’s been around for a while now, but I’ve started listening to it for only the last few months. I suggest listening to episode 117 titled Daddy Warzucks if you’re interested (this was the first episode I started with). The nonsense level for this episode is at 11 and was good from start to finish.

Milestone

I’m amazed at how fast time went.  Today marks the one year anniversary of when I launched this website!

The original intention for creating this website was to get back into web design; which was something I leaned years ago, but let it slip and my knowledge on the subject got very rusty.  Another reason was to learn how to use and manage a CMS.

The unintentional effect was an improvement in my writing.  While I’m not saying my use of punctuations have improved (someone would need to confirm that for me), but I know my ability to write longer articles/essays/write-ups/whatever has improved.  Before, it was extremely difficult for me to write something that was, say, longer than two paragraphs.  I believe now I’m able to dissect a topic of discussion -- like a video game -- and break it down into many parts and focus on each item one at a time instead of before where I was thinking of the subject only in the view of the big picture and had very little to write about it.

I also like how this website is allowing me to be creative with things like pictures and images.  This allows me to mess around with image editors like Photoshop and Paint.Net, which I’m more familiar with now than ever before!

For the future, I’m still planning to crank out more articles in my games journal section, improve on the design of the website, and add more creative projects like that 16-bit Seinfeld comic.

If you’ve been following this website, thanks for checking it out!  I hope what I write appears to you as either interesting, informative, or both!

Great expectations

A sign in knowing that a game is going to be good is when the instruction manual is printed in color from cover to cover.  It shows that the publisher stands behind the game and is willing to fork over a little more dough to have, even the littlest of things like a manual, be a shinning representation of the game.