Kamen Rider - Strange! BeeWoman!!

As, Kamen Rider is full of stand alone episodes, it really doesn't matter which episode I talk about first so this one seems as good as any to start with as I just finished seeing it!

This is a fun episode that features the first female antagonist monster in the series, a BeeWoman, and we're only 8 episodes in?! How progressive!

Episode starts out with a man preparing dinner for his daughter Sachiko. Like an idiot, she bolts in and steps on the man's glasses, WHOOPS! Instead of beating the child like many of you would do, he easily forgives her and they both set out to buy a new pair of glasses at the glasses store! You'd think everything is all fine after that, but when the glasses owner gives you a look that goes from this:

To this:

Then you know something bad is about to go down! And sure enough it does, as it turns out that those glasses that the employee gave him are mind-control glasses.

In a zombified state, the man quickly abandons his daughter in a park. The little girl panics and notifies the nearest adult who happens to be none other than Takeshi Hongo aka Kamen Rider! It's now up to Kamen Rider to find out who's responsible for the mysterious disappearances including little Sachiko's father. Spoilers: It's those Shocker bastards.

The monster of the week is BeeWoman. She's the one in charge of kidnappings, but just because she's a woman doesn't spare her from Kamen Rider's wrath. Oh no. Just like every other monster, she faces the RIDER KICK!

And for those that don't know. A Rider kick means you're dead.

Very fun episode. I'm looking forward to more.

Kamen Rider - A short intro

After that long experience with Raidou Kuzunoha, I kind of wanted to wind down from doing any major gaming at the moment. So I've been watching some tokusatsu (read: guys in costumes beating the crap out of each other). Also, I've been looking at the content of my blog lately, and noticed it had plenty of talk about games, but not enough about Riders. Riders? Why, Kamen Riders of course! In retrospect, I should probably change the name of my blog but I'm far too lazy to do that so I'll just force myself to talk about Kamen Rider for a bit so my blog title wouldn't be a bold faced lie!

For those who don't know, "Kamen Rider" (literally translated as "Masked Rider") is a TV "tokusatsu" series from 1971 originating in Japan. It might remind you of power rangers, because it's very much the same genre. It's about a man named Takeshi Hongo who is suddenly kidnapped by an evil terrorist organization known as SHOCKER. During captivity, they transform Hongo into a cyborg but just before he is brainwashed into being their minion, he manages to escape and becomes hellbent on destroying Shocker for robbing him of his humanity.

By today's standards, it's very cheap, cheesy, and people today would be rolling their eyes at the cheap special effects. But with what little they had to work with, they made up for with charm, fun energy, and compelling storytelling featuring a great main character. Kamen Rider is an icon today, and deservedly so.

This was meant to be a short introduction as I was about to do a write up for episode 8, but it ran longer than I thought. So I'll leave that article for another time. At the very least, please enjoy the opening intro of the series...



For those who want to check out the series, head on over to KitSubs.

Episode 12 - Bonds Between Us

We did it, we're finally here. The final episode everybody! I got to say, I never thought I'd get the opportunity to actually get this far, but here we are....

The story could have easily ended at episode 11, but the game writers decided to throw a wrench into things and suddenly reminded you of what you set out to do since the beginning: Rescue the dame!

Raidou's journey traverse both space and time, in what might be, the lengthiest and most difficult episode of them all. As you enter the dungeon, you'll find yourself travelling through time starting from the 1930s all the way to 2050 onwards! Heavy references to the events of other Shin Megami Tensei games are referred to, and you might miss a good deal of them without even knowing it! There is also a high enemy encounter rate, so you are more than guaranteed to run into a fight every 10 steps or so. And if you think that's bad? Well, be prepared to fight every boss you encountered since the start of the game! Only HARDER!

The final boss? Yeah, it was awesome. Raidou is stronger than a god, so says the final boss. Really, you'll be fighting off all sorts of crazy stuff and then laying the smackdown on all sorts of things. Truly a battle worthy of an end boss fight. But was it difficult? Well...not for me. I've been stockpiling all the items I gathered since the start of the game so I had plenty of ammo to go all out on the fight. You know I only used on demon on it. And that was Belial. For a demon right out of hell and the bible, he sure was a bro. For those that are curious, here's a medley of all the final boss's three forms. A bit spoilery, of course...so watch at your own risk. You'll still have no idea of the plot leading up to it, so I guess it's alright!



I have to say, I had a lot of fun with this game. A hard-boiled detective mystery featuring government conspiracies, mythological beings, and a talking cat turned out quite well! I must thank you guys for following this blog while I pushed myself to finish a game I might not have finished otherwise. Even though I could clearly tell a lot of you hated this game from the comments!

So what's the plan after this? We'll see tomorrow...it's definitely not going to be a New game plus run through I GUARANTEE YOU THAT!

Until then, later!

Episode 11 - Mission to Space

Great episode! Not much in the gameplay department, but the plot is nearing it's conclusion!

Overall, this episode was short. Mission to space is all about Raidou and friends trying to build a rocket in order to destroy a satellite powering a rampaging soulless god. At this point of the story, Rasputin is no longer a problem as he much prefers to flirt with women in bars during what is quite possibly the end of Japan as they know it.



Rasputin actually helps you out now that his contract is up. How nice given that he was always trying to kill you during the early parts of the game. The episode ends on a tragic note, however, with the loss of a certain character who sacrifices himself to ensure the mission's success. Don't watch the next video if you don't want spoilers!



NEVER FORGET

Tomorrow will be the last episode for sure in this long ordeal of a game! Look forward to it.

Episode 10 - The Capital in Flames!

I particularly enjoy the beginning of this song. Well, sorry about disappearing yesterday, but the trust me I spent ALL DAY playing this episode. Not that it was very long, in fact it wasn't. I did, however, spend an ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF TIME grinding like hell for some of the optional bosses. More on that later...

You can pretty much gather what goes down just by the name of the episode, can't you? When Raidou was out screwing around in another world trying to get back, everything has gone to hell and quite quickly. We're approaching the end of the game, so of course it's about to get very real.

Now, the boss of this episode is pretty unique in that it forces you to adapt to his rules. Plot wise, this guy is very important, so I'm not going to give context as to what's going on. He will, however, bind your demon and permanently send him back into your demon tube in which you are NO LONGER ALLOWED TO USE IT FOR THE REST OF THE BATTLE. I soon found myself running out of demons, forcing myself to take him on one-on-one more often than not. I should say I was frustrated, but I had fun with this fight. Lots of running around, blocking, and demon maneuvering kept things interesting.



This guy obviously had a long fight with it, but it's one of the few boss fights out there that encourages you to fight smart and not just mash the attack button every time. Use the block button, people! It'll save your life someday!

Now, I spent the entire day in this episode because there are some secret demons you can unlock, but you have to be an absurdly high level in order to get them. In the process, I did a ton of fusing, a ton of fighting, and fought a boss that was harder than the one in the video I just showed! Let's see what I ended up with!

"One of the 72 demons of the Goetia. It led the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ruin, and prosecuted Jesus. Those who summon Belial are granted high social status"

This guy, Belial is the strongest demon in the pyro class. And he's HUGE! Summon him around town and he's at least twice your height. Seriously, this guy is powerful. He also comes with Astral burst which is one of the most powerful techniques in the game! Max 999 damage! I got him through demon fusing, he was actually necessary to have in order to complete an optional quest which leads to:

"A ghost who appears as a small blonde girl. She seems young, but her magic powers are formidable. She is either the ghost of an English girl who died a sad death, or an evil spirit from a fevered writer's mind."

A little girl?! Well, everyone knows little girls are pure evil so I guess it makes sense. Alice is an optional boss fight, which defeated, will allow you to create her via fusion. With Belial and Nebiros (see early episodes), you answer the payphones scattered around town and she'll suddenly appear asking for you to die for her. This fight was significantly more tougher than the actual boss fight of this episode thanks to her many "death" skills like mudo and curse. You can be fine one second and down to a quarter health the next! But she eventually went down and now I feel more manly than ever having a little girl follow me around town.

"In Japanese mythology, the Kudan is a supernatural creature that is born with the body of a cow and the head of a woman or a man. It comes into being just before an accident or disaster happens, predicts the upcoming calamity, then promptly dies. The Kudan's prophecy will always come to happen, and as such it is considered an extremely ill omen."

Great, a floating cow with the head of a human woman. Nothing weird about that. Kudan is essentially the Raikou/Suicune/Entei of this game. She'll appear to you in a random battle, and almost certainly run away before you have a chance to kill her. Thanks to her absurdly high defense and healing abilities, killing her is a challenge, but thanks to Belial I pulled it off. A fun thing about her is that bullets HEAL her. Oh yes.

This is going to be done before the week is over I guarantee it! Until then, later!

Episode 9 - The Two Summoners

Better. MUUUUCH BETTER. After the headache that was episode 8, this episode proved much more enjoyable. As the last episode ended, Raidou was thrown into an alternate universe where he meets his alternate self with a bad-ass scar. You'd think there would be some epic fight between the two, but obviously neither Raidou is an idiot. The two, instead, try to find a way to send our Raidou back from where he came. So today featured a rather enjoyable series of 3 boss fights, that were tough but fair given how far I have progressed in this game. There was one tricky puzzle, but the game decided to make the zone enemy-free so you can solve it in peace, it actually wasn't as hard as I thought it might be, only took a little bit of thought!



Orochi is the 3rd boss of the area. His ice spell will hurt you if you get too close to smack him with your sword, and his little friends are all over the place trying to make your day worse by buffing him. I found this fight amusing compared to the one in the previous episode.

I got two new demons during my time in this episode. Let's check them out:

"A warrior queen of the Land of Shadows in Celtic lore. She taught the Irish hero Cu Chulainn the art of war, and gave him the spear Gae Bolg."

Scathach is a fun one. I fused Triglav and Rakshasa to get her. I got her pretty late in, so I haven't had a chance to see what she really can do. Let's hope she's good...

"This beautiful goddess of love is one of Shiva's wives in Hindu mythology. She won Shiva's love, overcoming his asceticism."

Hey it's Parvati. Part of the volt class, she specializes in electric attacks like spark and has the healing skill media, which heals both Raidou and herself at the same time. She has a motherly attitude in this game, and enjoys talking down to you as if you're her son. "Don't overeat while I'm out". Overall, I'm liking her a lot so far.

Now this episode is over, we are fast approaching the end of the game. Expect the conclusion sometime this week. I'm looking forward to the end myself!

Episode 8 - The Demon and the Steel Tower

My eyes hurt, I'm exhausted, I never want to play this episode again. This episode was in a word: infuriating. Most of my woes are self-inflicted, however, as I spent the early part of this episode grinding and demon fusing which was not only time consuming but VERY expensive. And then, when I felt confident in my abilities to handle anything this episode could throw at me, the game treats me to a maze! OH BOY! I SURE LIKE BACKTRACKING AND RUNNING INTO A RANDOM BATTLE EVERY OTHER STEP! But you know, that's not even the worst of it. Nope. The boss at the end makes everything else seem like a walk in the park!

Oh wait, uh....basic plot of this episode? Uh, Raidou investigates a radio tower. Stuff happens. RAPE. Rasputin appears. And that's pretty much it. Really, let's just move on to the boss....



Hardest boss by a mile so far. For one, Leanan Sidhe I couldn't use, because she would betray me thanks to the boss's "curse bolt" which effectively "charms" her so she would HEAL THE BOSS. It's bad enough that this boss hits hard, but he also has a ton of HP. I spent quite a long time fighting this boss and each time a demon would heal him, it would make my job that much harder. Yeah, this wasn't very fun at all...but hey NEW DEMONS!

"The king of the Naga, a half-man, half-snake tribe in Hindu myth. The dragon kings Nanda and Takshaka of Buddhist myth fall into this royal category."

Hells yeah! Anarchy in the capital! Raja Naga is the latest ice demon, he helped a lot in the boss fight until he started HEALING IT! Not cool, bro.

"Triglav is a god or complex of gods in Slavic mythology, similar in nature to the Trinity in Christianity. Triglav is a unity of three gods. The exact members of the triad vary by place and time. An early variation included Svarog, Perun, and Dajbog. Later, Dajbog was replaced by Svetovid or Veles. Triglav is usually described as a fusion of these gods. More rarely he is said to be their son. It may also be a unity of lesser gods (Lesser Triglav)."

Triglav is great. He's immune to bullets, does great physical damage, and is a great healer as well! Which is why I didn't use him :(

"Japanese god of words, thought to be the deification of echoes. Said to proclaim good and bad in a single word, and all words uttered by him come true."

Hitokotonushi is immune to death spells and bullets, has a powerful wind spell and a great healer to boot which means...OH CRAP I CAN'T USE HIM ON THE BOSS EITHER! CURSE MY DESIRE FOR DEMONS WITH HEALING ABILITIES!

"The demon Nebiros was first mentioned by Johann Wier in 1583. He is supposedly the most valiant Marquis of Hell, has nineteen legions of demons under his command."

Ah, now here we go! Nebiros isn't immune to bullets at all! Oh but he's immune to physical attacks, has an instant kill spell, increases magical defense, and he doesn't have a healing spell...PERFECT FOR THE BOSS! Things were much easier with this guy...though much slower in progress...

I'm glad this is over with. Hopefully episode 9 would be less of a pain to deal with.

Later.

Episode 7 - The Cursed Detective

Oh boy! Episode 7 is complete! Let's keep this devil summoning train going! CHOO-CHOO!

This one was pretty fun as they mix things up a bit to be interesting. As the episode title implies, Raidou Kuzunoha willingly gets himself cursed to save the life of a Navy Admiral. As he bears the brunt of the curse, he must track down its source and stop it once and for all.

The curse gives you an inverted look, which not only looks kind of cool but also makes you regularly take damage after a certain number of steps! Yes, it's like a slow acting poison and you got to make sure to keep your health up while exploring the dark world. Due to the episode 6 ending so sudden, I haven't had any time for demon fusing or item buying, but overall, I was still well prepared! All my demons from the previous episode were ready for the challenge, and I ended up using ALL of them to solve puzzles. Go team!

The boss of this one was pretty interesting, not only did you have to deal with the constant trolling of two Utai Gaikotsu (read: giant floating skulls who keep teleporting you to the beginning of the map) before you even face him, but the boss was even more challenging than the one before because it has multiple forms!



The dude in the video obviously had a much tougher time than me because he didn't have lovely lady Leanan Sidhe to back him up! Props to him for taking advantage of demon weaknesses though.

So, is Leanan Sidhe overpowered? Probably not, she has little offensive ability but she does know how to stay out of trouble and keep me alive when I'm running around like a jackass distracting the boss. I probably should upgrade to a better demon soon, but we'll see what happens. I have nothing new to show you, because, as mentioned earlier, episode 6 took me straight to the problem area of episode 7 so there was no time to fuse! But expect some new ones on episode 8! Game is becoming more interesting with each passing episode! I can't wait to finish it!

Until then, later!

Intermission: 3DS Impressions!

So, took a break from Raidou today due to unexpectedly receiving a gift from a family member today: A Nintendo 3DS! Wow, what luck...this little handheld is distracting me from making any progress on my backlog!

So far, I haven't played a single 3DS game on it. Rather, I've been messing around with the stuff that's already in the system already, specifically: Face Invaders and AR Games...

I didn't really expect to be wowed by this thing, but I must admit the 3D is pretty cool. I didn't experience any headaches playing the thing, so I must not be a whiny bitch. That's good! I uploaded two pictures...they're pretty bad but that's because my dog isn't very photogenic :/

Seriously, she's so black that I lose her at night, good thing she's not a runner...

My Mii tries to gain her attention, but she just doesn't care...

Well, I somehow managed to waste a day on this thing. I'm very happy with it so far! Looking forward to the virtual console and playing Cave Story on this thing....MUCH LATER of course! Because Raidou Kuzunoha awaits!

Episode 6 - Secret of Five Fudou

WELL THAT WAS EASY! This episode was a joke compared to Episode 5, not factoring in my super elite MLG skills of course! Which is a bit sad since there's not exactly much to talk about, there's no major fights in this episode and it can pretty much be completed in 10 minutes if you knew exactly where to go. Really this episode was just a transition to episode 7 where some major stuff is about to go down....PROBABLY!



No interesting fights to show, but enjoy the town music that plays ALL THE TIME when you're running around investigating stuff! But I'm sure you're wondering what I did in this episode besides idle like jackass on the status screen. Well, the most important things I did in this episode was pick up a package, escort a girl around town, talk to some yakuza, drink a soda, buy some ammo clips, set an old lady on fire, and dig around in dirt. Nothing special, unless we're talking about the plot here but that would be spoilers! OH NO!

At least I got one demon to show you guys:

"Izanami sent them after Izanagi at Yomotsu Hirasaka, the entrance to the Yomi, the Japanese land of shadows. The army of these monsters is led by Yomotsu-Shikome."

Ikusa is an odd sort, I've just been using him in battles to max out his loyalty. Not really that helpful but whatever. Sometimes, certain demons are just fodder for fusing! 'Tis the fate of Ikusa...

Looking forward to doing the write up for episode 7 tomorrow!

And now something different, turns out this game has a prequel novel written for it called: "Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Messenger of the Dead". I assume the "Messenger of the Dead" is Colonel Sanders grinning menacingly in the background. Who could ever trust such a guy?

Later!

Episode 5 - Confrontation

And I'm back. I admit I've been putting off this chapter for a bit, but I sucked it up and kept keeping on! Why? This is the chapter I stopped playing the game almost two years because of a really irritating fetch quest where you have to find 10 pieces of notebook paper scattered throughout this one area. The whole thing was just irritating if you didn't have the right demon and the frequent random battles didn't help alleviate the problems either. But I decided to deal with it today, and overall it wasn't so bad! Let's have a look at the boss fight of this episode, shall we?



Overall, its one of the more challenging fights I've come across, but Leanan Sidhe still keeps things easy! Seriously, I only bring her out on boss fights, and she still manages to keep me alive along with herself.

Another interesting thing about this episode, is that I've ran across a LOT of zombies. More zombies than in any other episode, two zombies were actually nice and helped you find the 10 pieces of paper needed to advance through the story. And other zombies were smart enough to run away when they saw Raidou coming. Oh yeah, some of them had guns too....truly scary....not really, Raidou still wrecks their stuff any day...well, enough about that. In the duration of this episode, I just used the same demons as I did the previous one! But let's check out two new ones!

"Incarnations of long-lived cats in Japanese mythology. They have various powers, including human speech and control over the dead."

Nekomata is what you'd pretty much expect. An agile character who can charm demons to fight on your side temporarily or put them to sleep...or just slap them around a bit. Not much in support, but she's fun to have around...

"In Japanese mythology, a Utai-gaikotsu is a monster born when the negative energy of a person who was subject to a particularly violent murder possesses the remains of that person's skull. The Utai-gaikotsu then seeks revenge on its killer by making up a song detailing its death, and singing it repeatedly to either drive its killer insane or alert others to what happened to it."

This guy, OH MAN! Utai-gaikotsu is just awesome. For one thing, it's a giant floating skull that is bigger than you: running around with him in public is hilarious as it almost seems like he's trying to eat you like a skeleton pac-man! Oh and he can fly, read minds, freeze opponents and keep me healed...cool! This game has no shortage of awesome demons, that's for sure.

Well, I'm glad I'm got through this episode because I've now ventured father into the game that I originally have before. Let's hope this game pulls through with some great episodes down the line!

Later.

Episode 4 - The Case of the Missing Shipments

And here we go...I'm a bit late with this because I've been busy acting like a jackass all day, the constant grinding and demon fusing slowed me down too, but I managed to finish before the day was done. At the very least, this was a fun little chapter with some funny bits involving Gouto the talking cat. Of course this episode ended with a surprising twist involving everyone's favorite Russian monk: Rasputin!



This is the first time you get to take him on one-on-one and the party gets crazy when he starts bringing his god damn matryoshka dolls and sends them after you...

For those that are wondering, a matryoshka doll is one of those things I posted above. Durr...I suppose this episode was pretty short, but I spent far too long just raising the levels of my demons and trying out many different fusing combinations. Let's see the demons I ended up with in this episode now, shall we?

"Okuninushi (大国主) is a Kunitsugami and former ruler of Izumo, until Ninigi took over. In compensation he was made ruler of the unseen realm of spirits and magic. He's said to be the God of Nation-building, Business, and Medicine."

Okuninushi is a pretty tall guy and my latest ice demon. He was pretty to handy to have. Powerful ice spells, good melee ability, healing potential, and the ability to reduce random battles encounters via his "intimidate" skill made him pretty handy to have during this episode.

"Shiva’s first consort in Hindu myth, she threw herself into a sacrificial fire in protest of the father’s treatment of Shiva. Reborn as Parvati, she was reunited with Shiva."

Sati was the result of a whole lot of fusing shenanigans. Truth is, I just kept her around for the eye candy. But she's actually pretty good in battle too! I reluctantly fused her to make Okuninushi, but I brought her back via the demon compendium. Cost half my money though.

"An insect demon that takes the form of a woman with her hands tied behind her back. It arose from the hatred of a girl named Okiku, who was falsely convicted of a crime and executed. Note that this Okiku is different from the Okiku of the Bancho Sarayashiki, but they are often seen as the same person."

Oh...oh god....nobody even wanted to draw Okiku-mushi.....uh, she can charm enemy demons, cause group damage, and she can read minds...I ended up using her more than I thought really...

"Oboroguruma means 'gloom cart' and was first seen on the streets of Kamo, Japan. It is a spirit being that is manifested from the grudges and negative energy of those that have died during disputes over vehicles. It appears during dark and foggy nights when all that can be heard is the creaking of its wheels, and should anyone be foolish enough to investigate, they are met by the grotesque visage of the Oboroguruma.

It was originally said to be the vengeful ghost of a lady killed over an ox-carriage, and it appeared as a carriage with a huge misshapen woman's face. Other variations of the story have been told in modern Japanese urban legend involving more modern vehicles."

Hells yeah, Oboroguruma! That crazy car I fought back at episode 2 is now mine to use! Run over demons, mazio spells AND increase my attack power? F*** YES YOU'RE THE BEST DEMON CAR EVER!

Yes, Leanan Sidhe! I'm going to cry when I eventually fuse her with something. Rasputin can't even HURT HER! And with her around, she makes sure nothing can even put a dent in Raidou's health. I honestly should be using her more than I am right now as I only use her on tough fights...

Well, I'm like...exhausted as I had a busy day today. I'll be sure to see what you guys are up to tomorrow though! Until then...later!

Episode 3 - Dark Summoner

Episode 3 is complete, and boy was it a doozy! There wasn't much legwork/fetch quest to do in this episode, instead the entire thing took place in a GOD DAMN MAZE. And trust me, navigating a maze with random battles isn't VERY FUN AT ALL. Because I got lost, I ended up gaining 13 levels in the duration of that maze. At the level 32, you just can walk up and rape the boss.

What was notable about Dark Summoner was the offical debut of Raidou Kuzunoha's "Gary Oak". Who? Mother fucking Rasputin.

You know, that Russian guy. He's the asshole who created that god damn maze and was mysteriously trolling you in the first two chapters as well. Now, they didn't have pokeballs back then to capture demons, so this fucker stores his demons in matryoshka dolls! He has all the answers to what's going on in the story, but he isn't going to tell you...in fact, he's there just to make your day worse! Of course, this isn't the last time I'll see Rasputin, that's for sure! Here's the boss, since it's pretty much the only fight of importance in this episode:



Yeah, that guy had a MUCH harder time because of his demon choice. I'll show you what I used to get through the maze and boss itself:

"A winter fairy of European descent. Normally an innocent creature, but if provoked, he will kill his victim by covering him in snow. It is said that he is the one who leaves those beautiful icy patterns on windows in the morning."

Still Jack Frost! I fused one that is able to use Zan (wind damage) and mabufu (group ice) damage so he's handy to have. He's the demon I have walking around with me because he picks up items at random intervals. Given how items are EXPENSIVE in this game, it's a very handy skill.

"An evil monster of Japanese lore known for its hideous appearance and brute strength. They loot and plunder villages, massacring the townspeople with their iron clubs."

Oni is just pure muscle. He boosts up defense for both Raidou and himself. Very handy to keep around during the bigger random battles.

"A beautiful fairy of Irish lore that yearns for a human man's love. She drains her lovers' lives in return for granting them artistic inspiration."

Leanan Sidhe is a very classy lady. You get her if you fuse two demons of the same class together. So I had to sacrifice Orthrus and Pyro Jack but it was worth it! Given that she has the strongest healing abilities of any of my demons so far, and she immune to damage from everything the boss threw at her, she just makes battles easy. My favorite so far.

Well, I'm almost approaching where I originally stopped playing. As for how many episodes are there? There's 12 of them! I still got a ways to go...but I'm determined to finish this game ONCE AND FOR ALL.

Also, I'd like to see this guy take on Pokemon Trainer Red...

Episode 2 - The Red Cape

So far so good as Episode 2 has just been completed. It was a bit longer than the first episode, and came with a few twists and turns. I ended up getting lost a few times and ended up overlevelled a bit when it came to face the boss of the chapter. One of the more unusual things about this chapter was the mid-boss fight with Volt demon Oboroguruma.



Not the most awesome of battles, but yeah, you fight a evil car.  The boss is a joke though, the guy in the video was obviously toying with it.  The real boss was much tougher (but I won't show it here!), and took quite a while to beat.  At any rate, here's a short list of favorite demons I used to get through the chapter:

Jack Frost...because, come on, he's the fucking pikachu of the Shin Megami Tensei series!

Moh Shuvuu because of healing ability, and she's handy outside of battle for her "scout" and "fly" ability to get those hard to reach items! 

Orthrus because you need to roll with at least ONE badass demon bro...

Oh, and Mokoi. Despite looking like a retarded gumby, he can read people's minds and pick up loose change at random times during exploring. A friend indeed.

Overall, fun episode, looking forward to keeping on. Later...

Episode 1 - The Missing Girl

Just a quick update, as I got work to do...

First chapter of Raidou Kuzunoha vs the Souless Army has been completed with little difficulty/grinding. Of course, that's to be expected since it's ONLY the first chapter. However, one little quirk about this game is that it uses a random battle system, and usually those are pretty irritating to those who aren't used to JRPGs in general. But what sets this random battle system apart from the others is that you're not safe ANYWHERE not even in the towns! Talking to NPCs? Watch out because you're about to be RAPED IN THE BUTT by a bunch of zombies! So, expect to hear this song more than once:



Oddly enough, I still haven't got sick of that tune. Which is good, because it will play A LOT. This next video shows how simply wandering around the map is just ASKING for an ass kicking:



As you can see, he ran into 2 fights in that 2 minute video. Some people would view the random battle rate as a bit excessive. Not that I mind it of course! I'm just trying to think how a NORMAL person would see playing it. This is why I can't be a game critic, I'm far too forgiving. Oh well, I'll get to work on the next chapter. Until then, later....

R.C vs His Never-ending Backlog

Hey guys, a relatively brief blog entry for today. As implied with the F-Zero article, I have a backlog of games that borders on ridiculous. So I figured it would be fun to use the next few days to document my futile attempt to actually PLAY the games I buy.  So, this week my game of choice will be:

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs The Soulless Army is a game that I actually played through a bit but I actually stopped around halfway for some strange reason I can't recall.  Anyways, it's been so long that I forgot what it even was about so I'm starting the game over and hopefully I intend to finish it this time!  The main reason I'm going to finish this?  It's simply because I bought the sequel: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon around 2 years ago and it's still wrapped doomed to never be played...ever...or will it?!

For those who never heard of these games, it's like the Pokemon series in that you fight and catch monsters (called demons in this game, that are actually based on various religious/mythological creatures) and you fight alongside them solving mysteries and other shit.  All I remember plot-wise is that it takes place in 1920's Japan, and Rasputin trolls you a couple of times...



This game will take 30 to 40 hours if I speed through it, but most likely longer since I like to dawdle like a jackass with games like these. At any rate, let's try to clear a chapter a day! Later!

Game that surprised me: Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers - The Fighting Edition

I was cleaning out files on my computer today, suddenly found a folder that had every SNES game ever in it, and I never even did anything with it. So for laughs, I fired up my emulator and picked a random game. That game was, assuming you read the title of this blog entry, MIghty Morphin' Power Rangers - The Fighting Edition.  I expected your typical below average licensed title that I'd spend maybe 5 minutes at most playing, but instead I found an overlooked gem!

As the subtitle might imply, it's a 1 on 1 fighting game featuring the Megazords and giant monsters of the Power Rangers series that ran in the 90s.  This game was developed by a Japanese company for the American market so it has a style all it's own.  Great sprite design shows off how great the mechs really look in this game with a fast paced fighting system that keeps battles rapid and exciting with a fun soundtrack based on the show (you know "go go power rangers....")



All in all, a very fun diversion at the very least. It certainly kept me away from blogging for a bit! But when I was playing this game....it reminded me of another I played a long time ago, so I did some research (ie: google: power rangers) and found out that the company that made this game used the exact same engine to create another favorite game of mine: Gundam Wing: Endless Duel!

Almost the same fighting system, similar sound effects, and same style of music samples. Of course, Gundam Wing was never released overseas, but that's not a problem these days.  Here's another youtube video you can try comparing both the power rangers and the gundam game and you're bound to notice some similarities!  That or I just gone crazy confusing games for other games...



I think video games are fun. Later.

F-Zero GX....whoah, what the hell is this?

Sorry for being MIA for a bit, I had some family business to take care of, I'm back on track now.  Anyways, I have a nasty habit of game hoarding.  That is to say, I buy tons of games, and usually end up not playing them.  One of these game happened to be F-Zero GX for the Nintendo Gamecube.  I bought this game about 3 years ago for $10 in a wal-mart on clearance, and up until this very point I never even touched it.  This is pretty odd and I can't even justify my own actions for putting off this game until now as I happened to love F-Zero X for the Nintendo 64.  So for the sake of having something to write about, and for the fact that I was unusually bored, I decided to open up the game and have a run through of it....my impression?  "What the hell...."

This game....this FREAKING game....ALL THESE WASTED YEARS.......WHY OH GOD WHY....*ahem*  Yeah, there's no way a game like this should be so good and for me to ignore it for so long, god damn.  Everything about this game is insane:  the characters, the cars, the tracks, the speed, the GOD DAMN DIFFICULTY.  This is like hardcore gaming in it's purest form:  you fucking blink...YOU'RE FLYING OFF THE GOD DAMN TRACK TO A FIERY EXPLODY DEATH! WHY?  BECAUSE YOU FUCKING BLINKED!  OFF COURSE!  OFF COURSE!  OFF COURSE!  OFF COURSE!  OFF COURSE!  OFF COURSE!  OFF COURSE! Retired...*ahem*



You can't even fathom all the ways this game will try to destroy you, you can't even explain how that guy crashed in that video.  Man was never meant to drive as fast as the racers in this game does, but you'll be a god damn boss if you manage to pull it off. Like this guy:



Long story short, just check out this game...even if you're afraid of difficulty, you're going to find something you will like about this game.  I just want to stop writing this so I can get back to playing...

I got a ton of other games I haven't unwrapped that I should check out as well, I'll be sure to make a write up about each of them sometime down the road.  Because you know...watching me write about games everyone else has played and is already tired of except me is interesting....to me.  Until then, later...

Two sides of pro-wrestling....

I'm having a case of writers block here, so I'm going to show you two of my favorite pro-wrestling clips.  I know a good number of you don't care for the spectacle one bit, and I'm okay with that.  That said, I think both of these will pique your interest one way or another.



The first one I'd like to share with you is a match that took place on December 8, 1977 between "Great Antonio" (fat guy) and wrestling legend "Antonio Inoki" (japanese guy).  Wrestling is fake, we all know that, but sometimes the fight becomes real.  In this clip, notice Great Antonio is "no-selling" all of Inoki's moves, as in, not making the moves look like they hurt making an embarrassment of Inoki.  He's essentially clowning around and showing off, and you can notice Inoki becoming visibly upset.  Inoki finally snaps when at 4:35 when Great Antonio starts raining painful hammer fists down on Inoki's neck.  Inoki then smacks the hell out of Great Antonio and uses his own size against as he legitimately kicks, punches and stomps down on G.A.  The match ends with Great Antonio a bloody mess, and Inoki gets presented with a trophy.  Kind of scary in a way, people didn't mess with Inoki back then and this clip pretty much proves why.  Now, here's something complete different...



Enter: Chikara Pro Wrestling. Comedic-style wrestling.  In this match, I don't even need to explain anything. All that needs to be said is INVISIBLE HAND GRENADE...perhaps one of the more dangerous moves of wrestling.

Well, that's all I have for you guys today.  Later.

Streets Of Rage Remake is finally out!

If you been browsing the internet back during the early 2000s, you may have heard something about a fan-made Streets of Rage being in the works.  Time has come and gone, and I eventually forgot about it, but luckily the developer Bomber Games didn't!  After 8 years in development, the Streets of Rage Remake has finally been released yesterday and yes, it's awesome....

What they wanted to do was take all the best elements of the 3 original games and put them together in a game coded from scratch.  It's not a ROM hack!  Here's a list of features the developer put together:

• Animation timing, animation positioning, control response, X/Y/Z positions and physical movement for all characters are accurate to the original games.
• 64 modules of AI per enemy to represent walking and reactions.
• Collisions and damages based on the original games.
• The same score system algorythm that is used in SOR2.
• Grabs and vaults as in the original games.
• Autosave savestates that allow you to continue the game from the same point, exit windows,  alt+x, etc.
• Prediction of resources, to speed loading times.
• All functions of all the original games in the series are emulated:
• Over 30 configurable options in the menu
• Star and Special Meter sytems
• 6-button controller actions
• Different types of weapons, and Special Weapon attacks
• Police specials
• And much more

All the characters are playable even Adam from the first game, and his moveset has been updated so he can keep up with the others.  An amazing amount of work went into this game, as the game is so well put together that I can safely say the Streets of Rage experience you are going to find in SorR to be very authentic and true to what made the originals so great!  Even the music has been updated/remixed for improved quality.  The game boats 19 playable characters, 64 different enemies, an allied CPU mode for single players and a ton of other crap that would take forever to talk about!

Seriously, I'll just stop talking about this and let you check the game out for yourself, you can download the free game here!  I recommend it!  And just because I feel like sharing it, here's a clip of game composer Yuzo Koshiro playing Streets of Rage music in a club:

Later.

Wrestlemania 27 Wrap-up! How did it all go down?

Well, Wrestlemania 27 has come and gone, folks.  I'd have posted about it as soon as it was over, but I figured it would have been better to sleep on it first. Let's keep this short, and just have a quick comparison to my previous blog entry and see just how predictable (or not) Wrestlemania 27 really was.

First things first:  Daniel Bryan vs Shaemus for the U.S Championship.....WE NEVER GOT TO SEE.  They instead made it a darkmatch (a non-televised event) which eventually turned into a battle royale in which the Great Khali won.  This was actually the match I wanted to see the most too, so I am very disappointed with WWE in that regard.  Victory for Great Khali.....wat

Edge vs Alberto Del Rio - I picked Alberto Del Rio, but NOPE!  Edge hits the spear and he successfully defended his title yet again.  Disappointed to be wrong, as I'm getting tired of Edge's title reign and a heel like Alberto Del Rio could have made the title interesting again.  Oh well.  Victory for Edge

Rey Mysterio vs Cody Rhodes - I picked Cody Rhodes.  And, I was correct.  A very fun match, I think it might be my favorite of the whole night.   Rey came out dressed as Captain America and Cody Rhodes's gimmick has become quite interesting lately.  Victory for Cody Rhodes 

The Corre vs Kane, Big Show, Kofi Kingston, Santino Marella - I picked Kane & Friends, and sure enough they won.  Not only was it predictable as hell but it was a VERY short match, and possibly the second worst match of the evening. Victory for Kane & friends

CM Punk vs Randy Orton - I picked CM Punk....wait, I DID?!  Jeez, I really wasn't thinking through my last blog at all, was I?  Of course Randy Orton was the victor.  Impressive match for both, though CM Punk did most of the work.  Fun match, a bit disappointed by the outcome though. Victory for Randy Orton

Jerry Lawler vs Michael Cole/w Jack Swagger - Picked Jerry Lawler.  And I was correct for about 30 seconds until the anonymous GM chimes in and goes NOPE LAWLER IS DISQUALIFIED BECAUSE STONE COLD INTERFERED HUUURRRRRR.  This is one of those moments where I'm glad wrestling is fake, because there would be some serious bloodshed after this turn out.  Match was a solid waste of 14 minutes.  Victory for Michael Cole

Triple H vs Undertaker - Picked Undertaker.  Undertaker won end of story.  Match lasted half an hour, so maybe my patience worn thin for the whole match.  Some people enjoyed it, I just wanted Triple H to lose so we can move on to other things.  Victory for Undertaker

Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, Trish Stratus, and John Morrison vs. Lay Cool (Michelle McCool and Layla) and Dolph Ziggler (with Vickie Guerrero.) - I picked Snooki and Friends, and of course that's exactly what happened.   Ziggler and Morrison didn't do shit this entire match, and Snooki managed to defy the laws of physics by doing a cartwheel.  Victory for Snooki and friends.

The Miz (c) vs. John Cena - I picked Miz.  And after a lot of bullshit and one final shenanigan from the Rock, the Miz won and successfully retained his title.  As this was the main event, I've just stopped giving a fuck about the entire thing, the audience seems to have started hating Cena a lot more too.  I mean, why cheer for Cena when you got the Rock?  Victory for Miz

Ok, so I successfully predicted 5 out of 9 matches.  I should have been able to do better.  The entire event was only OKAY to me, nothing really special or memorable aside from a few things.  Oh well, I'm tired of wrestling now, and I'm going to talk about video games or something on my next blog post.  Later.

Ring the bell it's almost time for Wrestlemania 27!

Hey guys, Wrestlemania 27 is today!  It's going to start in less than half an hour, in fact!  For those of you who don't follow wrestling,  you can basically consider it as "The Super Bowl of Wrestling".  All the on-going storylines wrap up today!  It's going to be a big night, and I got nothing to do until then so I figured I might as well share with you my picks for WM 27.  Let's look at the card...

• The Miz (c) vs. John Cena - WWE Championship (RC pick:  Miz)
• Triple H vs. The Undertaker - No Holds Barred Match with The Streak on the line (RC Pick:  Undertaker)
• Edge (c) (w/Christian) vs. Alberto Del Rio (w/Brodus Clay) - World Heavyweight Championship (RC Pick: Alberto Del Rio)
• Jerry Lawler vs. Michael Cole with special guest referee Stone Cold Steve Austin (RC Pick: Jerry Lawler)
• Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, Trish Stratus, and John Morrison vs. Lay Cool (Michelle McCool and Layla) and Dolph Ziggler (with Vickie Guerrero.) (RC Pick:  Snooki & Friends)
• Rey Mysterio vs. Cody Rhodes (RC Pick:  Cody Rhodes)
• Randy Orton vs. CM Punk  (RC Pick: CM Punk)
• Sheamus (c) vs. Daniel Bryan - United States Championship  (RC Pick:  Daniel Bryan)
• Kane, The Big Show, Santino Marella, and Vladimir Kozlov vs. The Corre (Wade Barrett, Ezekiel Jackson, Justin Gabriel, and Heath Slater.)  (RC Pick: Kane & Friends)

Now, keep in mind, these aren't the people that I WANT to win, it's just the people who I THINK will win.  But as far as wrestling storylines go, you never know when the writers decide to throw a fastball and have some crazy twist that you would have never expected.  It's usually because of them, that it's always hard to pin where exactly a feud is going or not.

After the show is over, I'll make another post comparing my picks and what actually happened so we can all laugh at how wrong I was on EVERYTHING!  And yes, betting on pre-determined soap opera wrestling matches is silly, I wouldn't advise you do such a thing.

Games that everyone hates but me: SNK vs Capcom Card Fighters DS

I still don't have any idea of a certain format for this blog, so I don't know if this is something I'd continue or not but the idea came to me browsing several video game forums.  Everyone would say "X game is shit" and "I hate Y game" and people would flame each other over their choices in gaming.  To be honest, it was something I never really did understand as I don't think I ever ran across a game that I ever really truly disliked, I was always able to find some form of fun in any video game out there.  So today, I would like to talk about a game that got a lot of heat from online gaming communities, and perhaps rightfully so.  The negative press didn't stop me from enjoying the game though, so without further ado:

SNK vs Capcom Card Fighters DS is, as the name would imply, a card battling game along the lines of Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic: The Gathering.  It featured 300 cards, split down the middle featuring characters from capcom such as Ryu, Mega Man, Phoenix Wright, and Morrigan and characters from SNK such as Kyo, Ryo, Iori, Shermie, and of course, Terry Bogard.  The basic plot is, admittedly, very stupid as it just focused on an evil computer brainwashing a bunch of card battlers in a tournament and it's up to the main character to save the day by playing children's card games....somehow.  The plot and dialogue often made no sense at all as it was full of typos, grammatical errors, and just weird "Engrish".  This doesn't really come as a surprise though, to anybody who has ever played an SNK game before.  In fact, SNK fans are pretty much used to it, but it's still pretty jarring for anyone else not used to shoddy localization.

The A.I was also not too bright, as you can pretty much construct a deck of nothing but pure junk and you'd probably win within the first 3 or 4 rounds.  I found this amusing however, as it let me construct a deck of my favorite cards and I could still win.  I cleared the game four times (yes, FOUR TIMES when most people wouldn't even play through it more than once) using this "strategy" and the game stopped counting my wins at 255.  Or, if you want to win ASAP you can just load your deck full of cheap cards and effectively "zerg rush" your opponent in a swarm of cheap cards that he can't possibly afford to defend against.  So you could argue that the actual story campaign was broken gameplay-wise, but I found the broken element fun if only because you can steam roll opponents in the stupidest way possible.  Needless to say though, if you can convince a buddy to get this game, the 2 player vs mode is an entirely different beast all together.

If you read this far, you can obviously tell this game technically isn't very good.  It even SHIPPED BROKEN.  The first print of the game had a game breaking glitch in that you couldn't even beat the game as it would freeze when you reached a certain floor and talked to a certain character.  Thankfully, SNK offered to replace those cartridges with a fixed copy, and even released a second print of fixed copies into stores.  However, these copies are also mixed in with the broken copies, so if you ever see this game in a store keep that in mind.  There is a way to tell if you got a fixed copy or not by looking at the cartridge, though.

The grey copy on the left is fixed and good to go.  The one on the right with the color background is broken and you're out of luck.  So, why would I bother defending this piece of shit game, right?  Story is retarded, the gameplay is broken, and the game has a game breaking glitch.  Well, there is only one redeeming value that made my experience with the game worth all those frustrations:  The Cards. 

I found the card collecting to be incredibly addicting.  The art is splendid, with rare cards being drawn by special guest artist, and the variety of characters is great, you are going to see characters that you never even heard of or characters that you'd never expect anyone else to remember but you!  The sheer variety of portraits combined with the prospect of constructing decks based around certain themes proved to be a lot of fun for me.  I kept playing so I could collect all the cards, and sure enough I did around the second playthrough,  but I kept playing because I craved doubles even quadruples of the same card to make a certain deck.

Of course, this is probably not worth the time of most gamers out there, and I'd even feel a bit guilty recommending it.  The game's saving grace provided a ton of enjoyment for me to overlook a lot of the game's flaws, but I realize that not everyone would see that in the same way.  So in conclusion, yeah...everyone hates this game and with good reason.  But I don't....

Sleep patterns are a bitch

I'm having a bit of trouble sleeping, so I figured I might as well update the blog a bit.  What to talk about? Well, how about some wrestling?  Sure, sure, I know wrestling is fake as hell but I like to view it as a theatrical performance...or as Jesse Ventura puts it..."ballet with violence", but even if the events are (mostly) scripted, you  have to acknowledge that these people work hard to put on a show.  For one thing, most naysayers would tell me that when a wrestler bleeds that it's fake, but how many of you people ever heard about blading?

For those that don't know, basically wrestlers would cut themselves with razor blades to force blood in matches, usually in the "hardcore" type of wrestling.  This is actually pretty dangerous, especially if wrestlers share blades.  This documentary clip I'm linking you guys to basically talks about how one guy's dream of being in the WWE was destroyed because he ended up contracting hepatitis C from a match with Abdullah the butcher.  As you'll see in the clip, Abdullah cuts himself on purpose during the match, then proceeds to cut his opponent, of which he didn't give any prior consent to doing so.  Video seems to portray Abdullah as being obsessed with cutting and bleeding, and he seems dead set on spreading hepatitis C to EVERYONE!  Or not...I'll leave that up to you to decide.

The most interesting part though?  Abdullah is being inducted into the WWE hall of fame this year.  WWE is honoring the guy that kept Devon Nicholson from joining their company.  Sad story.

Just a passing through blogger.

Hey, this is my first blog entry.  I'm not exactly sure what I should be talking about, or what I should share to anybody who might read this blog.  So I guess I'll just share a video from a series I'm currently watching called Kamen Rider Decade.

I haven't watched much of anything toku related, and as such Decade is my first Kamen Rider series.  I'm not even sure how to explain this show, it's just insane, but I really need to check out the older series as I hear they are far better.


Of course, this is just what I'm doing to past the time, I'll be writing about other stuff too....maybe....let's see how this blog turns out!