Clannad: Tomoyo Chapter

Apparently there's to be an extra episode separate from the Clannad series that's to be shipped with the 8th DVD release featuring Tomoya (the male protagonist) and Tomoyo that's separate from the series and in an alternate universe. Basically, it's like taking the other path if only for one episode.


You know... It's weird. After having watched Clannad and seeing all the girls interact with Tomoya, I noticed that Tomoyo really stood out. Having an amusing personality she had a very aggressive approach in trying to be in his life without realizing it and then being (I believe) one of the few who realized her feelings for him. Her ability to deal with him never being able to go out with her came as a surprise as well. It was more of a "Oh right, I knew this would happen. I probably shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place" and handled it in what I believe to be in the most mature fashion. Because of that, she became my favorite character in the story.

What's weird is that clearly I wasn't the only one who felt that. Rather, the same scenario must've happened in the game because Tomoyo After: ~It's a wonderful life~ was released after Clannad featuring a Tomoyo only path (which Key then included those scenes they do best). Interestingly enough, Tomoyo After also has a manga adaptation in the works which makes me realize that there's a large group of people who probably feel the same way.
"What would happen if Tomoya had feelings for Tomoyo instead of Nagisa?"

P.S. Sorry for the large images, instead of resizing them I thought "Whatever, these are the only images I have available to me, just use em."

Arcana Heart - Review

This is a fighter published by Atlus. Featuring only girl characters, it may trouble those that are "machismotically" challenged (Derivation: see Machismo). It seems like a typical fighter where one takes Melty Blood, and a key character from every fighter and combines it into one game. So what makes this special?


For one thing, the art is beautiful. It looks to be more sprites with higher quality rendering which always works well. Initiating "canceling" maneuvers requires a single button press (really. There's a specific button designated for canceling). No more pushing 2-3 buttons at the same time or moving your thumb or fore finger in an awkward position to hit that special combo that allows canceling. It's not just "super canceling" (special moves that allow hypercombo/desparation/super moves to be used during the middle of an animation) it's canceling for everything, including supers. Meaning, you not only have a delay cutting button, but that button can be used to fake out your opponent.

The character system is unique. There are 11 characters and 11 arcana. Arcana are magical beings that lend powers to the characters, so most "elemental" attacks are the arcana's doing. Now generally, the game itself is set so that [story wise and beginner gameplay wise] one arcana works well in conjunction with its respective character. However, you can choose a character and then choose ANY of the other 10 arcana if you wish. Meaning: There are technically 121 different combinations to choose from in terms of characters. Do some characters not work well with an arcana? Of COURSE. Arcana suited for close range, speed boosts won't work for long-mid range fighters who have few combos that allow decent chaining. Like wise, long range boost arcana don't work well with short range characters. But characters and arcana have separate move sets meaning that the character that you choose has her own abilities and then has the arcana's move list added on. It's truly and interesting way to play and gives you more choice or freedom to fight the way you like.


Stages are HUGE! When I was reading the back of the box, I thought, oh higher ceilings probably means a somewhat larger stage for air fighting. I was wrong. If you knock your opponent into the air well enough, the camera ZOOMS OUT to accommodate the fighting spiraling into the air, just to show you exactly how large the distance is from your character to the opponent's. Yes, there is a top of the screen, but by then you're still gaping at how small your character is in comparison to the backdrop...

Note to self: Edit this post and add screenshots...

There's AIR FIGHTING! No wall fighting yet, but it'll come soon in some game. Some characters can double jump and all can air dash. Some can even jump-dash then double jump, and then certain arcana give the characters the ability to triple jump and double air dash (I've pulled off a triple air dash but that took some time. Take that Chun-Li and Millia Rage). The cancel button also serves as a homing ability for your character so that it actually hurls your character towards the enemy. What does this mean? If you have two experts playing, and one has the chance to knock the other up into the air, and the other recovers... You can get up to a good 20 seconds of just pure air fighting if they home in on each other correctly and exploit the correct arcana. When I started air fighting the CPU, I stopped caring that I was losing.


Complex cancel moves and incredible chaining for combos. Max combo can go over 99 hits and the game will follow (101...102...104...110). If you haven't played Melty Blood, I don't really blame you, but Melty Blood is a game well known among hardcore fans as being one of the cheapest (yet most fun) game in fighter history. Melty Blood was especially known for being able to air combo your opponent to death. Think I'm lying? Just search any videos of it and record your jaw dropping as that reaction is always fun to watch. If Melty Blood was bad, then Arcana Heart must be the devil. There's so much potential that I have yet to unlock that it may take me a while to fully understand every character...


Complicated damage system allows longer battles and more precise damage measurements. Unless you're a hardcore fighter, it's possible to never notice this, but to those that are here are some stats to giggle like a girl at:
1. Max Hp is somewhere in the ten thousands. (I'm guessing around 24k)
2. Damage is dealt from the hundreds to the then thousands. (It's not just 100, 120. I'm talking about 524...628)
3. Damage penalties give a chance for the other guy to recover from near death. Like some fighters, the more hits you deal the less you deal in terms of % of the damage you dealt that hit. Meaning, it'll start from 100 and slowly drop. I believe they call those diminishing returns but I'm not sure.
4. Some arcana have stat boosters which change up the stats of the fighters and can counter instakill combos. There are some arcana that increase atk and some increase def. Then there are passive abilities that each arcana has which could change up how the damage is dealt.



There are some bad things about it. First off, the AI. It's too hard. I"m having issues beating the story mode with one character on the easiest difficulty setting. No joke. I'm not some newbie either, I'd like to consider myself a fairly decent player of fighter games that know a decent amount of the tricks of the trade. The AI is brutal, I think the only thing the difficulty setting changes is the damage you deal and receive, and a FEW AI tweaks (as in, the AI doesn't bash your head in once the round starts, it waits for you to try to attack, then bashes your head in). Not only is it a defense freak, but it's skilled in countering everything. Button mashers will be hit hardest since the game seems to recognize when a button masher is playing. The algorithms suddenly change and the CPU goes on the offensive avoiding random attacks and successfully wrapping around your character, knocking you into the air from behind and then finishing you off with a super move. I got to the final boss before I realized she was tougher than Onslaught from Marvel VS. Capcom.


There are sound issues... or rather volume control issues in the sound. The codec for voices seems to have been really shoddy as I can hear a bit of that fuzziness due to a poor codec and certain sound effects are just much too loud. There's this skater who makes really loud "clashing" sounds as her wheels hit the ground and it's just about 3 to 4 times louder than the rest of the game. There's another girl who drags a really large sword around and the "clank" from her dropping the sword on the ground (every time she jumps or finishes an attack) is ear shattering. What's more is that it seems that it's the sounds that seem to be used most often that are amplified to the point of annoyance (hint: Dash-jump-air dashing has ALWAYS been faster than running...). I don't really have an issue with the music, but I would've preferred a bit more variety and the opening for the PS2 version deserves to have not been recorded. Honestly, I don't mind the opening song, but when you add a semi-poor, nasally J-pop singer into the mix, it leaves a bad aftertaste.


I don't know if it's necessarily bad or not, but some characters are more or less direct rips from other games. There's this one girl whose move list has the ridiculous 360 spin things that Zangief has. Interestingly enough, she does a similar [the same] move leaving me, not using her that often. Heart fights like Sakura from Street Fighter and Yuri from KoF combined.


I'm a fan of fighters and this game is still high on my list. The sound does get annoying to some level, but considering the amount of work in a very clean gameplay, sometimes, it's hard to be angry. Air fighting will always be cool. Considering that you can also switch modes from the first to the second revision and fight from either one, it's a good buy. Maybe someone can tell me how to beat that final boss. Forcing it to block only works partially before she uses a super that doesn't use up the gauge....or maybe it does, but then it's an all screen attack...

Grandia Xtreme[ly bad]

Having played Grandia II for the Dreamcast (and later for the PS2) and LOVING it, I've followed the Grandia series for some time (and by that I mean, for the two other games and attempted to get into the Grandia Online beta test), I've recently picked up Grandia Xtreme (having HATED Grandia III) only to find it completely half-assed and absolutely horrible. Let's make a quick comparison.

Grandia II
Storyline = Not too bad, a bit generic but thought out and works very well later on. First thing I noticed was that Ryudo (the main character) starts at lvl 10 while the Elena, the priestesss that Ryudo escorts, starts at 1. It was interesting as it actually fit the storyline. Ryudo was actually more experienced starting off as that was his job.

Gameplay = Being part of the Grandia series, the battles were the coolest system ever. Screw ATB

Characters = Also a bit generic, but after you know them, they get really interesting.

Voice Acting = Surprising. Some parts were sketchy, but the voice acting was actually good.

Graphics = Sketchy. It's not BAD persay, but it's not that great.


Grandia Xtreme
Storyline = So close to II that it kinda made me die a bit inside. It was as if Game Arts had a meeting and said, okay... what if Ryudo went down a different path when he grew up?

Gameplay = Apparently something was supposed to be cleaned up. I don't see it. Team attacks are actually more of a nuisance than an addition. It's useful to have a high damage move but it's also troublesome to use two characters when I need to have all four to manipulate the monsters as well as possible. Most noticeable thing was that the IP gauge went from horizontal bar to circle which was then implemented in Grandia III. If anything, I think the skills actually look WORSE than they did in Grandia II. I'm comparing the skills and all my favorite early on skills look nerfed. All my favorite "super" skills look meh. At least the cinematic cut scenes in Grandia II looked really really cool.

Characters = I saw this coming. The handful of characters are "Meh." All of them look like they were ripped from ethnic stereotypes and slapped on. Theres this one character that looks aged, wears lots of fur and speaks in an obscenely archaic tone regarding nature... While some other girl from the same tribe speaks perfectly normally but is [supposed] to be really jumpy and hyperactive. I'll get to that supposed to thing later.

Voice Acting = I'll get to that later.

Graphics = Improved. Looks definitely cleaner.


What makes this game really bad?

The story, voice acting, and general progression of the game.
The storyline is so shallow that it's hard NOT to see what happens next. An "evil" looking soldier sends Evann (not a typo) on a bunch of quests for "world peace" with a handful of other people from different tribes. Evann doesn't trust him since the guy has been an "evil" person since childhood. But Evann's commanding officer (that Evann at some point comes to good terms with even though he only talks to her when receiving an assignment that he accepts despite being brought there against his will...) goes on to be that naive attitude believing that he really is for peace. 'Lo and behold! He betrays the army for his own personal gain to summon the greatest being ever... Sound familiar? Perhaps like EVERY OTHER GAME in existence? Probably because it is. All the plottwists are typical and there's really nothing unique about it.

Now for the Voice Acting.... Dear god. They're all atrocious. Yes, EVERY one of them are so bad I've actually stopped playing this game. First, let me just note that all these voice actors are following the text. By that, I'm not referring to what the lines say (though, the script is just as bad) but the pauses are so awkward and the actors pause when the text does (it's not lag, it's actually like that). The emphasis on words are awkwardly misplaced that I want to punch each of them in the face and the tones many many times are so flat they make TV screens look rugged. Please, continue to just read off the card for the first time and record. It sounds AMAZING... When you play the game, you then get a different impression of the characters when they're not voiced and when they are which makes you wonder if they all suffer from bi-polar disorders. Either that or they're all offspring of William Shatner... They can't even sound angry. There was this one part where an officer says "Shut up!" in a very firm tone that sounded decent but then went on a monologue that shattered all my hopes of believing there was potential in this game.

Myam, that hyperactive girl I mentioned earlier, is one of my favorite characters text wise since she seems to have the most character but when she speaks... She sounds bored and sometimes unnecessarily serious. There's this one skill where she's really jumpy and and fires an arrow into the air only because she leans back too far and falls backward. What does the voice actor do? She makes her sound intent on firing an arrow and being diligent, which Myam isn't. To me, she's a dizzy character that makes her personality childish, but amusing as her looks and faces match it. Too bad her voice actor thinks she's indifferent and aloof.

Another character Vitto is supposed to be the youngest of the group and generally doesn't speak much. He has an annoying childish character about him (which I generally don't mind, though whiny ones still bother me, so it irritates me a bit?) that is represented well in text, horribly done in voice. You can clearly tell the voice actor spent no effort on this. Tones were supposed to be different but since the volume was still at much more reserved level than the others any yelling came out as an exaggerated statement, and it was OBVIOUS that some 40 year old was voicing this guy. My eye began to involuntarily twitch as a child-like character with child-like appearance had a voice that sounded older than the main character.

There's another character which is the villain's sidekick (some nerdy scientist) that sounds so airy, nasally, and inexperienced, I felt like throwing something at the TV each time he had to speak. Every voice I heard was more than just a groan, it was a downright "Ok, mute this mother..." I'm not exaggerating either. I've stood by some bad stuff before (I beat all of Grandia III, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Tales of the World) but this was intolerable.


It's not like I dropped this game after four minutes of playing. I got through about half of the game before finally deciding to burn it. I had hoped that if I just went passed the first leg and plot twist (Oh my god! This WASN'T for world peace?!) it would hopefully get better. Too bad I was disappointed. There was just more of "groan, how typical." The only thing that kept me playing Grandia III was how amazing every spell looked and how clean the graphics were. Oh, and how awesome the battle system was. Yes, that's actually what kept me playing that.


I don't care if you're a Grandia fan. Don't get this game. It's SOO bad. Even renting it isn't worth your time. Just be glad that someone else wasted the time to play it for you. Really.

Mehmore-ee uhll Dei OuiiKend (Memorial Day Weekend)

Apparently, I'm going to Amishland, Pennsylvania (for a lack of knowledge regarding what city it is) simply because my step family hasn't been there. So for the weekend, (or so my mom says, that's not happening though) we're going to be traveling, with the first stop being Amish town and then... well I don't know where. Regardless, this means that I can't post tomorrow (or can I?). I've got a good one planned for you guys.

School Rumble Season 3 (Third Semester) trailer

http://sr.kc.kodansha.co.jp/pv/kokuchi.html

Considering the trailer has been released now. I'm going to assume this will air mid-summer. I'm guessing late June to Mid-August

Getting my job at GameStop

In order to pay for my tuition at college, I've more or less decided to work the entire summer. I'm not going to some summer camp and so work would probably be the best deal for me. Technically, my school gives one of the best summer camp counselor wages, but I couldn't get in on that.

I decided to look around in terms of positions at GameStop (since they have their own unique system, cause they're just like that...) and came across this forum.

Indeed.com

The stuff I read in that was absolutely hilarious.
I'll go over what some of them said but generally, most have said (in my own words) this:
"GameStop is filled with execs who only care about figures."

Excuse my language here but...
Well, no shit.

I'm not really sure what these people were expecting when deciding to work. How could they live in such a big bubble that they don't realize companies were made for money. Rather, is it that bad that they didn't even notice how GameStop (surprisingly) swallowed Electronics Boutique? GameStop was always like that, even before the "merger" so I don't really see how they expected anything else. Large companies get large numbers of employees that they can't really care about, besides, why would they put any value on store clerks, the most expendable part of the labor force? If you can prove yourself to be valuable, there's a better chance for climbing. How do I know this? My friend who worked at GameStop was a Store Manager, there were times when he was out of line, and he wasn't fired. Why? Because he was GOOD. It was because of him that the store he was managing held one of the highest profits in the district and was considered one of the best amongst local gamers even though he had one of the smallest spaces. All those who were serious gamers or fans came to that store and ignored the one 4 blocks away, which was literally next to the train station.


My other issue with this forum is that they seem to have issues separating their hobbies and their work. Here's a direct quote:
"'Hit the nail on the head. If you like video games and would like to continue liking video games, don't work at GameStop. I haven't been the same since i worked there as an ASM[Assistant Store Manager]. Something about unethically pushing subscriptions and reserves for numbers and betraying people who share your hobby just kind of strangles the kid inside you."

Well maybe you should learn to understand how business is done. To some extent, you have to keep a straight face and push those subscriptions, but that doesn't mean you should be a robot either. I get the weird feeling that these people decided to work ONLY because they liked games, and that they really had no idea what they were getting into. I don't have any sympathy for these people as they deserved it. You know that Store Manager I just mentioned? We spent over an hour discussing games and traded info about new ones. In fact, there's a handful of regulars who come into that store just to talk, so to have that kind of mindset while working means you screwed up bad when coming in.


Another idiot's post:
"Also if you do love games and consider it a hobby. Gamestop will change that for you and you will want nothing to do with them when you are working there. They do not care about their employees and only care about really unrealistic goals that will not be met. I mean listen to what I used to have to say CONSTANTLY on the phone everyday...
" Thanks for calling " " Gamestop where we buy and sell used games and where you can save $100 dollars on a PS3, how can I help you?" then you are basically REQUIRED to say really dumb things like... " Do you have an EDGE card? Oh you should get one, it's only 15 extra dollars for a magazine and 10% off used games.... blah blah blah" I mean next time you walk into a Gamestop take a look at the employees and how they are talking. My DM is the biggest dumb ass I ever met, corporate has NO trust in the employees and will never give it to you. All they do is look at numbers and nothing else.

not to mention your 6.50 an HOUR... HA"

That's your fault for thinking this would be a cakewalk. To come into work without any knowledge of the store's policy. I'd honestly like to know if there wasn't a large store that didn't have something the clerks were required to say. Large chains often have special cards that give discounts and others ask for coupons, so how is GameStop any different? Better yet, how did this guy not see that coming if he's a fan of video games? Did HE not listen to what they said?
I remember seeing a clerk standing at the door saying... excuse me, yelling "Welcome to GameStop, where we buy and sell used games, how can we help you today?" at every person. During a pause in the waves of people that came in, he and I had a good chat and we laughed at how he was required to say that to every person thereby annoying everyone else in the store.

Another friend of mine was scanning a game I was buying and as he handed me the bag he said, "Thank you for choosing GameStop to be your retailer." I stared at him and his attempt at straight face before we both started laughing and him following up with, "Sorry, I'm required to say that." Mind you, it's really weird to hear someone say that when you've known them to be a very lax person who's often very casual with you.

Now, what I don't get is how he actually CARES about saying that. I'd expect someone who's willing to work to get that into a habit, and really requiring little to no brain power. If there are people hung up on that, I really don't think I should take their opinion into consideration.



Of course there were two posts that I actually found useful but I'm not here to talk about the smart people, I like to laugh at the stupid ones.

Now as an overall question, I bet you're wondering as to why I, personally, would decide on GameStop. The store I'm applying to has a staff that I know, meaning that I won't have co-worker issues. And out of the other stores I'm considering, GameStop looks like the best. Yes, I'll probably end up dealing with a few parents who don't know jack, but it could be worse...

Like Stop&Shop for instance. Or any supermarket for that matter. Being a standing clerk and checking out and waiting for old ladies to pull out their coupon book? The interaction among coworkers is also atrocious and then there's the chance you could be put into... *shudder* Customer Service. Unless it is absolutely impossible for you to frown, Customer Service is the worst... job... ever. Dealing with returns is an abomination, or worse...

Starbucks. Honestly, the people who buy coffee from Starbucks are the worst customers on the face of the earth. When you're allowed to have a double espresso shot macchiato with half soy milk, half skim on a half caff regular in a venti hot chocolate... you know something's wrong. Better yet, why not deal with an entire swarm of these people everyday for 8 straight hours because coffee isn't just a morning/evening thing anymore. It's an all day thing. Apparently, you can never have enough caffeine. Really...

To top it all off, you're paid the same wage for all three stores. So, if you think about it that way... GameStop doesn't look so bad. No, there's no Wal-Mart around where I live, so I can't apply there. Apparently my town is too rich for Wal-Mart...