Also, believe it or not, I’ve been anticipating this episode in particular. Why? I’ll explain 2 paragraphs below.

IN THE DARK REACHES OF SPACE!

After the events of Halo 3 (wherein (*ahem* Spoiler alert!(?)) the Master Chief and Cortana end up lost in deep space in a half-destroyed warship), Cortana finds herself with nothing better to do than to contemplate her virtual navel (and perhaps the Master Chief’s cryogenetically-frozen navel, as well). She claims that upon her creation, it took her 2 hours to absorb the data pertaining to all of human history, knowledge, and understanding. Well, thanks for being such a cocky cunt, Cortana. Maybe you should take up being a schoolteacher… Actually holy shit that should totally happen. A.I. teachers? No, not that! Cortana in a teacher’s–

I mean … Anyway, so this is when the flashbacks begin. Oh boy, the flashback of all flashbacks. The flashback that retells the entire Halo timeline, from 100,000 BC to 2553 AD. Not that this is a bad thing, as this episode can be compared to The Animatrix’s The Second Renaissance, and everybody knows that was the best short of the Animatrix anthology. But then again, most people watching these should already know the history, so you would think they make up for it in pretty cinematics and finally showing us a glimpse of what really happened back then, of Forerunner civilization, right? Right, so I won’t bother with a synopsis as there isn’t much to say. As I mentioned before, I’ll make it up to you with what everyone loves: Pretty pictures!

Cortana proves she was behind it all by showing us her All-Seeing Eye...

100,000 years ago, the Forerunners ruled the galaxy.
Until a bunch of extragalactic space zombies knocked on their door and, ahem, flooded their worlds and colonies.

The Flood, to those who don’t know, is an Eldritch abomination that feeds on intelligent life, sucks their brains and bones dry, and uses them as space marine zombies from then on to kick your ass. They put a new meaning to, “stop hitting yourself!” Except in a species sense. Or something.

"They waited too long to see the threat," says Cortana as millions of Flood organisms descend upon Forerunner worlds and overrun them. And yes, every dot is one, and every frame has like, even more coming down. Seriously, how in the hell did these guys rule the galaxy and have god-like technology, when they couldn't stop what amounts as a bunch of space poo coming down meteor-like on your planet? Oh, no wait... I see the problem now.

ZE GOGGLES! THEY DO NOTHINGZ!

So the highly-intelligent Forerunners fought a millennial war against the Flood. But they had royally fucked up the beginning, so like pretty much every RTS in existence (including Halo Wars! *gets chased by PCfag mob*), once you screw up the beginning, chances are you’re fighting a losing battle.

"I can only guess this, fill the gaps." That's OK, Cortana, the cinematic does the job for ya!

Not shown: Energy swords FIRING THEIR LAZERZ HOREE SHIIET

So um, yeah. They fought, and they fought, but the Forerunners were no match for… The Flood’s tentacles.

It's okay to fantasize there's a hot, starved chick underneath all that sleek armor... You freak.

Rule 34 in the making

Who animated these, again?

Right, the story. So as you may or may not know, the Forerunners were screwed, so they decided to nuke all life in the galaxy with the Halo array they built. Yes, you got it. They said, “well, we tried, guys. Time to nuke everything because we fucked up.” At least Cortana lampshades the irony, and brings up a valid point, for anyone going “WTF?” by now.

Vore not included. Tentacles but no vore? Son, I am disappoint.

So they show the Halo rings over the homeworlds of several Covenant species, and the gateway to the Ark on Earth. At this point in time I am uncertain if this doesn’t contradict other established canon of where the other rings are, but what the hell. So they fetch up the DNA of some evolving species, like us humans, and several Covenant species. So, yay, we’re all clones, apparently. Unfortunately, said species would worship the very beacon of their salvation to a fanatic level, live off their technology and use it to bring holy war and genocide throughout the galaxy. Neglectful precursors: More common than you may think.

TL;DR: Lost in deep space, a crazy A.I. woman rambles to herself because she has nothing better to do, because her cyborg super-soldier space marine boyfriend’s junk is going to be frozen solid for a long, long time. (Not like she can touch it, anyway, the holographic bitch.) Also, space zombies tentacle-raping a highly advanced humanoid species to death. Goddamn you, Japan.

Conclusion: As usual, not much to say here about the episode itself. It wasn’t really as good as the Second Renaissance, for starters — That one actually gave more answers than questions. This one gave more questions then answers.

Sure, we know what the Forerunner may have looked like (and I say may seeing how unreliable the other Japanese studios were in appearances), and that is like Clone (clones from clones?) troopers from the Star Wars Clone Wars cartoon. The one where General Grievous is a badass, not the one he’s as wimpy as George Lucas makes him out to be to compensate for his lack of a–GIGANTIC TAGER!

But as I said, it doesn’t answer some things, namely why the hell the Forerunner were unable to save themselves, when it is shown they survived not only the Halo blast long enough to repopulate every damn planet with primitive, suspiciously bipedal monkeys, lizards and what-have-you, but you would think they’d put their own survival before that of the funny primitive creatures they saved. And why is humanity special compared to the other species they saved? Besides building the gateway to the Ark on Earth, there’s not much difference. Hell, they got Halo rings over their homeworlds, which led to their worship (great going, highly-advanced god-like species! Oh…wait.)

Meanwhile, WE get an ancient colossal megastructure buried for a hundred-thousand years beneath the continent thoroughly explored most by archaeologists, and that’s that.

But enough rambling; to put it simply, it was decent, but I’d expect better. And seeing part 1 of Origins covered the most riddling aspect of the Halo timeline, I’d say part 2 will dick around just as much, maybe even more so. Or maybe they’ll asspull the Emperor of Japan being descended from the Forerunners and having migrated from the planet Venus, where Japanese Covenant live in Japanese castles and worship Buddha before he even existed. Who knows?

Segnala presso:

Contrary to popular belief, coquito is, in fact, not made of coquis or the legendary coqui water.

Inside jokes aside, worry not. I have ceased drinking the stuff to watch this 5-minute action-fest known as “The Package” (Part 1). Spoilers: MASTER CHIEF, SPARTANS FROM THE NOVELS, ARBITER FROM HALO 2-3! HYPE!

The Covenant has captured a “high-priority package”, and a Spartan squad only has 10 minutes to retrieve it. They include John-117 (better known as the “Master Chief”) and his fellow Spartans, Kelly-087, Frederic-104, Solomon-069, and Arthur-079. The Spartans hail from the novels, excluding the latter two; they’re redshirts debut characters. If they run out of time, the UNSC will simply annihilate the entire fleet alongside the package and the Spartan strike team. When the titular package is revealed, it better be something really worth it or I’ll facepalm at the opportunity to take out, you know, an entire fleet of evil genocidal aliens.

A “stellar field” something I didn’t quite catch is keeping the Covenant fleet from simply doing a Slipspace jump and high-tailing it to another system. Handwavium aside, the Spartans deploy in what are essentially space fighter jet motorcycles and an epic Star Wars-styled space battle ensues.

The first scan reading reveals the package is in the ship. Solomon goes for it and asks Kelly to back him up. The Chief knows “something’s off” when the first reading, out of a whole fleet of ships, turned out positive. Knowing it’s too good to be true, he goes in after the pair to save them. John manages to save Kelly because she’s in the hangar bay; Solomon, however, isn’t so fortunate and perishes when an antimatter bomb blows up in his face, taking the entire cruiser with him.

I just know you guys are at the edge of your freakin’ seats now (This is intense!!!), but I’m pausing the plot now for humor something I noticed.

Remember that whole business with “Chad” (whose name turned out to be “Checkman”) back when this whole thing started? Yeah, meet this week’s redshirt:

This guy.

I’m starting to notice a trend here, and to my surprise when I went to fetch this link, so has TVTropes. In Solomon’s defense, though, the Covenant sacrificed an entire battlecruiser, several kilometers wide, with or without its crew just to eliminate him. Granted, it was a trap to lure every present Spartan-II to their destruction, seeing they’re widely feared by the Covenant (they’re so notorious, the Covenant calls them “Demons”). So, in super-soldier space marine-ology, this is the equivalent of dying from a firecracker. Unfortunate implications indeed.
By the way, his last words were, “It’s a trap!” Make of that what you will.

Resuming the plot (lol), the Covenant Fleet Admiral, revealed to be Thel ‘Vadamee (The Arbiter from Halo 2 & 3), plays his role of the villain by laughing evilly and rubbing his hands together and such, while some unnamed Elite aide insists to not underestimate the Spartans. Thel chastises him for being the sole survivor of his battallion and not dying with honor.

The Spartans realize the Covenant are wary to their objective when they get multiple readings from every ship in the fleet. Because of this, good ol’ Chief somehow comes to the conclusion the package is at the Covenant flagship. Yes, really. So they go there, lose debuting stand-in Arthur in the process, and bomb the shit outta Thel’s flagship’s hangar bay (including pulling an unmanned kamikaze attack with their space motorcycles. Remember who animates these?)

Meanwhile, Thel’s aide starts getting edgy and decides to leave the bridge to go meet the Spartans head-on when they do board the flagship. Thel scoffs at this notion, claiming he is merely overestimating them.

John, Kelly, and Frederic land in the bay, and after the smoke clears, they are inside a bubble shield, waiting for it to dissipate, so they can get a move on through thousands of enemy combatants. As the tension rises from waiting for the bubble to go down, Kelly says they only have 3 minutes left. Interestingly, the short if only 5:16 long. 

The Master Chief simply utters, “Go!”, the bubble shield disappears, and they head out to kick some ass.

A big, fat, “To be continued” pops up on screen. I totally didn’t see that coming, not at all.

TL;DR: Master Chief and other Spartan-IIs have a space battle against a Covenant fleet.

Conclusion: At only 5 minutes and 16 seconds, this week’s short is an improvement. Although the shortest episode so far, it has what everyone wants (and indeed expects) from a sci-fi blockbuster like Halo — Action. Unlike the other entries insofar, this one keeps completely faithful to Halo canon by not having ancient alien Japanese ruins (which, since then, I’ve read also included statues of Buddha) and Elites in samurai armor. The fact it has actual memorable characters from the games and novels is another sweet treat for fans. That and the fact Elite mandibles were actually properly animated unlike in the abomination known as Duel.

This CGI explosion fest should prove entertaining the whole way, but did it really need to be divided into two parts? It has little plot, and it’s only 5 minutes long.
Five. Freakin’. Minutes. Seriously. What. The. Fuck.
Even if you had the whole package, it would, presumably, be approximately 10 minutes long. The Babysitter was about 18 minutes long, whereas Duel was about 12. It makes no sense. Honestly, they probably decided to divide it into two parts because I’d bet my money it’ll be the best of the 9 shorts. It wasn’t excellent, but this is honestly the best I see these short films getting. Well, unless one of them averts the whole “black dude dies first” thing. Then that one will have me sold.

Segnala presso:

I thought the Arbiter armor was metallic gray? Seems like that ain’t real gold, and that everything about this short is cheap.

In any case,  this short apparently takes place during the early days of the Covenant Empire, when the Sangheili-San ‘Shyuum (Elite-Prophet) alliance was formed. Yet, there’s Hunters and Grunts featured. I’m not sure, but I’m certain those weren’t subjugated by the Covenant until much later. Say, centuries later. Well, technicalities aside.

An oversized moon reflects upon a still pond. Somewhere, an astronomer is crying, when he shouldn’t. As Unskippable any genre-savvy fellow would inform you, everybody knows the moon is bigger in Japan… Land of the Mooninites.

The current Arbiter, Fal, after ignoring warnings of a trap by “the Boatman”, has a swordfight with half a dozen fellow Elites. There are flashbacks in the midst of said fight, which conveniently reduces the fight scene budget by half and moves the scene to a daydreaming Fal sitting with his wife, Han. And I’ll tell you right this instant that she looks like what Cleopatra would’ve looked like were she in the movie Antz. Seeing himself in inevitable danger, he suggests she leave to save herself. Naturally, she refuses stubbornly.

After training with some of his troops on his suspiciously-looking samurai robes (hakama and everything, just to remind you this 3D clusterfuck was animated by an anime company) a servant pleads to Fal not to go against the Prophets. He counters that the Sanghelli/Elites were great before the Covenant, and that their honor has been subverted by a thirst for power. One of Fal’s fellow Elites, Haka, takes this opportunity to attempt to usurp Fal’s leadership and become head of the clan. In cooperation with the Prophets, of course. Also, he wears a full set of samurai armor. Groovy.

The aforementioned flashbacks are related to Fal’s service to the Prophets, and his rebellion against the Covenant. He declares the Great Journey, the central theme of Covenant religion, a lie. For this, the Prophets declare the once-honorable rank/title of Arbiter to be “a mark of shame”, which pretty nicely explains the origins of the Arbiter mythos. While he fights a Covenant army by himself, the servant from before betrays Fal for Haka, by leading the latter to Han. While Fal brutalizes said army, his wife is likewise brutalized (offscreen) by the servant and Haka’s troop. After much reluctance, the servant kills her, and the Arbiter returns home to that horrific sight. With this, he sets off to accept Haka’s challenge.

After a short exchange, there is an even shorter duel which probably lasted less than 5 seconds. Yes, the titular duel for which this story was named for was short and anti-climatic as all hell. It got so cheap in the end that I thought my stream froze because the overuse of several still shots were that poorly done. There’s no need to explain the duel; it’s the classic “we’ll decide this in one blow” you see practically everywhere. But I’ll do it anyway, for one reason in particular.

After said poorly done still shot, Fal gushes a massive, so-ridiculously-looking-it’s-hilarious fountain of purple alien blood grape juice. Seconds later, the camera shifts angle so we see Fal’s sword, too, has dealt a fatal blow to Haka. As the cliché continues to unveil, they both fall and die. Insert sad music and credits. Yup, that’s all.

TL;DR: Cliché samurai short story IN SPACE! With aliens.

Conclusion: This short presents us with the origins of the Arbiter mythos and finally solves the mystery of whether Egyptian ant alien chicks are hot or…wait, that’s not it.

In the heyday of the Covenant Empire, the Arbiter was a heretic who underwent a suicide mission to redeem himself in the ultimate sacrifice for the Great Journey. As one can see, it was originally a rank of prestige, until an early Arbiter was branded a heretic, and so his armor has since been symbolically donned by subsequent Arbiters to save the Covenant from great crisis. In that aspect, it’s a great origin story (God knows I can be a bit of a sucker for that trope), but the lack of plot and memorable characters, as well as its poorly-written story weigh it down significantly to nothing remarkable. It seems to me that, sadly, this trend will follow in each of the Halo Legends episodes as they come.

Whether you like the three two average fight scenes or not, this is nothing but a cliché storm reminiscent of samurai fiction, including an Orient-inspired soundtrack to go along with it. Don’t bother; it’s a waste of 15 minutes of time better spent elsewhere, like matchmaking in Halo to have a teabag party with a bunch of 12-year-olds (and what is this?), which is, ultimately, what this is all about.

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In some mess hall IN SPACE, some nobody tries to eavesdrop on a squad of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODSTs), a.k.a. “Helljumpers.” (This is important because he’s part of the ending aesop thing.) We’re introduced to said squad of 4 ODSTs: O’Brian, Cortez, Dutch (the same from Halo 3: ODST, apparently), and… some black dude. I didn’t catch his name. Let’s just call him Chad. Not like it matters anyway.

… What? Don’t look at my pixelated text like that. IT MAKES SENSE IN CONTEXT, TRUST ME. READ ON AND FIND OUT.

Now, before we continue with the plot, let’s pause to consider the main character: O’Brian.

Our would-be badass who "never misses". If only he wasn't more incompetent than a conscript straight outta boot camp...

As you can see, he looks like the typical shounen protagonist and, if my anime dub viewer intuition hasn’t failed me, sounds just like a mix of Johnny Yong Bosch and Yuri Lowenthal. He instantly comes off as the loudmouth badass type (and looks cool while at it). And he’s a sniper. Come on, what could possibly go wrong? Nothing. That is, till shit hits the fan. For the oncoming mission, he’s been neglected to back-up and replaced with a Spartan, so this makes him butthurt the whole episode towards the (obviously) magnanimous Spartan. Thus, from here on out, I shall rate O’Brian with what I’ll call my ‘approval meter’ where I give cheer to badassery and a jeer otherwise. To be fair, he had a nice first impression and became my favorite from the get-go. +7

Back at the plot, the squad is briefed on their mission: Assassinate a Prophet (leader dudes) on a planet which is a logistical hub for Covenant forces. Said Prophet governs the sector and this would provide “months of tactical advantage” to the UNSC. Since this is essentially what someone with basic knowledge of military science would call a spec ops mission, it’ll be carried out with “minimum risk to the UNSC.” Subsequently, the mission starts 5 minutes after briefing. Badass. Oh, and the Spartan becomes their commanding officer for the operation, even though “he” doesn’t speak till the end and by all means Cortez still fulfills the leadership role. Good job there, storywriters.

Once they penetrate the atmosphere, the meteor shower they’re riding on just so happens to pick out Chad from the 5 drop-pods, so he dies. Guess what, kids? Our boy Chad just so happens to be what we call an “African-American” nowadays. That’s right, the black dude dies first. Because of meteors. He didn’t even do anything. Had like, 3 lines. Dies. Screams. Goes boom. So umm…yeah.

Leaving it at that, they nearly lose O’Brian too when his drop-pod crashlands in a pond, but a bit of plot immunity and plot-induced causality save him from a watery grave when the Spartan just goes over and manhandles O’Brian’s drop-pod to dry, safe land. Then O’Brian bitches about how the Spartan was “rough.” -1

I don’t know if the grass is greener on the other side, seeing this is an alien planet, but at least metaphorically it is, because our boys land near their target. They set out and on the way there, stumble to Forerunner ruins that are eeriely conveniently alike to… Japanese architecture. And here I was expecting actual Forerunner ruins. But no, the Japanese just have to push their ethnocentric bullshit on us whenever they can, don’t they? What’s next? Forerunner language is Moonspeak? Well, look at the bright side: At least this confirms the Japanese really are Mooninites. *rimshot*

Anywho, there’s Covenant patrols afoot, and our heroes effortlessly eliminate a couple Grunts… except O’Brian, who gets them spotted. Way to go. I’m pretty sure snipers and spec ops are supposed to be stealthier than fucking ninjas. -2. Oh, and he hesitates on shooting a Grunt, the fucking Goombas of the Halo games. -2

In any case, the Spartan jumps a Brute Chieftain which ambushes O’Whiner, saving him again, and shows that furry some kung fu fighting and knocks it down a waterfall. Meanwhile, all O’Brian can do is helplessly hang on (-1) so he’s helped up by the Spartan and, you guessed it, bitches to his savior yet again. -1. Why must this character archetype exist, particularly in anime? -2

They leave the Mooninite Japanese Forerunner ruins and get to the spot they’re gonna cap that Prophet from. The Spartan takes up the famous (and bad-fucking-ass) SRS99C-S2 AMB Sniper Rifle and is about to take the shot, but the Brute from before ambushes them and–wait for it–Spartan person saves our loser protagonist WHO’S JUST STANDING THERE a third and final time. -1

Unfortunately, we’re all atheists in the future, so the third time wasn’t the charm for this Spartan as the blow is fatal. Oh right, the Spartan is Samus a chick. No, seriously, she’s fucking blonde and everything. It’s like Master Chief and Samus… Ohgodbadfanfictonwhy Get it guys? “Babysitter”? Double standard? Japanese exploitation of females? Hur hur. Anyway, she urges Mr.Backup to take the shot, which he does (it was beautiful by the way. No, not Samus, the shot. +3) which elevates the approval meter on O’Brian to a grand total of…0.

After Cal-141 (Spartan chick) dies, we’re back at the mess hall, where the same guy from before (you know, first sentence if you’re still paying attention) finally tries striking up conversation only to get apples thrown at him by the enraged ODSTs for dissing the dead Spartan who fought and led them died bravely in battle.

Well, you know what they say: One bad apple…
*dons shades*
…spoils the barrel.
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH

TL;DR: Badass is really a douchebag, douchebag gets replaced by big guy, big guy saves douchebag, douchebag bitches, rinse and repeat, big guy is really a hot girl, hot girl dies, douchebag becomes badass for 2 seconds, douchebag gets aesop. And ancient alien ruins are Japanese.

Conclusion: This was one of those rather trite “I hate you inhuman bastards who are saving us normal people from imminent death and destruction just because you’re different but now I’ve seen the light through your undeserved death”…things. Pretty sure the trope name exists. Nothing new, but who’s expecting some Shakespearean masterpiece? Personally, I didn’t find it bad, nor did I find it excellent. At just 18 minutes, it was just short–much too short, even–but that’s not unexpected. After all, these are technically OVAs, and those aim for quality over quantity much of the time as opposed to the QUALITY(!!!) more commonly found in long-running anime series. Visual-wise, it didn’t fail to impress, even though my connection quality is crap and I was watching a stream at probably half its quality. My new HDTV widescreen probably helps, but what the hey.

Regardless, unless you’re acquainted with the Halo universe, I don’t see the typical weeaboo watching this, much less passing it for entertainment. Just like The Animatrix, these shorts are strictly for fans who wish to delve deeper into the universe of one of the most popular sci-fi settings of the new millennium, though perhaps sci-fi fans in general might want to consider giving them a look-see. As for me, I’ll be watching them every Saturday and (probably) will bring a synopsis weekly as they come up. I’m no fanboy, but I know the military sci-fi fan in me is squealing in delight, however short each “episode” might be.

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I'm so excited for my new job

Touho Hisoutensoku (Lacking Perception of the Natural Laws of the East or Lacking Perception of the Rule of Heaven in the East; or Unthinkable Natural Law for those weary of spouting entire sentences to refer to a game) is the 3rd fighting game of the Touhou series created by a joint effort of the loveable alcoholic ZUN and Tasogare Frontier. Being a stern lover of cards, women, and explosive over-the-top magic, it is no surprise I started squealing like a little girl upon discovering this game and sought it out immediately.

First we’ll discuss the story. I can’t read Moonspeak so I searched the interwebs to find it. Apparently a mysterious giant has been spotted by various characters and then vanished mysteriously. The only 3 characters with a story mode, Sanae, Cirno, and Meiling, each have their own theories and set off to kick everyone else’s ass.

Hell Yes, I said Cirno!

One thing Touhou is known for is the memorable and kick-ass music, 12.3 does not disappoint here. All of the characters’ themes have been remixed to fit the mood of a fighting game without losing their feeling of intense grandeur. Other than the girls’ themes there are other tracks that play in story mode to fit the emotion of the scene, a certain little light-hearted theme has rooted itself into my brain at the moment.

There are quite a handful of characters here. The above mentioned Sanae, Meiling, and Cirno, my personal favorite, are considered the main characters here as they are the only ones playable in story mode. The usual motley crew of Reimu, with her annoying Spell Cards of RAGE; (Spa)Marisa, who didn’t get the memo this is a fighting game not a scrolling shooter; Patchouli, who essentially fights like Reimu mixed with Marisa (number one source of my rage) and Alice appear as well. Other characters joining the fray are Okuu, and Suwako who are prevalent in story mode as enemies. For those of you wondering “Where are Yukari, Sakuya, Youmou, Yuyuko, Remilia, Reisen, and the other characters from Scarlet Weather Rhapsody I can’t name in one breath?” Well, they can technically play as them if you install UNL as an expansion pack to SWR, I myself do not know how to do that so I’m sad that I can’t play as my Dio Brando Maid.

Gameplay is exactly like its predecessor, with its flying, grazing, spell cards and ability to fill the whole damn screen in pretty green, blue, pink and red explosions. The sprites are well-drawn and fluidly animated. Backgrounds are beautiful and detailed, but really it’s a Touhou game what’d you expect?

To mix things up though, the last rounds of story mode add in minute long segments that can only be described as “epic.” Sanae gets into an epic mid-air fight with Suwako as they fall to the ground, Cirno has to dodge a dual sword-wielding Alice Doll, and Meiling has to fight a giant catfish as it grows in size and makes earthquakes, dropping rocks. I’m not joking about the last part.

I'm Cereal.

So in summary, GET THE GOD DAMN GAME RIGHT NOW!

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A female main character? Looks good!

While I can’t call Persona 3 by favorite PS2 RPG of all time since I consider the Digital Devil Saga series to be slightly better (not to mention my eternal love for Unlimited Saga), it has served up its share of memories and I consider it to be a solid game from the storyline standpoint and for all the complaining that goes into it, I actually do like the characters in Persona 3 more so than I did the characters for Persona 4. However, I did have a major gripe with the game, but thankfully, the PSP release looks like it’ll be addressing the main issue while tossing in a few new features.

First off, the inability to control party members was a real sore point in the PS2 version. Call me a control freak, but I’ve preferred it when the player has complete control of the situation so as to be able to execute tacticals with near-perfect precision. Having random elements (or seemingly random elements) enter the picture through computer-controlled characters made it maddeningly annoying, especially when there was a better option that the AI-controlled characters could have taken but instead, screw themselves (and by extension, me) over. Why Atlus had designed the game in that fashion still boggles the mind, so the fact that they got rid of AI-controlled characters was a no-brainer and that alone merits this game a worthy purchase.

Secondly, the concept of having a character walk the hallways was sort of dumb, especially when you had no interest in really exploring the hallways in the first place and only wanted to go into a room for a club meeting or travel to the gym so you can train with the kendo club (not like anyone picked anything else, right?). The addition of being able to select which room you wanted to go to expedites play pretty quickly and removes any silly amount of time walking to and from one room to the next. Of course, that could result in you missing out on a vital social link, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take if it means I don’t have to walk around so much.

Finally, the concept of tossing in a female main character makes for an interesting addition, especially since her character design comes off a bit better than her male counterpart in that she actually looks somewhat sociable (and my character was certainly the social butterfly out of necessity so as to be able to make Personas hardier in combat). The male main character had always struck me as having an aloof demeanor that never quite jibed with what I had him doing, and it never appealed to me quite as much compared to the character design for Persona 4′s main character. Maybe it was the glasses or something. Anyways, I’m interested in seeing how the dating minigames will work out. The big question is whether boys be the one making the approach or will she have to actively go out and do the recruiting herself.

Needless to say, having a Persona game on a portable system with all of these improvements automatically puts this game really high on my must-buy list, especially when they’ve offered a lot of material for veteran players to explore while fixing some of the more annoying issues in the first release. Knowing Atlus, we’ll probably see a port of this in about a year, though I hope it will take a little less than that so I can get my Persona fix once more.

P.S. I still don’t see what’s so great about Junpei /cloudtrolling

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You know when you’re on a forum or something, and there’s that really annoying guy who won’t shut up about how the old days of gaming kick the total hell out of gaming now? You know that guy who runs around talking about how Final Fantasy VI is still a much better game than than anything released within the past two years? Or how he’s always saying that games like Left 4 Dead or Halo will never live up to true classics like Mega Man X, or Super Mario World?

Well, that annoying person is absolutely correct. Anything released back in the ’90s exponentially increases (in relation to amount of years passed) in greatness over anything released now. So, your current gen systems will never be as great as the Super Nintendo, or the Playstaion, or the Genesis– well, scratch that. Genesis sucks.

Hell yeah, you are the best game ever!

I would normally like to believe the above paragraph is true, as I would never have to buy new games, but, it is merely a fabrication caused in the minds of old school gamers by wearing your god damn nostalgia goggles for too long. As much as I run around saying that Mega Man X is the unrivaled game of forever, or how Chrono Trigger is the best RPG ever (it’s true, you know!), I want to take moments of everyone’s time to rip those nostalgia goggles off your face, so you can see the real truth about your favorite games. I’ll just never do this with Chrono Trigger or Mega Man X because those games are absolutely flawless.

Now then, our first contestant is the Super Nintendo classic, Secret of Mana. Released back in ’93, Secret of Mana was universally loved by many, and is still considered a timeless classic today. And it sort of is. I have nostalgia for this game, but not so much that I cannot notice its flaws, considering I never played more than the first two hours of the game as a kid, and I’ve only just recently beat it, due to the wonders of the Virtual Console.

Despite what you may think about what I’m about to write, Secret of Mana is actually a good game, and I do enjoy it quite a bit. It has just aged quite horribly in some areas and if you’re new to the series, you’re better off picking up Seiken Densetsu 3. However, in the event the game’s flaws that I’m about to elaborate on don’t sound too bad to you, then I highly recommend you pick it up and see if it tickles your fancy.

The Seiken Densetsu series is like Zelda’s RPG cousin. You run around on a field and there’s a top view and slash things with swords/other weapons, and you can explore towns to buy equipment and whatnot. You gain levels, and gaining levels makes you stronger. However, combat is not exactly as you may think. Attacking in Secret of Mana is governed by your power gauge, or whatever you wanna call it, down on the bottom of the screen, below your health. 100% means you’ll do full damage. Anything that isn’t 100% is just about absolutely worthless past a certain point in the game. In the beginning, attacking enemies with a gauge lower than 100% will do damage, but not very much at all, and you’re better off just waiting for it to charge, considering a full charged attack can also knock enemies down. This makes battles incredibly repetitive, because you’ll soon discover that you spend most of your time knocking enemies down repeatedly with a 100% attack, waiting for them to get back up, and then knocking them back down again. You will mostly do this because you yourself do not want to get knocked down.

I was lucky the bitch decided to turn his back instead of continue his relentless assualt.

Getting knocked down in this game is like getting shot in the leg if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. A truly relentless monster can easily knock you down, and then proceed to continue hitting you until you die. You’ll get downed, get hit while you’re down, and as soon as you get back up, that hit you took while you were down will suddenly come into effect, and you’ll get knocked back down again. And there is literally no escape from this once a monster starts. This is frustrating as hell, and can even happen to you in the beginning of the game when you have no Girl or Sprite to bail you out.

In conclusion, in order to not feel like the game is a cheap pile of shit, you have to be a cheap pile of shit yourself. It’s a cruel cycle.

"Oh, no, my Yui-chan is in danger!" I love naming features.

Speaking of being cheap, let’s talk about boss battles. Whenever you hear that boss theme, your immediate response should probably be “FIND OUT ITS WEAKNESS.” Sometimes, it’s painfully obvious, and what you’ll do is constantly open the Sprite’s magic menu, and continually cast whatever magic that boss is weak against, or you’ll cast that elemental Saber on all your party member’s weapons, and just whack the hell out of that boss. However, considering Sprite’s magic is much easier to level than Girl’s, the easier, smarter choice is to just chain cast. This works on just about most of the bosses, excluding bosses where Sprite isn’t present, and the final boss (which is actually very fun, albeit easy). You could probably ignore chain casting, yes, but I’m the kind of guy that once I know an easy way out, I abuse it. =( I shouldn’t be allowed to be tempted like that. Some bosses are just impossible without chain casting if you want to beat them without massive grinding, like the Frost Gigas. That guy’s a douche.

The final boss is pretty intense. Doesn't hurt that it has awesome boss music to go along with it all.

In Secret of Mana, you can only control one character at a time, so if you’re lonely as all hell and have no buddies to play with you, then the game’s AI will control the other two characters for you. And dear lord, the game’s AI is absolutely frustrating. In the beginning, they’re set to a neutral setting. This means they’ll do nothing until you change it. So, you attempt to change it, and it brings you to this grid thing. This is where you get really confused and wish emulated games came with a manual, because I honestly still don’t even understand the AI set-up grid. All I’ve gathered from it is that the bottom right means my characters don’t do jack squat, and that the upper left means my characters will attack anything that moves. Good enough for me. So, from then on, my two AI options are pretty terrible. The first means I get no help and I’m forced to fight everything on my own, and the second means I get too much help, and when I want to not fight some monsters, I get stuck running in the same place, because my god damn party members won’t move on.

Oh, you have to be fucking kidding me.

Yes, you can’t leave your party members off screen. This is bullshit. You’ll be exploring a dungeon, minding your own damn business and killing bats ‘n shit, and then your party members get caught stuck behind a ledge or something, and then you have to run all the way back, have them follow you correctly off the ledge, and then continue on. This happens all the time, and I wish this game was solo because of it. Thankfully, they fixed this in Seiken Densetsu 3.

Eventually, as you progress through the game, you’ll acquire your main mode of transportation around the world, Flammie, a flying dragon. And Flammie is cool, and the music that plays on the world map whenever you ride him is awesome, and they implemented the same cool Mode 7 world map graphics that Final Fantasy VI uses. However, unlike Final Fantasy VI, you are never going to know where the hell you’re heading unless you own the map that came with the game, or you go to GameFAQs and look that shit up. The in-game map is absolutely worthless because it’s not there when you’re riding around, and when you do open it up, it’s on a globe thing that you rotate around very slowly. Shit sucks. It’s not that big of a deal but, I hate having to look at my computer and then back at the game constantly. Luckily, they also fixed this in Seiken Densetsu 3. Hell, just about all of my issues with Secret of Mana are just about non-existant in Seiken Densetsu 3. I love that game.

The best thing you've got is compass directions floating randomly in mid-air. You can't see them very clearly here due to my shitty capture card. Sorry.

Aside from all of that, though, I love Secret of Mana. Well, actually, there’s a scrolling issue with the game that pisses me off sometimes. You know how 2D games, you’re walking around and the game tries to keep you in the middle of the screen as best as possible? Secret of Mana says fuck it to that, and when you’re running towards a different area, the game leaves about an inch of space between you and the edge of the screen. So, you’ll be running in a forest or some shit, and then BAM, a wolf lunges onto your face and hits you ’till you die. God damn wolves.

Oh, you bet I will. <3

Okay, now, really, aside from all of that, Secret of Mana is a great game, and I’m probably going to buy myself the actual cartridge soon. If for some reason, you’re sitting at your computer screen yelling at me for stretching the truth a bit, yes, I did. It makes for a more interesting article. But, I do love Secret of Mana, so, if you shrugged at all of that, go give it a whirl. You can pretty much play it for free, and if you like it enough, toss 8 bucks at it on VC and enjoy it (sorta) how it was meant to be played.

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Next up, we have my sub/secondary Rachel Alucard, the local badass verbose gothic delicious loli of deliciousness. If you can’t tell by her very original surname, she is a vampire. And seeing a vague likeness to the Scarlets of Touhou, I’d bet my money on this being Moonlily’s main were she to play BlazBlue.

Anyway, let’s get on with it.

I'm bored...

Height: 145 cm

Birth date: October 31

Weight: 34 kg

Blood Type: Unknown

Birthplace: Transylvania

Hobby: Tea

Likes/Important to her: Time, Teacup collection

Dislikes: Boredom, Green Peppers

Tier: A

Theme: Queen of Rose, White Requiem (vs. Ragna)

Seiyuu: Kana Ueda

English VA: Mela Lee

The current head of the noble vampire clan of Alucard, Rachel slipped out of her castle in search of fun because she hates to be bored, which she is all the time due to living a mundane lifestyle. Despite her status however, she deeply loathes her vampiric impulses. Due to the way two ribbons hold her hair in place, some of the characters call her “rabbit” because the ribbons look like rabbit ears. She seems to be stalking Ragna – this is because she accidentally turned him into a half-vampire giving him his powers. (This is also the reason behind his heterochromia.) Rachel can apparently create a small pocket dimension called Requiem, which she calls the dream world. She is often accompanied by her familiars, Nago and Gii, whom she often treats very roughly, and is supervised by her butler and guardian Valkenhayn Hellsing (more points on originality right here). Rachel is the only character seemingly aware of the full extent of the story. She has control of the Tsukiyomi unit, a device (probably Armagus) that is able to deflect the blast that was capable of destroying Ikaruga with minimal effort.

Rachel is unique. While she may have the least amount of moves in the game, she is one of the hardest characters to use correctly and efficiently; a steep learning curve, if you will. For you Brawlers out there (Odd game to compare to this HARDCORE COMPETITIVE one amirite?), she’s like Peach and Snake had a kid… and genetically modified the kid with Pikachu DNA. And fed it steroids and crack.

She is a character with a rather unorthodox style of combat in accordance to her haughty upbringing. Detesting physical contact, she relies on her “familiars” Nago and Gii to do the combat at her command, as Nago shapeshifts to several forms (his default being an umbrella) and Gii…well, gets her tea. She plays a very defensive game by luring her foes into several traps, the most deadly of which are up to 3 lightning rods she fires via Nago in cannon form at her opponent at three different distances (using the A-B-C variants), in a move called Tiny Lobella. The ‘A’ variant is a good rush stopper, whilst the B-C carry anti-air properties. These, once in place, are good to keep an opponent on their toes, as you can summon lightning on their unholy ass at any time using Sword Iris, or Baden-Baden Lily, her Distortion, which does much more damage (more on that below).

In addition to this is Impish Gypsophilia, a floating, glowing pumpkin which does no damage by itself, but is a good repellant projectile when using Sylpheed (“the wind”), Rachel’s drive (more on that later), and the infamous frog, George XIII (We call him “Froggy” ’round here =D), who just wants hugs by electrecuting the crap out of your opponent for a stunning(!!!) 8-hit combo pursues your opponent like a guided frog bomb…thing. There is a catch to these techniques, though; if Rachel gets hit (even if she blocks), they vanish. And seeing how they leave her vulnerable for a few frames when she’s summoning them, you best do this when your opponent cannot exploit your brief vulnerability.

Sylpheed, Rachel’s drive, allows her to manipulate the wind in any direction of her choosing. This is useful for a lot of Rachel’s game, but can be difficult to properly use in all of its multi-situational versatility in a timely and masterful manner. Purposes include: Blowing the pumpkin around, increasing your momentum for more damaging combos, negating your opponent’s momentum to ensnare him in a shocking trap of lightning rods (and Froggy!), retreat from a charging foe when you’re cornered, and wildly swing yourself across the stage while gently floating down holding an umbrella a la Peach in SSB. Sylpheed is limited to a 4-part gauge which slowly refills only when Rachel’s feet are on terra firma, so keep that in mind.

Despite Rachel being a very defensive character, she is not without her deadly offensive attacks and combos. Some of her attacks are very good, either doing great damage, having excellent priority (Priority Throne comes to mind; details below), or comboing with some ease (with some assistance from the wind, of course).

Rachel only has one Distortion Drive, Baden-Baden Lily, but that is all she needs. She summons lightning around herself and to the lightning rods and each hits 4 times (6 around Rachel) and does moderate damage. However, when all of this is combined, it’s powerful enough to take out over half of your opponent’s life gauge with approximately 21 hits, potentially making it one of the most damaging attacks in the game, and that is without including the ungodly potential for additional hits and combos as your opponent is stunned for one whole second by lightning (an effect shared by George XIII and Sword Iris).

Of course, our delicious loli is not without her weaknesses. She’s rather frail, and can’t take a hit. When put under pressure, it can be hard for her to escape, and her game can collapse like a house of cards this way, so you’ll need to maintain your cool (and Her Highness’s personal space) to avoid being caught in such predicament. To that end, you’ll be blocking a lot, and I mean a lot, and making severe use of several ‘counter’ moves, particularly that down-C move (which I call “Priority Throne” due to its…well, high priority) which acts as a quasi-counter to many rush-in attacks, if timed correctly. Be wary, though; if you mistime the throne–or many of your attacks– with Rachel, she (or Mr. Umbrella, rather) will be in for a world of hurt.

All in all, Rachel seems destined to be a top-tier character (according to Xéro) due to the massive damage she can inflict and the difficulty in getting enough hits on her to win the fight, although she is nowhere near evasive as Arakune or v-13. If used by someone who’d surpassed the steep learning curve that is Rachel’s intriguing fighting style– there aren’t many Rachel users, mind you– she should prove to be an interesting and deadly opponent.  It all comes down to whether Rachel can negate whatever pressure the opponent attempts to put down on her whilst gracefully evading contact with your lowly foe until Miss Rachel is at an advantageous position to teach them some manners. <3

Now, where is the Princess’s tea? THE PRINCESS HAS REQUESTED MORE TEA~!

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Name: Ragna the Bloodedge

Nickname: The Grim Reaper

Height: 185cm

Weight: 78kg

Birthplace: Unknown

Hobby: Cooking (especially good at barbecue)

Likes/Important to him: His silver ring

Dislikes: Ghosts and the Control System

Eye color: Has heterochromia, with a green eye and a red eye. (Syke note: NEEDS MOAR DESU)

Tier Listing: B+

Theme: Rebellion, Under Heaven Destruction (vs. Jin), and White Requiem (vs. Rachel)

Seiyuu: Tomokazu Sugita

English VA: Patrick Seitz

The main protagonist of BlazBlue, also known as the Grim Reaper, is more of a rebel antihero, who destroyed several branches of the NOL and caused the NOL itself to label him as a wanted criminal and place a large bounty on his head, the largest on a single person ever. It has been interesting to note that he possesses a powerful form of Armagus called the Azure Grimoire, which causes those after his bounty to also be after his grimoire. His ultimate goal is to destroy the Library for reasons unknown. Ragna is also heavily implied to be the reincarnation of the Black Beast.

Being the Sol Badguy of BlazBlue, Ragna is a simple character to learn on the surface, but difficult to master for various reasons. Bringing in one of the smallest health pools in the game at a meager 10,000 coupled with a low defense rating, Ragna relies heavily on his Soul Eater drive ability as well as a good pressure game. Ragna is also surprisingly fast and combos with a great deal of ease, not to mention he hits pretty hard when he does hit you. To further increase his power, he has Blood Kain, which increases the power, size, and health absorption of all Soul Eater abilities at the cost of slowly losing his own health while using Blood Kain. Beyond this, Ragna is great for punishing characters that are careless with their moves.

As with every character, Ragna has some weaknesses. First off, he lacks any form of a projectile, so characters that can spam do give him a bit of trouble. On top of that, he has low defense and a small health pool, meaning that you can’t afford to take hits. His third drive ability, Devoured by Darkness, is only usable in Blood Kain, meaning you need 100% on your heat gauge, not to mention that it’s incredibly hard to land and if you do, your opponent will usually be dead by then, nulling the point of absorbing all the health it takes.

While I’m sure we’ll all miss Sol Badguy, Ragna is shaping up to do nicely for the new players. A usable install, some interesting moves, and an appealing background story make Ragna live up to the main protagonist name quite well. He’s a prick, he’s easy to anger, and he has some hilarious moments. Of course, he and Jin can’t seem to get along at all due to an incident in their early childhood, where Jin cuts off Ragna’s arm. To confirm, they are biological brothers and Ragna’s last name is not Kisaragi, as many people have been confused about that.

If you plan on using Ragna, be prepared to deal with all sorts of hell from the projectile characters. Jin in particular is known for spamming his ice surfboard to constantly rack up damage on you, and Noel loves to use her Chain Revolver combos to lock you into a combo you can’t escape. The main thing to do against these characters is wait for an opening to punish them, and then unleash all hell on them. They might survive the beating, but they’ll think twice about using their projectiles in such a manner again. In most situations, you want to constantly be near your opponent and wailing on them, as Ragna is a rushdown character with the ability to gain health from most of his specials and drive attacks. This is especially true when you use Blood Kain, as it increases the hitbox of all Soul Eater moves, the damage, as well as the health drain, making a Blood Kain Ragna even deadlier to take hits from than Hakumen. More likely than not, you’ll be overwhelmed when you play as Ragna for the first few times, whether you’re a beginner or not. Take some time to get to know him, and never give up because you can’t win.

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I was never a big fan of open-world games, period. I guess I enjoy more of a linear game where all the objectives are straightforward and there are no irrelevant side missions. I wonder if that’s the reason Grand Theft Auto could never hold my attention for more than a week.

Enter inFamous, a game that redefines the standard of the open-world kind of game. You take control of the protagonist Cole, who has been given electric superpowers through a bomb that exploded in the city he lives in.

The government has quarantined the city where the bomb went off, and this basically led to anarchy in the area. You can either try to save the people and become a hero, or help in its destruction and be inFamous.

I was already excited for this game by the time the advertisements came out. I can be a hero or a villain? Amazing. The multi-million marketing campaign done by Sony MIGHT have had something to do with it. They for sure went out of their way to make it appealing to people. If you haven’t seen the TV spot, you need to.

The gameplay itself is top notch. You get different electrical powers based on your decision to be good or bad. (For example, you get an electric grenade if you chose to be bad, and forked lightning if you were good.) The lack of a health bar is somewhat annoying, along with the fact that the Reapers (the main gang you’ll be fighting against in the “Neon District”) are the best god damn shots ever.

As you continue playing the game, there will be many “defining” moments for you. These parts will have a massive effect on your good or bad karma. The biggest one in the game is right at the beginning, where you choose to let the people have a share of the food that the military dropped, or kill them and take the food for yourself.

Health in this game can be a massive pain in the ass. There is no visible health bar; instead your screen simply gets darker as you get hurt. The only way to heal yourself is to charge electrical sources into your body. This can be done using nearly anything near you, such as cars or light poles.

However, as with most open-world games, there are also the irrelevant side missions, and of course you’re pretty much forced to do some of them in order to get any decent skills later on in the game.

This game is more difficult then the average game, however it is a game with a rich storyline and plenty of checkpoints in place to make sure you don’t have to backtrack too much.

My final opinion on the game is that even though I dislike the open world games like Prototype and the GTA series, I find myself coming back to inFamous. I’m on my 2nd playthrough, this time becoming evil rather than good.

All in all, I give inFamous…

8/10

That’s all, see you next time.

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