Already approaching May

Whoops, it looks like I totally forgot to make a post in March.  This year is passing by particularly quickly, and I feel like I’ve barely done anything.  I’ve been focusing on a lot of things these past two months.  I’ve been working out harder during my exercise sessions.  I’ve been still practicing piano when I can in preparation of recording my piano arrangements.  I ruined my sleep schedule about a month ago and had difficulty falling asleep until it was 6AM.  So I’ve been slowly fixing it by waking up a little earlier when I’m able to so that I’d feel sleepier by night time.  It’s been rough since falling asleep is difficult, waking up is difficult, I wake up every 2 hours throughout the night, and I feel sleepy throughout the day.  I’ve gotten close to a 3AM-11AM schedule, but it’s still not consistent.  I’m hoping I can put it back to, at least, a 2AM-10AM schedule.  I did end up making that remix from Phantom Breaker’s Main Menu theme.

 

I’ve been working through more games the past two months, but feel like I’m finishing them too slowly.  At least I was able to finish games like Persona 4 Golden (FINALLY, after so many years!), Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX 2, Borderlands 3, The King of Fighters XV, Splinter Cell Blacklist and Scarlet Nexus.  Unfortunately, I still have to do a second playthrough of Persona 4 Golden for the true ending and a second playthrough of Scarlet Nexus to see the other half of the story since the game is played through two separate character perspectives.  So those two games, which have already took a lot of time to get through, is going to require even more time before I’m truly finished with them.  In an effort to play better games this year, I’ve been trying to eliminate as many mobile games as I can the past 2 weeks.  There are a few coming out in the near future that I’ll probably play, so that’s more reason why I need to delete the ones I’ve been holding onto for so long or still playing to make time for things I want to do.  But I think the major time sink I’ve had the past 2 months is fighting games again.

Testament’s the 5^th and last DLC character to release for Guilty Gear Strive and my friends have started playing it again since then.  Melty Blood: Type Lumina also released two new characters and I played a bit, trying to learn one of the new characters.  I ended up playing online for Guilty Gear Strive, Melty Blood: Type Lumina, and The King of Fighters XV one week…and got totally destroyed in each of the games.  The amount of people playing GGST is still pretty healthy, so I get matched up to a lot of players much better than me and a few closer to my skill level.  I know I’ve been learning a lot on character match ups, system mechanics, and basic strategies for a lot of characters, but I haven’t been pushing far enough on character familiarity and high level play to really compete with the skill level that players are at right now, including against my friends.  So I’ve been putting the most time into GGST and trying to brush up on execution, creating better game plans, finding and experimenting with new approaches, and just trying to be more consistent with being a threat with the characters that I play.  With KOFXV, I tried playing online way too late (around 5-6 weeks after launch?) as the community is already dwindling.  I couldn’t match up a single ranked match and ended up playing casual matches, which still took a very long time to find an opponent.  I did get matched up to a few players around or below my skill level and got to experience real matches of KOF for once; however, a majority of the matches I got put into are of players waaaaaaay beyond my skill level.  I had a player that was ranked “champion” which is the highest rank (the rank goes from 1-30 and then champion, I’m rank 9), and he didn’t even bother playing a second match with me because of how inexperienced I was.  As demoralizing as it was, it felt nice to play KOF with a human player now that I have a basic understanding of the game.  In MB:TL, matching up with a player was better as I didn’t have to wait too long; however, the connection with the players was REALLY bad with a lot of the matches.  I hear the game suffers from one-sided rollback, so one player is feeling input delays and seeing a teleporting opponent while the other player won’t feel much of a difference.  I played against a lot of high level players and a decent amount of players around my skill level.  The new character I was playing “Mario Gallo Bestino” is a puppet character and was a little tougher to learn and play compared to “Powered Ciel” the other new character.  I went up against a lot of P.Ciel and kept losing to neutral because she reaches half way across the screen with her C button.  As much as I want to improve in MB:TL, my friends losing interest in the game and a dwindling online community isn’t very motivating.  I also ended up going back to a lot of older fighting games I haven’t played in a while and playing them again with new perspective as I’ve learned a lot of new things the past 2 years that has helped in learning new fighting games.  I started seeing and doing new things I didn’t notice before in those games and enjoyed them more than I remember from the last time I played them.  Fighting games were definitely a huge time sink the past two months, but I had fun playing them.

Going back to Persona 4, after I finished the game, I started delving into all the other related things I wanted to do but didn’t yet because I wanted to finish the main game.  I started the story for Persona 4 Arena since Ultimax is now available on Steam PC.  I started and finished Persona 4 The Animation within 3 days as I was super hooked.  They did a great job condensing a 100 hour game into 25 episodes.  I also watched Persona 4 The Golden Animation.  And then I watched a show called Trinity Seven.  I really wanted to get back into watching more animé this year since I wanted to last year but barely watched any.

So despite sounding like I’ve barely done anything these past two months, I’ve been kept busy.  I hope I can get back to working on music and language learning in May and perhaps get around to playing console games again, but I have quite a few things I want to still take care of first.  I’ve got to make some decisions and work hard in May, because Summer distractions are approaching.

Stagnation

 It's almost the end of September and three months are left in the year.  As much as everyone wants this year to end so a new one can begin, a lot of what we're facing right now isn't going to go away.  COVID-19 is the biggest problem and threat that we're facing in the world right now.  Even if a vaccine is created, tested safe, and distributed throughout the world, there is the unfortunate chance that this virus could evolve and render the vaccine useless in the future.  I can only hope that life will be better for everyone in the near future rather than the far future.

I feel like I've really stagnated on all progression this past month.  With work, at the very least I finished the audio work I was doing with a friend on a game project.  But since then, I haven't really gotten anything done the past 2 weeks.  It doesn't help that I've been facing a LOT of computer problems the past week and possibly found the culprit.  My portable external hard drive that I use to store all my Steam games has been acting up where it's active 100% and stays pinned there.  Reading and writing data is slow and it might be the cause of the extremely slow game updates on Steam.  It's possible that it's also affecting the slow downs, choppiness and freezing in the games I play, recording, and the long wait time for the computer to shut down.  So I decided to buy a new Desktop external hard drive and have been focusing on transferring all the data to the new one the past few days.

Because I've been playing so much Phantasy Star Online 2 and Guardian Tales, I haven't been playing anything else, really.  I've only complete 2 games last month and 3 games in September, which goes to show how much I've slowed down on game completion and the limited variety of games I've been playing.  The problem with playing PSO2 and Guardian Tales is that I've been mainly doing dailies for them and never really progressing the story or playing the other content.  So even in the only two games I've been playing I have stagnated.  I've been trying to play games with friends a bit more the past two weeks and that has helped break through the monotony that I accidentally put myself into.

Right after I finished that anime rating post from last month, I decided to watch Ryuuou no Oshigoto!  I was expecting it to be cute and funny, but WOW I was left in awe by how dramatic, emotional and passionate the story would be.  The show is about a young 16 year old boy who became Ryuuou, the highest position in the competitive Shogi world where their thoughts and actions help shape the scene of Shogi as it moves forward.  He starts teaching young, grade school girls how to play Shogi with two 9 year old girls in particular who have talent in strategizing and planning far ahead their moves.  Shows like these often follow a similar formula in presenting its niche theme so that anyone can enjoy it.  It's very similar to competitive sport stories where the characters are passionate, love what they do, face insurmountable opposition, deal with defeat, and overcome their own doubts and inhibitions.  I know little to nothing about Shogi, but I felt that I would enjoy the show anyways as I've experienced something similar in reading and watching Hikaru no Go (which I never finished but really want to go back to).  Ryuuou no Oshigoto's story and characters moved me.  The intense emotions that flood over each scene is accentuated through its incredible background music (BGM) and is one of the best I've heard from all the shows I've watched this year.  I wasn't expecting to watch such a good show right after reviewing all the shows I've watched.  Right afterwards, I had remembered that High Score Girl finished its 2nd season.  I decided to re-watch all of the first season again, but this time in Japanese as I lead into the OVAs and the 2nd season.  WOW!  I knew I was going to like it, but I was expecting the story to get THAT much better in the 2nd season.  When I first heard about High Score Girl, I was honestly expecting it to be a slice-of-life comedy and not a romantic comedy.  But I'm very happy with that surprise.  The show was incredibly enjoyable and the best in catering towards its videogame loving audience.  The references really resonated with me as memories of the early 90s flooded my mind.  I loved the show and it quickly became one of my favorites.  I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I decided to read the manga.  I was surprised that the anime actually changed and added things into the anime that wasn't in the manga in the first half while it took things out in the 2nd half.  Overall, I actually liked the anime more.  I ended up playing a decent amount of older Street Fighter games because of all the Street Fighter they talked about in the story.  After that, I had started watching Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-San.  After watching two shows that were so passionate and story driven, it was quite a contrast when I was watching another slice-of-life comedy anime.  While Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-San didn't hook me, I did enjoy it for all the different types of ramen I learned about.  The comedic formula they had between the energetic Yuu with the stoic Koizumi just didn't work for me.  But I loved all the ramen they showed.  I haven't had ramen since March because of the lockdown.  So finishing three shows isn't too bad for a month, but I've definitely slowed down the past two weeks watching Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-San.  I just felt so lost in thought after finishing High Score Girl.

After I finish transferring these files to my new hard drive, I'm going to need to focus.  I want to do one more example track for my portfolio before I put everything together to start applying for jobs.  Genshin Impact released last night and I'm downloading it right now.  I'm hoping to play a lot of it, but that means having to balance it with PSO2 and Guardian Tales all while trying to complete more games.  I'm hoping to watch more anime, too.

Let's rate some Animé! 8-31-20

Another month passes by and soon Summer will come to an end.  It's been an exhausting month, mainly because I keep trying to fix my sleep schedule.  I'm not doing a very good job since I still sleep around 4-5AM and wake up around 12PM.  I figure one of the biggest factors for my insomnia is the fact I don't get enough cardio or do an exercise that would tire me out enough.  I'm still doing push-ups, squats, and planking everyday, but it's not enough.  I decided to purchase a set of resistance bands as an alternative to weights.  I've been contemplating getting a set of weights, but they're several hundred dollars.  The set of resistance bands was only $20.  I've only used them for a week, but I can see the potential in using them.

Aside from worrying about the COVID-19 virus, California was hit by a passing thunder storm that struck lightning up and down the state.  This has caused widespread fires like the ones we experienced back in 2016 (or was it 2017?).  Because of this, the air stinks of smoke and breathing it has caused some coughing for me since I seem to be sensitive to it.

I've been still working on my portfolio, but was also asked to work on some music and sound effects for a game a friend is working on.  I've spent the past 2 weeks working on it and it seems I'll be spending another 1-2 weeks working on another potential track for it.  I'm hoping I can finish putting my portfolio together, do the research for copyright, upload them and be ready to start looking and applying for jobs next month.

I've stagnated on my backlog this past month for videogames.  Aside from playing more Ghost of Tsushima (which I also haven't played much of this past month), I got swept up in doing events for Borderlands 3, 100% Orange Juice, and Phantasy Star Online 2.  I also picked up Ogre Tale at launch and picked up Gunfire Reborn to play with my friends, which happen to be the only 2 games I completed in August.  Besides that, I've also been playing a new mobile game called Guardian Tales.  While it's not like I'm disappointed with the time I've spent on these games, I also feel like I've been running on auto-pilot and playing them because I felt like I should rather than because I really wanted to.  It still boils down to "wanting to do too much, not enough time in the day to do them all."

I found myself watching a lot of animé this year and it's the most I've watched since college over a decade ago.  It's a nice feeling watching animé again.  I thought it'd be fun to kind of reflect on them and rate them as a change in pace from my usual posts this year.  So let's get to it!

Animé I've watched this year in 2020

Amagi Brilliant Park

Aho Girl

Bofuri

Bokutachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai

Comic Girls

Demi-chan wa Kataritai

Eromanga Sensei

Gabriel Dropout

Little Witch Academia

Magical Sempai

Masamune-kun no Revenge

Net-juu no Susume

Outbreak Company

Sakura Wars

Ueno-san wa Bukiyou

Amagi Brilliant Park - Fantasy, Comedy

I knew about this show because of this one scene where the pink cat-like character says "Simply put, we need to go lewder."  It was a meme and I thought it was funny.  So when I saw this show recommended off from another show I had just finished, I decided to give it a shot.  It's about an amusement park at the verge of shutting down and requires it flourishing for the stakes are beyond just monetary gain.  It was fun, it was weird, but it's not a show I can easily recommend.

Aho Girl - Comedy, Slice-of-Life

This is one of those short-episode type shows, and so I ended up watching the whole thing in one sitting.  It's a simple premise of a really smart guy who doesn't know how to socialize always being chased down by a really dumb girl.  A lot of its humor is slap-stick comedy and it absurdity.  I really enjoyed the show and while it's not for everyone, I can easily recommend giving it a try if you're looking for comedy.

Bofuri: Itai no wa Iya nano de Bōgyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu / I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense - Fantasy, Action

It's one of those Light Novels that has those ridiculously long names, and so they often get shortened, nicknames like Bofuri.  I never heard of this show and was recommended by a friend who said I'd like it for its gaming setting and cute characters.  Kaede Honjou plays a VRMMORPG for the first time with a friend who's familiar with gaming.  The Kaede doesn't know much about games and figured maxing out her defense would prevent her from getting hurt.  But little does she know that she accidentally finds the most over-powered build and continually find ways to break the game by becoming even stronger than what the developers intended.  It's a cute show and I'd recommend it to those who enjoy and understand Online Role-playing games.

BokuBen: Bokutachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai / We Never Learn - Harem, Romantic Comedy, Slice-of-Life

I first heard about this show from a Under Night In-Birth meme since one of the characters look like Orie.  As I started watching more animé this year, this particular show's clips kept appearing in my recommended list on Youtube and I decided to watch it.  Nariyuki Yuiga is a young high school boy who's working towards getting a scholarship into a good college so that he can get a good job to bring his family out of poverty.  While he was considered, he was given the condition of helping 3 other female students get into their choice of school and study before given the scholarship.  The other 3 students happen to be geniuses at what they do, but oblivious when it comes to their choice of study.  I don't even remember the last time I watched a harem animé, but it was a little nostalgic (one of my favorite animé is Love Hina).  I loved the character development, seeing them grow, improve, and come to understand one another as they all struggle with their own personal goals and issues.  It was definitely one of the most enjoyable shows I watched this year.  I can't wait for the next season.

Comic Girls - Comedy, Slice-of-Life

Kaoruko Moeta aspires to be a manga author depicting the fun life of a high school girl.  After countless rejections, Kaoruko was recommended to stay at a dormitory with other young manga artists and learn more about writing a manga and about living a normal high school life.  It was cute and funny, but I know this type of Slice-of-Life comedy doesn't appeal to a lot of people.

Demi-chan wa Kataritai / Interviews with Monster Girls - Comedy, Supernatural, Slice-of-Life

I've been hearing about this show for a while, but didn't think much about it since I wasn't watching animé at the time.  It was one of the shows my friend recommended and so I watched it as soon as I could.  Demi-humans such as vampires and dullahans exist in the world and has since been accepted by society.  Biology teacher, Tetsuo Takahashi, wants to learn more about such beings is at a loss when his research begins and ends with what is common known or researched and dreamed about meeting the actual ones.  To his surprise he meets a vampire, dullahan, snow woman, and succubus at the school he teaches at.  As he interviews each of these demi-humans, he helps them understand more about themselves as he learns more about them.  It's wholesome and heart-warming despite a lot of humor involved.  This was also a show I loved and can easily recommend.

Eromanga Sensei - Romantic Comedy

I was expecting a lot of cute moments and character development between Masamune (main character) and Sagiri (Eromanga Sensei).  I was also expecting it to be light and cheery.  But the very first thing that happens is Masamune explaining how their parents re-married so that he and Sagiri became step-siblings and that their parents had passed away sometime after which left Masamune taking care of a room-ridden Sagiri who won't even look at him anymore.  It was a shocking and confusing show to me because it defied my expectations for it.  I really liked it, but felt the priorities were off the mark.  All the characters other than Eromanga Sensei were very interesting and got a lot of character development.  And while Sagiri is very cute and gets some cute moments, she is rather unbearable a majority of the show (though it's kind of hard to blame her given the circumstances).  I really like the character Elf Yamada.  She had SO much screen time, character development, and opportunities that make her that much more interesting.  Honestly, she feels like the main character.

Gabriel DropOut - Comedy, Supernatural, Slice-of-Life

Gabriel, a young angel who graduated at the top of her class, is sent down to Earth to help guide humans towards happiness and prosperity.  Unfortunately for her, she comes across an MMORPG and becomes addicted.  The show revolves around the life of two angels and two demons going to a human school together where most of the humor is driven by irony.  It was mildly entertaining, but it's not a show I want to watch again.

Little Witch Academia - Coming-of-Age, Magical Fantasy

This was actually the catalyst that got me to start watching animé again this year.  I started watching this show two years ago to gain an understanding of it before I bought and played the game Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time.  Having held off on it for so long, I decided to finish it and started watching it again.  Atsuko Kagari watches a magic show as a young girl and is inspired to become a witch herself so that she can spread magic and happiness to the world.  The plot is well conceived with a diverse and interesting cast of characters with personality and lovable traits.  The character development is well paced and engaging as the viewer watches Atsuko learn and grow while affecting all those around her.  The animation is impeccable with its dynamic expressions and techniques based on comedic situations or action scenes.  This was definitely the highest quality show I watched this year and one I could call a masterpiece.

Magical Sempai - Comedy

Senpai wants to save the magic club and tries to bring in new members by performing magic for them.  Another short episode animé, this was the only show I watched this year where I felt disappointed and didn't like.  Most of its jokes weren't funny and a lot of the humor were attempted to be covered by "fanservice", which really didn't cut it.  I watched it all the way through, so it wasn't awful, but it was rather forgettable and didn't leave much of an impression.

Masamune-kun no Revenge - Romantic Comedy

After being cruelly rejected by the beautiful Aki Adagaki as a child, Masamune Makabe decides to concoct a plan to make himself incredibly attractive and popular to make Aki fall desperately in love with him so that he can reject her spectacularly.  The overall writing for its plot is well paced and incredibly engaging.  I couldn't get enough!  I do think some of the character development and relationship building wasn't polished enough or get enough attention, but the way the story kept surprising me and got me hooked left such an impression that I couldn't stop thinking of this show.  It has so many memorable moments.  Sadly, it doesn't seem like it will get a second season.  Thankfully, the manga was finished and so I fervently read through the whole series and absolutely loved it.  It is a bit flawed in character development for the side characters and the ending felt rushed, but WOW I haven't felt like this watching an animé or reading a manga in a long time.  It has some aspects of a Shoujo romance and some aspects of a shonen harem.  It's a unique story that I haven't experienced before.  I felt quite emotionally invested in the characters.  I think I could only recommend this show to those who like romance and is willing to transition into reading the manga as the animé ends with you wanting more but can't deliver.

Net-juu no Susume / Recovery of an MMO Junkie - Romantic Comedy, Slice-of-Life

30 year old Moriko Morioka is a successful career woman who decides to leave the working world to fulfill her wish of leading a peaceful and enjoyable life of a NEET.  Having the MMORPG she used to play get shut-down, she decides to find and play a new MMORPG where she met new players and cultivated new relationships.  But some chance encounters in real-life starts crossing into her gaming life and can no longer be ignored.  Can she continue to lead the life of an Elite NEET?  Honestly, the show is slow and it's possible that it won't get another season as the manga has also been discontinued due to the author's health issues from allowing her to continue.  Despite that, I couldn't stop watching and I kept wanting to see that one moment (you'll know it if you ever start watching it).  I liked it, but it's sad to know that it's probably a story we won't get to see a conclusive resolution to.

Outbreak Company - Comedy, Fantasy

This was a surprising show that I ended up really liking.  My friend actually recommended me against watching it as he didn't find it that enjoyable and I found out after finishing the show that a lot of people didn't like the show, either.  Shinichi Kanou, a hardcore Otaku who loves every aspect of the culture, applies to a job looking for an expert in Otaku culture.  During an interview, he's drugged and wakes up in an unfamiliar world where dragons, elves and dwarfs exists.  Shinichi is to take on the job of introducing Otaku culture into this new and unfamiliar world of Medieval fantasy.  While I was expecting the whole "Otaku culture is great" shtick, I was not expecting the whole political aspect, class struggle, and racism to be involved.  It was a fun show and an easy watch.  I want to recommend it, but the fact that so many people didn't like makes me question my taste in animé.

Sakura Wars - Adventure, Mecha, Sci-Fi, Shounen

I've been interested in the Sakura Wars franchise for the longest time.  But the fact that most of the games never came to America and it was difficult to find the animé back in High School, I never found a way to really get into it.  The sixth and newest Sakura Wars games in the mainline series was brought to America this year and I pre-ordered and played it.  Sadly, the game was incredibly cliché, corny, and the total opposite of what I expected.  What got me interested in the series is that every game has incredible openings with the music composed by Kohei Tanaka.  The opening of each game showed thrilling action, touching camaraderie, emotional drama; they were so memorable and left such an impression it's hard not to be left in awe.  I started questioning "has the games and anime always been like this?  Or is this just the product far detached from the original?"  So I started looking up gameplay footages of the original and I realized a lot of scenes and moments in the newest game are homages to the original, and yet they don't quite have the same impact.  The biggest problem I have with the newest game is that everything felt contrived and artificial.

Despite all that, I went into watching the original animé with an open-mind and my god, my mind was blown.  For a game/animé that is heavily involved in romance, I found it odd that the characters weren't particularly attractive at glance and their default personality aren't amiable either.  But as each character is featured and interacts with the others, you slowly understand them and find aspects about them that view them favorably.  At a certain point, I found myself emotionally invested in all of the characters.  Their struggles, their goals, their fears, their pride and determination all felt so real, it just brought the whole world of Sakura Wars to life.  "This is what I was hoping for and more!" I thought when I finished the show.  It is, hands down, the best show I watched this year and well deserved for its reputation of being a masterpiece.  It made me appreciate the newest Sakura Wars a little more, but it still pales in comparison by a large margin to the original.

Ueno-san wa Bukiyou / How Clumsy you are, Miss Ueno - Comedy

This is another one of those short episode anime that you can get through in one sitting.  Ueno is a brilliant girl who can make anything she thinks of, except making Tanaka aware of her feelings for him.  It's short, it's cute, but it's not good enough for me to recommend.

So for a quick run-down of all the shows I watched this year:

Masterpiece: I can definitely recommend watching

Little Witch Academia

Sakura Wars

Recommended: I liked it a lot and can recommend it to most people

Bofuri

Bokutachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai

Demi-chan wa Kataritai

Enjoyable: I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure if I could recommend it to just anyone

Amagi Brilliant Park

Aho Girl

Eromanga Sensei

Masamune-kun no Revenge

Outbreak Company

Fun: I might have liked it, but I don't think others will

Comic Girls

Net-juu no Susume

Not Recommended: It's not something I'd watch again

Gabriel Dropout

Magical Sempai

Ueno-san wa Bukiyou

Well, that was fun.  Maybe I'll do this again after watching some more shows this year.  I've accumulated quite a bit of new shows on my queue list to watch, so there's no shortage of what I can watch.

Working on portfolio again

I've been getting back into working on my portfolio again and I think I can finish sometime next month.  I've completed one track so far and I'm around halfway to finishing a 2nd one.  I think I'll have, at most, 1-2 more tracks I want to create before I start looking into things like copyright, distribution, and researching jobs to apply for.  It's been a busy month and, once again, it felt like it just blew by so quickly.

I spent a great deal of time playing through the DLCs of Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet this month.  I expected them to be around 1-2 hours each (so about 5-8 hours max altogether), but I spent around 30 hours by the time I finished.  The levels of enemies were spiking so quickly in the DLC that I finally caved in and switched the difficulty from Normal to Easy.  It was nice playing the game again, but I needed to free up some hard drive space which was why I was trying to finish it up and uninstall the game.  Ghost of Tsushima released a week and half ago on PS4 and so far it's really fun.  I've wanted a Samurai simulator game for the longest time that had quality to it, a fun and authentic combat system, and a feel of a wandering samurai.  While I am enjoying the game a lot, I also need to free up more space on my PC as it was announced today that Phantasy Star Online 2 will be on Steam on August 5th (thank goodness).  I just hope it fixes all the launcher problems and allow me to play the game again after all the trouble Windows Store and Windows Update put me through last month.

I also kind of got back into watching anime again.  I've been trying to make time and fit in an episode or three each day.  I'm just a bit worried that it'll interfere with productivity and distract me.  I've been getting a lot of recommended anime clips on Youtube since I've been looking up clips of anime I've been watching recently, and I've been mainly been distracted by those as it keep recommending me a lot of shows I've never heard of that seems interesting.

I think August will be another busy month with a lot of work.  I'm still really lost and unclear about my future as it seems bleaker than previous years with the way the world is right now.  I'm looking forward to getting more audio work done, regardless.

Maintaining my health

I wanted to take better care of myself this year because I became rather ill in November and December last year and the same thing happened in 2012.  I can't say that it's been working out this year.  Around April and May, I suffered through a string of problems with allergies, then back pains, and then stomach problems, etc.  I got better and felt pretty healthy throughout the summer.  And then all of a sudden I started feeling not right yesterday.  In the past 2-3 months, I've been experiencing my heart skipping out of nowhere.  It doesn't hurt and it feels no different from the heart skipping when you get excited, surprised, or something of the nature that causes shock; however, I've been experiencing it in normal situations such as when I'm just sitting or lying down.  I looked it up and found out it's called "heart palpitations" which occur for a number of reasons.  Since they were very rare, I thought nothing of it.  But yesterday, I was experiencing frequently throughout the day.  I tried not to think about it too much and hoped that it would go away the next day.  But I was experiencing it even more today and it got to a point I was starting to feel dizzy.  It could be anything that triggered it: I ate a bunch of spicy food on Halloween day, the weather became very cold just yesterday, I haven't been getting enough sunlight (Vitamin D), I haven't been exercising regularly and exercise too hard when I do go to the gym (I go about 1-2 times a week recently), the sudden change in time for the end of Daylight Saving Time, or I'm really hungry and it's causing problems.  I'll admit that I have a problem of going to sleep really late and often pass a good amount of time without eating which has caused various problems for me in the past (sour stomach, feeling sick, headaches,etc.).  I did wake up with a headache and feeling hungry this morning while I experienced the heart skipping.  And now that I've actually had two meals throughout the day, my heart stopped skipping as much.  I still feel hungry and have a headache.  I need to seriously go to sleep earlier today.  I also need to add that 2 nights ago, one of my bottom tooth on my right jaw started to hurt when I chew food.  I don't know if it's a cavity or sensitivity, but it's tiring chewing only on the left side.

It can also be triggered by anxiety, which I don't really feel like I am.  But it's possible that it's subconscious.  Something I never mentioned on my blog here or even to anyone else is that for the past half year, I've been experiencing an eerie phenomenon that every time I check the clock it says 4:44.  It's been appearing in other places such as the games I play: a score of 444, remaining gold of 444, etc.  As you might know, the number 4 is bad luck in Chinese and in a lot of Asian culture because it sounds a lot like the word "death".  What's also confusing is that in Chinese superstition, 4 is actually a lucky number for those who are born in the year of the Rabbit.  So what the heck am I supposed to believe?  I actually try not to think of it.  I also can't deny the fear of my own mortality.  It was just two years ago that my friend and distant-cousin, Jessica, had passed away from cancer.  She was barely 25 years old.  Although I wasn't very close to her, I took it really hard and couldn't bring myself to even see her before she had passed.  Then this past February, Monty Oum (who was very influential to me as an artist and got me interested in animation) was announced to have passed away at the age of 33 from an allergic reaction during a simple medical procedure.  Just last week, Miyu Matsuki passed away from acute pneumonia at the age of 38.  I mainly know her roles for Hisui from Melty Blood & Carnival Phantasm and for Harumi Fujiyoshi from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei.  She also voiced the character Lailah in Tales of Zestiria, which just released here 2 weeks ago.  What I fear right now is going without even putting anything substantial out in the world.  I have so many ideas and so much work I want to do and so much of life I want to experience before that happens.  I don't think anything is seriously wrong with me, but it doesn't stop of the fear of that possibility.


I have been trying to take better care of myself, but perhaps I've been neglecting going to sleep early and going out for sunlight.  I had fixed my sleep schedule for a short time in the middle of summer, but quickly lost control of it again.  There's just too much I want to do in a day and I never really feel like doing any of it during the morning and feel more "right" during the afternoon and night.  Because of the summer heat, I haven't been walking out as much.  So I've been lacking Vitamin D, again.  I've also been working really hard on my remix project the past 2 months so I haven't been going to the gym as regularly.  I'm down to the last 3 remixes in the album remix for The Guardian Legend and am keen on finishing it quickly so I can work on new projects.  I already have plans on finding making new original compositions so I can put it on my portfolio as new work and start advertising those on my resumé.  I also have a ton of new remix ideas that will help me work more efficiently and get the most out of what I want from the projects.

Because I've been working a bit harder, I didn't complete that many games in October.  I finished up Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms and was pretty disappointed with it.  I bought another top-down, Action-RPG yesterday on sale in hopes of playing a fun party based RPG (It's called Kyn.  It's kind of like Krater where you control multiple characters.  Krater had 3, Kyn has 6 characters you control in live time).  I also finished Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson which I loved.  I'm still playing it to max out levels and bought the 3 DLC packs with new campaigns.  I'll probably write a long rant about it once I feel completely satisfied with playing it.  It's a really fun beat-em-up.  As I've mentioned in the past few months, I've been watching Angry Video Game Nerd reviews again and started watching their other videos.  In one of them, Mike Matei talks about some obscure SNES games that he found was worth playing.  One of those games was Run Saber which I tried out.  It was okay.  I'm reminded more of the fact that there was thunder and lightning loud and bright enough that it lit up the house and made the ground shake that night I was playing.  I finally finished Lost Planet 3 and immediately deleted it.  It was a rather mediocre game.  Traversing and quest collecting was slow and boring.  The combat was okay, but I think I only experienced it half the time playing the game.  I recorded an iOS game as completed for once!  I've been playing a game called Retimo Adventure the past few months and finally reached the end of story mode in which it prompted a message "to be continued".  It's an interesting mobile RPG where it's mostly about party management by leveling up characters, skill levels, equipment, and rank.  What got me initially interested was that it claimed to "redefine the concept of cuteness" which sounded ridiculous, but I couldn't deny the characters in the game looked really cute.  I'm still playing it now to get my characters stronger and try to climb the PvP rank ladder.  For the past few weeks, I've also started playing Gamecube again to finish the 2 games I borrowed from my friend over a year ago.  I finished Super Mario Sunshine and had one heck of a frustrating experience playing that game.  Now I'm frustrating myself with Mega Man Network Transmission.  I might write a rant about Super Mario Sunshine because there's a lot to say about that game.  I finally got around to playing and finishing Dark Void which only required 2 sittings to finish (4.8 hours of playtime).  Despite the negative feedback from critics and steam users, the game was really fun.  The jumping and flying was really fun for me, at the very least.  I do think that combat wasn't the best and was, at times, annoying to shoot an entire clip towards an enemy and still not kill them.  Lastly, I beat a game called "Cast of the Seven Godsends" on Halloween day as I was itching for a Ghosts 'n Goblins game.  It wasn't very good.  Just this past weekend, Dying Light was on sale for $30 and a 4-pack was $90.  I discussed it with my friends and we decided that I'll buy the 4-pack while they bought me games on steam to pay back the amount as giving money to each other is a bit difficult.  So along with Dying Light, I got 9 games altogether that night.  Then just 2 nights ago, BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma Extend and Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- finally went on sale for $20 each.  Adding with buying Kyn last night, I have accumulated 12 games in the span of one week.  I felt really happy with the new games I got and been trying to enjoy them before I started feeling "not right" yesterday and today.

In terms of animé, I've been trying to watch all the cute ones.  I watched Wakaba Girls, the 2nd season of Kiniro Mosaic, the 2nd season of Non Non Biyori, and today I started watching the 3rd season of Fate/Kaleid.  I was going to start watching Devil May Cry or Nobunaga Concerto, but my heart skipping making me feel ill today made me decide to watch something cute and funny instead.  The 2nd season of Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka? (Is the Order a Rabbit?) is airing right now and I'm definitely watching it when it finishes.  When I'm not feeling well, I want cuteness to help me get through it.

I wrote quite a bit...I just want to feel normal again so I can finish up my remixes and start on the new projects...

A Sluggish September

September passed by really quickly despite how I've been feeling.  I've been feeling lethargic this past month and I can't quite explain the source of the problem.  I've been still working, still going to the gym, and still playing games at night, and yet I don't quite want to do exactly those things.  That is to say, I want to work on a project that isn't the one I'm doing right now.  I rather be playing ping-pong, tennis or some other sport than run on elliptical and lift weights.  I want to play all the other games and not the ones I'm playing right now.  And then there just some days I don't want to do anything.  My father explains that most people don't want to do anything during this time of year.  It doesn't seem too long ago where I didn't have a choice and I'd be going to school right about now.  And yet, it also feel like a long time ago as I've gone through a lot of changes and learned a lot over the past 5 years.  I'm reminded of how I felt when I was still in college: I didn't want to be there.  I wanted to be working in the industry already so I could learn, grow, and contribute.  Perhaps that's what I'm feeling right now?  Perhaps I'm not satisfied with just doing the projects I'm doing right now?  As much as I would like a job composing and producing music for a videogame, I can't deny that I'm enjoying the experiments and projects I've been doing the past 2 years to expand my knowledge of various musical genres as well as improving my production quality for a cleaner and dynamic sound from my music.  I'm working on the next remix to the Guardian Legend Remix Album, but having difficulties constructing it together.  Just this past week, my sister visited home since Christmas and so I held off on working.  I've been away from my sister for so long now that I miss her more and more each time we part ways.  She's grown so much and matured into such a responsible adult, and yet I still worry about her.  It's obvious she's worried about me as she continues to encourage me to make my breakthrough and move down to SoCal already and start working at a game company.  She wants me closer to my friends down in LA and Irvine as well as closer to her so we can hang out on a frequent basis rather than seeing each other twice a year.  I've been constructing plans and trying different approaches the past 2 years so I can make that a reality.  I just hope that it'll have good results.

I don't know why, but it seems every game I play recently just doesn't seem to spark interest or excitement.  Everything I seem to play either frustrates me, disappoints me or does both.  I began the month playing Ghosts 'n Goblins on NES, a game that I've never beat.  I completed Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts last year, but I never got around to playing the original.  I was talking about old games with my friends and was reminded of the Angry Videogame Nerd and ended up watching a lot of his videos again as I didn't watch most of them.

I decided to give the game a try myself.  The game feels a lot more difficult in terms of how it's designed.  It's not surprise that it left me frustrated.  I've been having an itch to play a beat-em-up again and saw Double Dragon Neon.  I've heard all the warnings and did my research, but I still caved in when the game was but a mere $2.  The game had great atmosphere and presentation with its 80's themed environment, music, and cheesy dialogues; however, the game was frustrating.  The wanted to keep the game close to its origins with clunky combat and tough enemies.  There were so many things about the game that annoyed me: long invincible frames on enemies, weird hit-boxes, being overwhelmed by projectiles, enemies with high HP and super armor, high damage output from the enemies, and the worst one was having to grind to be able to get strong enough to defeat the last boss.  I eventually had to cheat to finish the last boss just like I had to cheat on the last boss on BloodRayne last month (that was pretty bad, too).  Out There Somewhere is a really short indie game with an interesting teleporting mechanic.  I finished that in about an hour and didn't think much of it.  It was kind of fun, but it was also forgettable.  The most memorable thing about the game, besides its main gameplay mechanic, was the reference to Wing Zero's "They set us up the bomb" dialogue in the beginning of the game.  Shoot Many Robots was a game I bought back in 2011, I believe.  I finally got around to playing through Normal mode and stopped there.  I can say that it was a fun game, but I didn't feel compelled to continue playing it on Hard and Very Hard.  Disgaea Infinite was a funny little visual novel game based in the world of Disgaea.  There wasn't much to it, but it did remind me that I really want to play Disgaea.  I really shouldn't have bought Mutant Mudds Deluxe, but I guess I was too curious as to why it was so highly praised.  It's just so "meh" for an Action-Platformer.  I got bored once I completed the light world and didn't even want to bother with the dark world.  Freedom Planet was a pretty good indie game.  It plays a lot like Sonic the Hedgehog with a mix of other platformer elements like Shantae.  The game had beautiful graphics, pretty good music, and personality, but I kind of felt burnt out after playing one run of the game that I didn't really feel like playing it a second time as the other character.  With getting through Ghosts 'n Goblins, I looked up the series and realized I never played through the Vita one.  At first, it seemed a lot more forgiving with multiple lives, and even a sort of health bar.  Then I quickly realized the game is just as difficult with being knocked into pitfalls to be a frequent threat throughout the game.  I eventually got to the end, but was told I needed all 22 gold rings to be worth to enter and fight the last boss.  I didn't want to go item fetching through the whole game again.  It was sort of fun to see so many new weapons, armors, items, and concepts, but it just left me frustrated once again.  STALKER: Clear Sky was kind of fun, but I enjoyed the first game a lot more for some reason considering the game is very similar to the original.  The ending was disappointing and dumb, but I should have expected seeing how it's a prequel to the original.  No Time to Explain came with the Humble Bundle I bought mainly to get Phantom Breaker Battlegrounds on PC for $1.  I've already finished Phantom Breaker: BG twice on PS Vita, but I felt compelled to get it for PC for a larger screen experience at the price of $1.  No Time to Explain was a short and somewhat entertaining game.  But again, I was frustrated with the boss battles because they were purposely made to last long and felt tedious.  After finishing STALKER: Clear Sky, I was looking for the next FPS to play.  I could have installed any of the dozen of FPS games I've bought on steam, but I decided to buy Deadfall Adventures instead for $4 when it was 90% off on the weekly deals.  The game isn't bad, but I can't say I really like it.  The combat competent, at the very least.  What really killed the experience was the puzzles in the game.  I purposely turned puzzles on Easy difficulty and combat on Normal difficulty.  I had fun with the combat, but the puzzles were tedious, boring, and some of them were cryptic.  Ultimately, I was disappointed with my experience with the game.  I'm starting a new string of games on Steam, so hopefully it'll change things around because I'm not in the mood for frustrating and disappointing.  Getting through Lords of the Fallen is starting to become difficult because it's fun, but it's hard.  That, in turn, sometimes makes it frustrating.

The one game I have hope for is Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson, of which I pre-ordered back in July and finally got this past Saturday.  When I started it up, I was a little worried.  The camera handling can be pretty whacky at times and you can't really control it.  Aside from that, the number of changes the game has gone from its previous two titles have really added a layer of dynamics and fresh perspective on the game.  I have to play differently from how I did from Burst or Shinovi Versus, which is totally okay.  The game is also a lot tougher this time around where I've failed a few missions on the beginning already.  But it doesn't upset me or make me mad.  In fact, it gets me excited to face such a challenge in the game.  I'm always so thankful that I got into the series in the first place because each game has been so entertaining and I've been able to enjoy them with the exception of Bon Appétit, that wasn't a very good game.  Combat has so much more going on now that I can't approach battle as directly as I did before.  It'd probably be easy if I actually played the side-missions and grinded, but I realized that I've enjoyed the series a lot more whenever it was more difficult.  I just want to get over my slump of disappointment and frustration in games and be able to have fun with one.

On an ending note, I ran into a new animé.  It's really cute:

Fighting games and MORE fighting games!

This year was supposed to be all about RPGs as I tried to cut down on buying games and focus on the longer games I have in my collection of backlogged games.  And yet, I'm about to make several purchases all relating to the fighting games genre as a slew of games releases for the Fall.  But I guess I should talk a little about work before I get on to games.

It's been a while since I've brought out my Mix Turn-Table and messed around with it.  I played around for it a bit and decided to do some mixes.  So far, I've made 3 mixes: a slower, harder electronic mix; a somewhat faster and upbeat electronic mix; a vocal electronic mix; and then I have 2 other mixes planned (a Trance mix and a Drum 'n Bass mix).  It's a small break from the usual work I do for music, but I've also been looking into job openings and fixing my resumé throughout the month.  Eager to get back into doing some real work with music, I decided to do a remix of the new main theme for Super Smash Bros. 3DS/Wii U.
I started last week and finished last night so that I could upload it today.  Other than remixing the main theme of Super Smash Bros., I also added in a song from Mega Man 2, Pac-Mania, Punch-Out!!, and Xenoblade Chronicles in celebration of the addition of these 4 new characters to the game.  I've gotten to play Mega Man in the demo for Smash Bros., but I'll talk about that a little later.  I'm really not sure what I'm supposed to do right now.  Finding an open position in anything in the game industry is difficult, let alone trying to find one specifically in music composition.  And there's still so many personal projects I want to fulfill.  But it's hard to think about any of that when October is going to be filled with so many distractions!

Super Smash Bros. 3DS releases this Friday on October 3rd, 2014.  That's all I could think about this month!  And somehow, I still managed to work on my resumé and finish 5 music projects (3 mixes, the Super Smash Bros. Remix, and last week I recorded a piano arrangement of a song from Rusty Hearts).
So before I forget, Rusty Hearts shut down this month on the 15th.  I was sad to hear the news but wasn't entirely surprised seeing the low population of the servers.  It was definitely one of my favorite online games with the witty dialogue, dynamic combat mechanics, and entrancing music.

I'm definitely going to buy Super Smash Bros. 3DS this Friday, but I'm also considering on buying Arcana Hearts 3 Love Max!!!!! for the PS Vita since they added new characters and a extra story mode to the very brief story mode for each character they already have.  And since it's a fighting game, it's probably a game I'll play for a really long time so I don't feel as bad getting it at full price.  That's 2 games right there.  Then there's Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus, which I pre-ordered already, that revealed to have a release date of October 14th.  The September 30th date listed was an estimate and not an official release date.  At least it'll give me some time to play Smash Bros. a bit before I get it.  Persona 4 Arena Ultimax comes out tonight, but I might wait to get it.  I also realize I haven't gotten BlazBlue Chronophantasma yet, but I'm waiting for a more definitive version since they keep popping out DLC characters.  Then there's the hope that Dengenki Bunko Fighting Climax will release in the West, Under Night In-Birth gets pushed back to next year, and Yatagarasu Attack on Cataclysm should be releasing sometime soon.  That's a whole lot of Fighting Games!  And fighting games can last a very very long time depending on how much you play them.  I actually haven't been playing that much Fighting games this year as I try to get into my RPGs.  I got through Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2 while I started Lightning Returns (It's pretty fun so far).  I had gotten through StarCraft 2 Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm about 2 months ago (which are not RPGs, but are long overdue in being played).  Still, RPGs wear me out because of how long some of them are and so I fall back on shorter games.  Because of that, I've been playing (and buying) a LOT of platformers.  I think I've bought over a dozen platformers this year if not two dozens.  One of them was Azure Striker Gunvolt, which I knew I wanted to get way before it released since it's by the creators of the Megaman Zero series.  I beat the game fairly quickly but enjoyed it immensely.  It reminded me of the simple yet challenging joy of difficult Action-Platformers.  After beating it, I realized I never beat Megaman Zero 3 and 4 in which I did so shortly after. MMZ 3 was pretty hard while MMZ 4 was stupidly hard.  MMZ 2 was definitely my favorite in terms of overall gameplay and presentation.  But not all the platformers I played were great.  Last month, I mentioned Platformines.  That was fun for a bit and then became stupid and annoying.  Blade Kitten was actually alright.  It was pretty fun, but I wasn't happy to find out that it was a cliff-hanger ending.  Then there was Blood of the Werewolf where it just bugged me throughout the whole game with "why would they design it like this?".  It was also a cliff-hanger ending which I didn't care since I didn't even enjoy the game that much.  The Expendabros was pretty entertaining, and it was free!  It was also only an hour long.  With all these other games, it's hard to focus on the longer ones.  I've been playing Project X Zone for over a year now!  It's fun, but it's hard to get through since it's so long.  Despite my large collection of unplayed games, I continue to buy more games because of sales.  I bought Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies alongside Azure Striker Gunvolt since it was $18 from it's usual $40.  That's hard to pass up!  But I haven't found ANY time to play it, and I'm about to get Smash Bros. for my 3DS which gives me even less reason to play it at the moment!  Even then, I ended up buying Tales of Symphonia Chronicles and Shin Megami Tensei IV (2 more long RPGs!) two days ago since they were on sale for $20 each.  After the incident with Xenoblade Chronicles, I get paranoid about certain games becoming too rare and being sold for unreasonable prices.  All I can do is take it one game at a time.  I'm very close to finishing Ys: Memories of Celceta for the PS Vita.  I like it, it's a fun game!  A part of me thinks it's not as fun as Ys; Oath in Felghana, but I think it's mainly because it's a slightly different experience.  After Ys is Hyperdimension Neptunia PP.  I'm not sure if I can finish that before the end of the week if I really do plan on buying Arcana Heart 3 Love Max!!!!!  Not to mention I still have Persona 4 Golden, but I don't plan on playing it until I play through Persona 3 at least once.  It's still not as bad of a backlog as my 3DS is building up.  I remember when I first got my 3DS, I only had super short games and finished them all.  Because of that, I wanted longer games to play.  Now I have too many long games and I can't finish them in time for the next one!  Other than not knowing what to do for the next month because of difficulty in finding an open position to apply to, I really don't know what to do to pass the time before this Friday in which I'll be playing a LOT of Super Smash Bros.  I guess I'll try to finish Ys: MoC and then play Hyperdimension Neptunia PP.  Waiting for Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus will be a cinch since I'll have Super Smash Bros. to play.

I've been finding a lot of new music to listen to.  One of the things I found to listen to is the soundtrack for Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson.
It's crazy how big Senran Kagura got.  We haven't even gotten Shinovi Versus yet, but Japan already got 3 other Senran Kagura games after that one with a new one announced called "Shinovi Estival" releasing for the PS Vita and PS4 next year.  So far, I really like the music in Senran Kagura 2 - Deep Crimson.  I kind of wish it wasn't so focused on fan-service and busty girls so that the franchise could be as big in the West.  Unfortunately, it probably wouldn't have gotten as big in Japan and thus not worth bringing to the West in the first place.  It can be really hard to favor the audience of both the East (or Japan in particular) and the West.  Still, I'm glad the games are being brought over since I'm enjoying them so much.

I just finished watching an animé called "No Game No Life" and it was great!  It was fast, witty, and unpredictable.  It was also very colorful and wild.  You can't really mistaken it for any other animé, even by just looking at screenshots of it.  I also really liked the BGM as it was very electronic influenced which really made heated parts of the show even more exciting.  The show also makes a TON of references from other animé and games.  I loved the show.  It was fun, exciting, funny, and very cute.  It also ended way too fast.

I think that's enough for now.  My brain can't function correctly right now.  All I can think about it is "Smash Bros."!

I feel tired...why am I tired?

I'm feeling rather lethargic recently, but I haven't been working THAT hard this month.  I've been getting my portfolio straightened out and it's finished!  Or so I thought.  I might be applying to a position that involves working with sound effects and not music.  So now I've got to find some of the work I did with sound effects, which makes me nervous.  Sound effects isn't exactly my forte and I enjoy working with music more.  But it's been exactly 3 years as of this month since I've had a real job, so I need to take advantage of the opportunity now that it's available.  On the bright side, my resumé has been updated and looks stronger.  I've also updated my LinkedIn account, though I really need to add a picture to it.  I guess I mainly feel tired whenever I think about having to look for job openings and going through the whole process of applying since I've done it so many times in the past 4 years.  But once I've gone through some job searches, I want to get back into working with some more projects while I wait for a response back.

I finally have a PS Vita!  Yay!  And then a week after, fans complain that the PS Vita is being ignored entirely by Sony during the Gamescom Convention.  I said I'd buy a PS Vita if Phantasy Star Nova or Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus was being released here in America, and the latter was announced for a physical copy release.  It was quite the day when I decided to buy one, because it was apparently sold out EVERYWHERE.  I went around the city to three different GameStops and 2 Targets and picked up Ragnarok Odyssey ACE and Hyperdimension Neptunia PP while a PS Vita slim Bundle was nowhere to be found.  I decided to go home and buy one from Amazon because I still saw it available 2 days prior that day.  I get on Amazon only to find out that they're sold out and the sellers listed were posting it for $250 rather than the original $200.  I looked online in other stores and every store was sold out other than BestBuy.  So I ended up ordering it online from BestBuy while I bought Ys: Memories of Celceta and Persona 4 Golden along with a PS Vita Slim Grip on Amazon.  Amazingly, I got the PS Vita 2 days after and got to play it over that weekend.  I tried Hyperdimension Neptunia PP for about 40 mintues before I switched it back to Ragnarok Odyssey ACE and decided to take it one game at a time.  I've already accumulated 38 hours on RO ACE in the past 3 weeks and love it!
And I love it even more when my grip came in because it's not comfortable holding the PS Vita, just like the PSP.  The grip makes it less portable, but it's a world of difference in ergonomics.  But the device is not without faults.  It took way too long to just set up the system to play.  The device has WAY too many arbitrary functions and makes me wonder if they would have saved more money if they hadn't spent so much on certain things (besides the applications, there's the backside touch sensor that's rarely used).  It's quite evident that Sony isn't making a huge profit out of the Vita because they're not restocking it in stores and they're not promoting it as often as they should.  I also don't like how the battery life is barely 5 hours.  I have to recharge my PS Vita every 1-2 days while I recharged my 3DS every 6-8 days when I first got it (meaning when I was playing it every day).  Despite its shortcomings, I really like my PS Vita and really enjoy Ragnarok Odyssey ACE as my first game for it.  I can't wait to play all the other games I'll be getting for it.

One game I played a whole bunch recently was Dishonored.  I had heard so much about the game but never really looked into it because I had always planned on getting it when it was cheap enough.  I had purchased it back in Steam Winter Sales 2013 but didn't get around to playing it until the summer time.  I finally played through it all in July and loved it!  I played it through two more times just to try out new things.  First time around, I played it entirely stealth.  Second playthrough, I went as aggressive as possible and killed everyone I came across.  On my last run, I tried to get through the game as fast as possible while killing as few people as possible (which ended up being 4-5 people, I think) and finished at around 3 hours when it took me 18 hours the first time to beat it.  The game's a beautiful mix between Action and Stealth and works so well together.  Dishonored was a really good game and I enjoyed playing it enough time to play it 3 times in a row.  And then I played a bunch of games that I thought was okay or boring.  I finally got through ICO and thought it was okay.  The game's solid with its design and concept, but I was only mildly entertained by it.  The Swapper was also okay.  Although the idea behind the game and level designs were great, I got kind of bored after a while.  Platformines started off being really fun, but became really stupid as I finished it.  It's also one of the very few games where I had to mute the music because it was so distracting and annoying that I couldn't keep it on anymore:
I finally got through Arcania: Gothic 4 and Arcania: Fall of Setarrif this week.  I bought those two games back in Steam Summer Sale 2012.  The game was full of graphic glitches, the combat was boring, the voice acting was really off in a lot of parts, and I was always at a loss of where to go next.  Throughout the entire time, I was wishing I was playing Divinity 2 or Two Worlds 2 instead.  I considered quitting the game many times but was stubborn and kept to it.  Arcania wasn't a very good game, yet I kind of had a fulfilling adventure from it.  Traveling around the open world, meeting all sorts of quirky characters, and fighting a bunch of enemies all felt like an adventure from a fantasy novel.  So in a sense, I enjoyed the experience of adventure and didn't enjoy the gameplay so much.  It's hard to describe the game's worth, but I supposed I can say that I don't regret playing through it.  I also understand why people were so upset with Fall of Setarrif after I finished it in 2.3 hours.  It's essentially a more conclusive ending to the original game, but it wasn't that great.

After completing ICO, I've finally started Final Fantasy XIII-2.  The gameplay is the same and so it's not that exciting; however, I find the story of the game to be compelling and interesting compared to the first one.  I'm enjoying it.

In terms of animé, I've been watching Love Live! School Idol Project.

I remember seeing the game on iOS and downloaded it to play it and thought it was only okay.  You get songs really slowly, and the songs aren't as memorable.  But then a friend recommended that I watch the animé and so I did after I finished "Is the Order a Rabbit?"  I really enjoy the show!  I haven't been paying that much attention to animé since it's already hard to enough to keep up with videogames, but there certainly are a lot of shows I want to watch.  I still lean more towards Slice-of-Life and comedy animé, though.  I'm not sure if I can handle watching anymore depressing shows.  Even so, I feel like I should really watch Attack on Titan and Evangelion (both original and new).

I really do feel tired and just want to play games and watch animé all day, though.  But I think it's a really bad time for me to be doing that right now.  I want to stay productive.  Even if I can find a job opening to apply for, I still want to spend the day making more music and working on projects.  The idea of being able to play games freely and enjoy myself at this time does sound very inviting, though.

Don't end just yet, Summer!

Man, what a crazy month! Starting from June, there was the E3 conference to start off the Summer. Following that was the Steam Summer Sales that began a lot sooner than I thought. Despite my efforts, I still ended up spending twice as much as I wanted to for the sales. Then I started playing Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty while watching the playoffs for DotA 2 on the first week of July. Then EVO 2014 streams started that weekend with some of the craziest matches in fighting game history; One being BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma Grand Finals (Starting at 01:40:58) that had 7 match points before Garireo reached the ultimate victory.  That was definitely THE most intense Grand Final of EVO this year.  I also enjoyed the finals for Super Smash Bros. Melee.  There was also the Grand Final for Ultra Street Fighter IV, which wasn't as exciting; however, there was an interesting fact about the winner: He used a Playstation 1 gamepad throughout the tournament.  I don't know how he did it.  That controller used to give me blisters all the time before they introduced the dual analog sticks.  My favorite EVO moment this year was Justin Wong related, just like last year.


Starting at 12:18.  It's the last match with 2 points for both players, and the victor will move onto the Grand Finals.  Justin Wong is down to his Akuma, who can easily be taken out in one combo, and Filipino Champ had brought out his Phoenix with a level 5 meter which transforms her into Dark Phoenix.  At that pivotal moment when Filipino Champ got the hit confirm at 12:26, I immediately thought "it's over, Justin lost..."  But to my surprise, Filipino Champ X-Factored and dove in WITH his support out to hopefully end it right there.  In that crucial moment, Justin Wong was able to react to it with a Messatsu-Goshoryu, (a special Shoryuken/Dragon Punch) which has a good amount of frames of invincibility during start-up, and make contact with both characters of Filipino Champ which finished the match right there.  I kept wondering if it would have been different if Filipino Champ was a bit more patient and stalled those last 20 seconds (Justin Wong used to do that ALL the time!).  Still, it was one of those great moments that makes watching these matches streamed live worth it.  Right after EVO was the DotA 2 International which holds the record for highest reward pot of over $10 Million in e-sports history.  Unfortunately, I've been so worn out from watching so many streams, keeping up with work, and trying to clear games that I didn't follow The International very closely and ended up missing the Grand Finals.  I heard it was pretty decisive and wasn't that fun to watch compared to the lower brackets and early playoffs.

In between all that news following, game buying, and stream watching madness, I managed to get some work done.  I had finished the Ultima Exodus Remix Project I've been working on and successfully uploaded all 10 tracks on Youtube.


All 10 tracks are in that player there.  With the project finally completed, I started finishing up loose ends with projects I was working on before this week.  Right after that, I'm going to need to start looking at job openings again, but this time for Audio rather than Quality Assurance.  It's causing a bit of stress as more time passes and my chances of finding a job becomes slimmer.  But I refuse to give up and work at a job that I won't allow me to get better with music and learn more about game development.  Until I find one, I might continue doing more remix projects, because remix, arranging, and covering videogame music has been something I've been wanting to do all my life and wasn't able to until just recently.

In terms of games, I'd say I've been playing a lot more enjoyable games compared to what I played back in April and May.  I finally got around to finishing Dragon's Crown and was presented with end-game content with a lot more I can do!  It was surprising to see after the credits ended and there was more to the game.  I finally got around to finishing Dead Rising 2 as well, and it was so painful.  There were some aspects I really enjoyed out of the game, but it mostly frustrated me.  There isn't much to say about it.  One of my friends bought me Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae for my Birthday and I played it days after and finished it pretty quickly.  For a Indie developed Hack-n-Slash, I thought it was solid.  It was challenging, had a lot of combo options and skills, a decent amount of unlockables, and a very pretty main character.  Phantasy Star Portable, I've had on my PSP since 2009 and never beat because of how incredibly grindy it got at the end.  I tried one last time as I've played it off and on for the past 4 years after graduating, but I still wasn't able to defeat the final form of the last boss and so I gave up.  I watched the ending cinematics on Youtube and considered the game to be finished under my excel sheet.  Magicite was one of the games I bought during the Steam Summer Sale.  It's an Action-Platformer with crafting aspects and rogue-like elements.  It's like a mix between Terraria and Risk of Rain.  I played the game quite a bit with two of my friends and I managed to finally beat it twice: once solo and the 2nd time with my friends.  I also finished Resident Evil 6 with a friend recently and really enjoyed it a lot!  I can see why a lot of fans are upset with it as it's a lot less about exploration, puzzles, and horror and a bigger focus on Action and cooperative play.  I thought Capcom did a great job making a fun co-op game with long-time favorite characters of the series.  I had bought a lot of 2D platformers during the Steam Summer Sale and ended up being very disappointed in a lot of them.  Inescapable was short, boring, and had a dumb ending.  Oniken had incredible cutscenes that truly felt like a NES game, but took some of the worst aspects of Action-platformers for its game play and design.  Ultionus: A Tale of Petty Revenge, I didn't have much expectations for, but I bought it because Jake "Virt" Kaufman created the music for it.  The game wasn't that great, but the ending credits song by A_Rival is amazing!

Then there were 2D platformers I got that were pretty good or incredible!  1001 Spikes is one of the incredible ones!  There are so many games that want to capture the retro, 8-bit era magic of games but don't quite get it other than mimicking the graphics with some annoying chip-tunes that screams "generic videogame music!"  But 1001 Spikes seems to get it right!  Rather than emulating a game for the NES and saying that it's retro, it has all the concepts of a retro game with a modern mind behind it.  1001 Spikes is a difficult, troll-a-thon, platformer that consists of very short, but very challenging levels that are all intricately designed with a defined concept behind it.  Every jump, every enemy, and every trap are carefully placed for reasons of player reaction, challenge, and opposition.  It's a game where you will die a lot but learn from with each try with a satisfaction of completion at the end of each level.  Memorization is required and so is quick reflexes and reactions.  Much like Dragon's Crown, I thought I had completed the game when it starts playing a cinematic and then presents more gameplay at the end!  Besides the many modes and content available, there's also a ton of extra characters to play as.  Some that are quite familiar from other game franchises.  It's just one surprise after another with this game, and I love it!  The last Hardcore platformer I played that felt this great was Super Meat Boy.  One of the secret characters in 1001 Spikes is Nyx from NyxQuest.  I remembered the game but never got it, and so I did during the Steam Summer Sale.  It was a short 3 hour adventure, but it had some really nice gameplay that utilizes the mouse to move everything around and the keyboard to jump, fly and glide towards safety.  It was a pretty fun game and I only hated one of the levels.  Another 2D platformer I got that I absolutely loved was Abyss Odyssey.  I actually pre-ordered it and didn't even know much about it.  I saw a trailer for it during E3 and said "it looks kinda like Castlevania and I'm craving for a Metroidvania game right now."  There were many surprises in store for me in this game as the combat system is inspired by fighting games, particularly Super Smash Bros.  Fighting is similar to Super Smash Bros. with the ability to skill cancel like in Street Fighter or the game Valdis Story.  The game has some rogue-like elements where the levels, enemies, item placements, shops, and altars are randomly generated.  This game is also very tough, but not in the same way as 1001 Spikes.  Contrary to 1001 Spikes, you CAN'T memorize anything in Abyss Odyssey since everything changes every time you play.  The combat system has a lot of depth to it for being so heavily associated with Super Smash Bros. and it kept me wanting more as I played the game.  The music is great too!

Along with the game, I also get the soundtrack for free for pre-purchasing and I'm glad I did.  I'd say I played Magicite (23 hours) and Abyss Odyssey (25 hours) the most recently.  Others games I've completed recently are: StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty (working on Heart of the Swarm now), Killer is Dead (which I loved), and Sniper Elite V2 (it was sorta fun).

I've got a lot of stuff ahead of me in the next month such as looking for a job in audio, finishing up projects, and clearing more of my backlog.

P.S. I started watching an animé called Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka? (Is the Order a Rabbit?) and it's so cute I can't contain myself!

Summer heat is gettin' hazy and makin' me lazy

Oh, I was a fool to think I could finish a remix of 5 songs in 2 weeks!  It's been 5 weeks and I've finished 4 of the songs to the 5 part orchestral remix.  I just need to buckle down and I should be able to finish the last one this week.  The problem is that I've been having a serious case of lethargy this past month.  I don't feel as motivated to work.  I've been skipping going to the gym a lot.  And even when playing games, I feel tired.  It could be because Summer is approaching and the heat is wearing me out.  It could be because I've been conditioned to feel this way since most of my life was spent going to school and studying hard all year long and then always getting ready to relax during Summer Break.  It could be that no matter how hard I work right now, there's no guarantee that it'll help me find a job whatsoever.  All I know is I don't feel like doing much other than relaxing.  It's true that I've been feeling kind of down for the past 2 months or so (not depressed, just down), and I'm not quite sure what the reason is.  I just plan on finishing this remix project and try looking for a job once more before going back to more music projects I have lined up.  As much as I want to remix more music, I'd really like to do some more composition and create original music.  I'm stuck in a place in my life where the path is hazy.  I'm not sure what I should do or where it will lead me.  I know where I want to go in my career, but I don't know if I'll get what I want out of it seeing how the Videogame industry has drastically changed throughout the past few years.  I'm still going to keep at it, though.  I can' imagine doing anything else in life and I really do enjoy creating music a lot at the moment.

I haven't really been watching that much animé compared to the previous months as I haven't completed a single series yet.  Actually, no.  I finished Kiniro Mosaic today!
I've been watching that and Accel World for the past month but have been leisurely watching it during Breakfast or Lunch.  Accel World has its moments and it's pretty interesting, but it got to a point in the story where it made me feel angry and frustrated (due to a villain in the story, not because it's bad).  I'm almost done with it (5-6 more episodes, I think?)  So instead, I've been switching off with Kiniro Mosaic because it's cute and makes me feel happy with each episode.  I was a bit sad finishing it today and wanted more.

Looking back at my completed games list, I realized I've been on a rampage since my last post.  I've completed 18 games from then till now!  X-Blades actually turned out to be really fun and unique and reminded me a bit of Chaos Legion.  I've started up Blades of Time right after, but have only completed the first level.  Another game I finished was DmC: Devil May Cry for PS3.  It was actually a pretty fun game!  It was really weird in the beginning because the character designs, the music, the style and dialog wasn't the Devil May Cry I knew and love, but it was one I could tolerate.  You get most of your abilities outright near the beginning of the game, yet they were able to keep the game interesting and engaging throughout the play through.

I made the (possibly poor) decision to buy two bad games earlier in the month and suffered through one of them.  Day One: Garry's Incident was a notorious title to the community due to the developer's act of trying to shut down a game critic's channel after releasing a negative opinion on the game despite having given the authority to review it by the developer themselves.  Well, I played through the game and it truly was as bad as people have said it was.  There were tons of glitches and bugs throughout the game.  The enemies were numerous and obnoxious.  The survival aspects were arbitrary and didn't really add anything fun to the game.  And the level design for the middle portion of the game was a monster I had no patience for.  How I would break down the game is this: Prologue - Tons of monkeys throwing rocks at you - a large, boring labyrinth you have to navigate - more monkeys with tons of traps everywhere - End.  The game is about 3 hours long and had little going for it throughout the play through.  The other seemingly bad game I bought was "Depths of Fear :: Knossos".  It was an indie game that popped up on the list of new games for Steam and I got curious when it advertised itself for being a First-Person Rogue-like.  The game revolves around the ancient Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.  Theseus must go and defeat the 8 guardians before receiving the only sword that could slay the Minotaur.  The game is really janky with outdated graphics, inappropriate music that doesn't match the theme of the game, glitches left and right of the game, dumb AI, and a lot of anti-climatic boss battles.  Despite all that, I actually ended up having fun with the game.  It was hilarious scaling up walls I wasn't supposed to, phasing through buildings on rooftops, and luring every boss into the lava and killing them instantly.  The game had a simple concept and it worked out for the game: Go through 3 randomly generated dungeons by grabbing the key and escaping, each level has a guardian that can't be killed until you go into the 4th dungeon of the level where you grab a coin/orb (whatever that golden thing is) before you can fight it (or lure it into the lava where it dies instantly).  You do that 8 times and then you fight the Minotaur and then you've beaten the game!  It only took me 2.5 hours to beat the game as it got pretty easy once I figured out how the game worked.  Honestly, the game had a pretty good presentation.  You're in the dark a lot and have to use light to see where you're going, but you also have to put out the light when the guardian is close so that they don't catch you.  There's a lot of stealth, running away and trickery involved which I found very interesting.  Each guardian is a creature from Greek mythology such as Medusa, the hydra, the griffon, and others.  Sneaking, hiding, and running away from the guardians was a thrilling and exciting experience.  The game could certainly be infinitely better, but I enjoyed it for what it was and wouldn't mind playing it again for its infinite dungeon mode.  Sadly, I think I might have enjoyed it more than Eldritch.

I wasn't planning on buying anymore console games until I finish some more up, but then I saw Zone of the Enders HD collection for $12 or something close to that and couldn't resist.  Amazon doesn't offer free shipping unless it's over $35 now, and so I ended up buying 3 games.  The other two I got with it was Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and Star Ocean: The Last Hope.  I played Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance right away and completed it fairly quickly.  It was fast-paced, stylish, and was pretty fun despite being so short.  On the same day I beat it, I also completed MadWorld for Wii which I've had for a few years now.  It was funny that I completed both games on the same day since both games were made by Platinum Games and the protagonist's name for both games was "Jack".  MadWorld had some pretty frustrating controls, but I think I had a lot of fun with it.  It was hilariously violent that it was almost therapeutic.  Other games I've completed are: Rock of Ages, The Typing of the Dead: Overkill, Beatbuddy, Dysfunctional Systems, Akane the Kunoichi, Hard Reset, Iesabel, Symphony, How to Survive, Valdis Story, Ravensword: Shadowlands, and SteamWorld Dig.  Some were good, some were bad, most of them I have mixed feelings about.

I guess I'm mainly trying to finish up a lot of steam games so I could delete them and start new ones because I have quite the list of games I'd really like to get around to playing on Steam that I've already bought.  There are other games that are taking me quite a while to complete such as Project X Zone for the 3DS.  I'm sure that I still have about 20+ hours to go on that game.  Whelp, that's it for now.  Hopefully I get more things done.  If not, I hope June will be a lot of fun for me.

The Ultima(te) project!

This has been an intense month as I near the completion of my remix project "Ultima Exodus: Heroes of Yore".  Only the first track has been uploaded so far:


I have completed 5 remix tracks thus far and have one last one to go which will probably the most tedious and difficult one to do which is why I left it last.  It will be an orchestral remix of 5 of the songs from the game: Castle theme, Overworld, Town Theme, Ambrosia, and Ending theme.  I really need to finish this project up and go back to sending out resumés and looking for job openings.  I'm not even sure if I could really use this project to boost up an employer's interest in hiring me.  Still, it's really good practice for me in composition, editing, and mastering.  And they're all turning out great which I'm really happy about.  I expect this last stretch will last about 2 more weeks before I'm done.

So after watching Senran Kagura the Animé, I watched a bunch of others right after.  I felt like I haven't been watching as much, but that might have been just the past 3 weeks.  Right after Senran Kagura, I watched the BlazBlue animé "Alter Memory".  It had a lot of the same problems the Senran Kagura animé did: Not enough action as I had hoped, some of the characters had some changes (especially Bang Shishigami), and the Story just wasn't told very well it seemed.  It was closely tied to the game, but things just felt off.  On the other, "Hyperdimension Neptunia The Animation" was great!  Rather than take the story directly from the game, the animé had a story of its own based off the game that panned out pretty well in the end.  The animé didn't take itself too seriously and often made fun of itself for its game references and for being an animé based off a game.  The characters personality were brought out really well in the show and I feel both Senran Kagura and BlazBlue had problems doing that because there were too many characters while trying to fit the entire game's story into 12 episodes which inevitably cuts a lot of content out or forces change out of them.  I really enjoyed the "Hyperdimension Neptunia" animé a lot and would watch it again.  I also watched all of Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai! which was cute and funny.  But the one animé that REALLY impressed me was "Kill la Kill!"  I got so into it that there was one day I sat and watched 10 episodes of it to finish the 24 episode series.  I loved it!  The story seemed ridiculous and convoluted in the beginning, but it built up to a grand adventure around the middle that exploded into a breath-taking climax and finale.  The animation style is unique and really absurd.


It wasn't just the story, but everything around it.  The characters are brimming with personality with very obscure designs that really distinguish themselves from each other and their important roles they play in the plot.  The action, dialogues, humor, and progression all move and transition very quickly which never really gives the viewer time to feel bored.  The music is also very obscure and diverse as it emphasizes each character and each event in the show.

Although I really liked all the characters in the show, I would say Nonon Jakuzure was one of my favorites.  She looks like the usual cute animé girl in the show, but has an odd voice and a very smug and violent attitude.  Her voice is similar to Konoha's voice from the Arcana Heart series, but it's a different voice actor apparently.  It's funny that her voice is actually part of her charm.  She insults everyone around her other than the one she serves, uses music as her fighting ability, and has some of the creepiest and most intense facial expressions in the show.  Behind all the chaos and absurdity, it had a meaningful plot behind the entire show (as most animé do) about finding one's self and about growing up.  I really enjoyed every bit of "Kill la Kill" and is probably the best show I've watched this month.  I started watching Log Horizon and am close to finishing it (episode 21).  Although it has a similar premise as Sword Art Online where people are trapped in the game they were playing, a lot of things are very different.  The show is slow, but it's also interesting.  It also revolves around the human psychological thinking like SAO did, but tells it in a different manner.  It's a fun show, but I can't get over how slow it feels (especially right after watching Kill la Kill which was hyper fast).  Other than that, I also started Kiniro Mosaic and am up to episode 3.  The show's cute and I think it's mostly slice of life so there won't be any huge plots or anything.

Man, I can't believe I watched that many shows in the span of 1 month!!!  Now it's time to review my gaming to see if it's just as much.  So I pre-ordered Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls and have played it off and on ever since it came in the mail.  To put it simply, I think it's great!  The Crusader is the only new class to be added, and it's a pretty fun character.  Sadly, it's not really my type of play style, so it's kind of an "eh" sort of addition to the game.  Every character gets one new skill and the max level got boosted to 70.  Difficulty through playthroughs have been taken out and changed for the new system.  Monsters scale with the player's level and the player can choose any difficulty they want which in turn boosts up bonuses.  Better loot drops and is more appropriate to the character you're currently playing.  The in-game auction house was taken down and to combat 3rd-party black market trades, any item you find is account bound and can't be traded after (2-3 hours?).  The 5th Act is full of side dungeons and events to do with lots of great little quips from NPCs and followers; however, the environment is rather generic and boring while the main story is lackluster yet again.  The main draw and sole reason for me buying the expansion was for the new "Adventure Mode".  At first, it wasn't anything like I imagined.  I was expecting instanced runs through randomized dungeons and fighting a boss at the end of it.  Adventure mode places you into the game with "bounties" in each Act for the player to fulfill and get a reward.  But then, you get these special currency that allows you to go through a rift and THAT'S where the mode is exactly what I was expecting.  You go through randomly generated dungeons throughout the game pieced together and then fight a boss at the end of the run.  It's fast and chaotic, but the rewards are worth it.  From the past 3 weeks, I've accumulated 30 hours, which is a decent amount of time on it considering I haven't been playing it consistently.  It was totally worth my $40.  I beat Zombie Shooter 2 in one day and didn't really like it (I had to cheat the whole way through) and thought the first one was actually better.  I finally got around to finishing Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale and thought it was pretty boring (I did have some fun with it).  From the 4 First-Person Shooters I was working towards finishing last month, Shadow Warrior was the last on my list.  Transformers: War for Cybertron (though it is a 3rd-Person Shooter) was okay.  Alien Rage had some great ideas and I had some fun with it but was ultimately annoyed by the game as a whole.  Rise of the Triad was just painful and frustrating.  But Shadow Warrior was pretty great.  My biggest issue with the game was getting lost all the time and it really broke the flow of the game.  Shadow Warrior leans more towards an Action game than a proper First-Person Shooter, and that's alright.  It's a chapter by chapter progression with some light open-ended exploration that sends you from one place to the other.  As you get more points, you can spend them to get new abilities, upgrade weapons, and gain special perks.  The game heavily revolves around the Katana, and I love swords so that was one of the main attractions for me.  The combat was really fun, but getting lost all the time did deter me from wanting to play the game a second time.  I bought a Groupee's bundle that came with a lot of games and one of them was BeatBlaster III.  I wasn't very interested in the game to begin with and had bought the bundle for another game called "BardBarian" but I went and tried it anyways since it came with it.  I didn't like it very much.  It's a 2D platformer and Music Rhythm hybrid that has the player mashing abilities to the beat to build up energy to use them.  Movement was slow, puzzles were boring, controls were somewhat frustrating and the music Rhythm part was just mashing the buttons on the 4 main beats the entire game.  I beat it in about 2 hours (I think) and then deleted it.  Jets'n'Guns Gold was also another dumb game that I ended up just cheating through the rest of the way.  It was a very messy Shoot-Em-Up that had an annoying overheating mechanic with the fact that it's impossible to dodge all the bullets.  You HAVE to get hit a lot of the times but the graphics are so messy and conflicting that it was more a chore than a challenge.  Ultratron, a classic style top-down shooter, has the same problem with graphics.  The enemies, bullets, and background generally have the same color.  The rapid flow of objects being thrown at the player is overwhelming, confusing, and really tiring to the eye.  It's also another game I beat in one sitting and then deleted.  Finally, there's Final Fantasy XIII in which I finished just this past Saturday.  Overall, I thought the game was pretty enjoyable, but I can see why a lot of people hated it.  The characters didn't have enough development in the story and they felt flat and boring.  The story is really "meh".  It's a story that makes sense and has the basic "conflict & resolution" down, but it didn't feel THAT spectacular, sadly.  The graphics; however, is probably the best on the PS3 I have ever seen.  The soundtrack is pretty good, but I can see why people might not have liked it as much as Nobuo Uematsu work with previous Final Fantasy games.  I liked it, there was some good tracks out of it:

What I did like about the game was the combat system and the whole world that the developers created.  The story and characters may not seem up to snuff, but the game does provide a unique experience that doesn't feel common in videogames.  What I liked about the combat was that I never had to grind, EVER!  In fact, I skipped a lot of parts I felt was a pain and didn't want to do and worked towards what I did want to play.  The paradigm shift mechanic kept me thinking and reorganizing my team and what they specialized in.  So even though it felt like I was pressing Auto-Attack most of the time, there was a lot of timing and changing strategies involved that made it more interactive for me.  Yeah, Final Fantasy XIII might not have been a great game, but I think I mostly enjoyed it.  In fact, I'm looking forward to playing FFXIII-2.  For now, my current line-ups are DmC for PS3, Recettear for PC, Project X Zone for 3DS, and MadWorld for Wii.  Whether I get around to Persona 3 FES for PS2 is unknown, it really depends on my work flow and my time spent when free.

I can't believe I went through so many remixes, animé shows and videogames in one month!  I hope to be this productive in the following months.