Sousuke #15 – Public Service Announcement! [Update!] May 30, 2009
Posted by Sousuke in Annoucements/News, Sousuke's Rants.add a comment
I’m sticking this in the Announcement section, because it’s… well, more of an announcement than a rant. A rant WILL be coming soon though, I hope.
I’ve been spending quite a bit of time of Tales of Vesperia the past few days. I’ve racked in over twenty hours since Wednesday. 
Plus other things, too. So I WILL get around to that, hopefully early next week.
What I AM here to talk about though is… A few years back, a friend and I had a radio show called Hot Like Wasabi. Playing anything from games, anime, remixes… Anything Japanese, basically. Due to stuff like moving out of town and such, we had to stop, but…!
Tomorrow [Saturday, that is], we’re making a return! We’re broadening our horizons a little, but we’ve still got a fair amount of Japanese stuff set up for our first show.
So, what I’d like to ask of you guys is this: give us some listeners! The radio station is streamed online, so if you’re around your PC from 4-6pm EST on Saturdays, tune in and listen to us! Hot Like Wasabi: NPC [Never Playing Crap!] is making its return tomorrow!
[Just click here, or save it to your library. I've tested in Windows Media Player, iTunes, and Winamp, but other players should work too.]
[Update!] It seems that not only can you STREAM the show live, but there’s also an online archive available now! After we got home after the show, we were able to go and download it immediately and give it a listen to see how it went. If you miss a show and want to listen, just head over here, choose a Saturday [starting May 30th], with a start time of 4pm and lasting 2 hours. The server is incredibly fast, and the file for our first show only came out to be about 55mb. Sweet!
Noi #11 – Noi’s Final Fantasy Marathon: The Details May 28, 2009
Posted by Noi in Noi's Rants.7 comments
So let’s talk marathons. Two days from now, I’ll be starting my extensive Final Fantasy marathon, during which I’ll play all of the core Final Fantasy titles, stream most of them, and maybe even go for a spin-off title or two, all for the eventual release of Final Fantasy XIII come next year. People can join me in this quest whether they just want to beat the games, complete them, or try a more daring Master run.
As of this writing, there are 34 people taking part of the marathon, myself included. To join the marathon, all you really need to do is just play two or more Final Fantasy titles in a row, since that alone qualifies as a “marathon”. I’ll be covering the games I’ll be playing here, as well as mention some other potential titles I might just play for the heck of it.
On a side note, I’ll be hosting some opening ceremonies for the marathon on my Justin.tv channel, so participants might want to show up for the celebration.
The Annoucement Arc May 27, 2009
Posted by Arc in Annoucements/News.5 comments
Well since everyone is waiting on me to do the theme introduction (for some reason, idk) I guess I’ll make it now.
I’ve been hearing about a new theme for quite some time now. Longer than months from when Dan was still here. I kept hearing that Mach wanted to as well but couldn’t do to other IRL events that keep poping up. So Len and I finally pushed forward with the plans for a new theme (Mostly because I didn’t want it to be P4ever) and came up with either a Guilty Gear or a Street Fighter theme. You can guess which one we went with. Like Len said, most of this couldn’t be done with Linkman for the layout work. (Thanks, Chris. We all owe ya one.) And another big thanks to Len himself for all the work on the delicious banner and sprites you’ll all be seeing from now on. A lot of choices so it won’t get boring easily.
Claw Marks #9 – PKMN May 27, 2009
Posted by Mach in Claw Marks.1 comment so far
Here, have some music while you wait for Arc to introduce the new theme. As for me, I just needed an excuse to actually use Sol in a post.
So, yeah, PKMN. It’s another Renard track, but done under his Kitsune² alias. Kitsune² specializes in chiptunes, so I’m sure a lot of people would enjoy this track. This comes off of the Squaredance album.
Simply put, this track is made almost completely with Pokemon growls. Yes, Pokemon growls. It’s actually pretty cool how this one comes together in the end and stuff. Pretty awesome stuff. I’ve been making a stepfile out of this, but it’s taking me forever. So many bouncing gimmicks. ;__;
I’ve actually taken a particular liking to this album. A lot of kick ass chiptune tracks on this one.
Enjoy it.
Click Image to Download
Len #25 – Bring on the new era. May 27, 2009
Posted by Ren in Len's Rants.2 comments
Yeah, sizing it down is better.
Anyway, welcome to the official version 3 of Disc Read Error: Insert Disc 2. I must say, this has become bigger than I first imagined it would be. A big thanks to Linkman for helping us out with the theme! Arranging the layout and colors and such. And Arc, too!~ Mah bro’s got some good taste.
Anyway, I just came back from a party, so I’m tired as hell. It was really fun, although I got really tired towards the end.. and.. confused. o_o
Maybe I should have let Arc handle introducing the new theme because I’m TIRED and don’t have much to say. Urghghg.
I still have to beat Chrono Trigger.
This is not much of a rant, someone PUSH IT DOWN. I’m going to attach a video and lay down, I’M TIIIRED.
I can’t wait to leave.
Mach #55 – Meh. May 27, 2009
Posted by Mach in Mach's Rants.2 comments
So I’m done with vacationing for a while, and literally only a day after all it ends, I some how get grounded from going out. Simply because my phone died and I came home late, therefore my Mom getting pissed off at me when I had little control over the whole situation anyway. My brother had my car, so it wasn’t like I could just drive home and say, “ALRIGHT, MOM, I’M HOME. NOW GO TO SLEEP ALREADY.”
Seriously though, I’m 20 and I have a social life, but it’s not like my parents give a damn. The traditional Filipino logic seems to override everything when regular logic is being used. Ah, fuck my life. If all else fails, I loophole the situation and just invite all my friends over. Simple.
I would start off the whole Guilty Gear theme thing as well, but:
1. Len isn’t awake for me to bitch at him to use it.
2. I let Len take the reigns on the theme anyway, so I suppose it’s only right.
Anyway, so you wanna hear about my trip? Might as well start with Seattle. I’ll state now that it seems like this whole trip every Filipino found us for some stupid reason. Left for there at around 10 AM EST, on the 15th. When we were hailing a taxi at the airport, out of all the black, white, indian, and latino drivers we possibly could’ve gotten, we ended up getting the ONE Filipino guy driving a van to fit us all. We pretty much just spend the day there sightseeing in downtown Seattle. Did all the regular touristy stuff… Space Needle, Pike Place Market, and then a duck tour of the whole city, if anyone has seen those vehicles.
Left for Alaska the following day and we’d be there for the next week. Now, before our ship even leaves port, there’s always one thing I do first. Check if the ship has a god damn arcade. To my disappointment, IT WAS CLOSED THE WHOLE FUCKING TRIP. Oh well, it just left me more time to play DJ MAX Portable: Clazziquai Edition, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, and Rhythm Heaven. Sorry, didn’t have enough patience to play Chrono Trigger. 
To further re-enforce the Filipino thing on our cruise ship, our room steward was Filipino as well as our waitor during the nice dinners. 
I’ve gone on about three cruises, the past two other times I’ve gone on Carnival ships. This time around, it was a Princess cruise ship. As fancy as the ship was, there wasn’t a lot to do there compared to Carnival. Probably a huge contributing factor in all this was that it was full of old people. According to the cruise director, there were only fifty-five 17 and younger kids on the ship.
Went on four stops to Juneau, Scagway, Ketchikan (all in Alaska), and Victoria, B.C. I probably had the best time in Ketchikan watching that Lumberjack show and Victoria, because it was a normal city with normal stores instead of being filled with shitty souvineer places. I had more fun going on the tour excursions than doing shit on the ship.
Also, no offense to anyone since I actually have friends who are of these cultures, but there always seems to be a group that pisses me off everytime I’m on a ship. Last cruise it was Taiwanese people. Most of the time they were really obnoxious and I’ve never heard someone inconsiderately hack-a-loogie so loudly before. This cruise it was Korean people. If you’re trying to take a picture of a scene where shit is glowing in the dark, it probably isn’t a good idea to go and leave the flash on. You’re not gonna get the same effect in the pictures.
God.
The day after I returned from Alaska, I went with my parents and cousins to West Virginia. Mainly for my cousin to visit the college campus that he would possibly be transferring to in the next few years from his University in the Philippines. The college is Alderson-Broaddus College in Philippi, West Virginia.
I have to say it’s a pretty beautiful college campus. Small, very picturesque, but expensive as hell. The student body is only about 800 students. I wouldn’t wanna go there myself, but seems nice enough.
So games… Arcade nearby just downgraded the Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME machine they had their machine downgraded to a 5th Mix machine. I’ve been having a blast with that. Streamed it for a bit earlier in the day, but not for long.
I’m tired already, so I’m just gonna cut this off early.
Until then, later~
(Out with the old, in with the new. I’M BRIDGING THE THEMES, DAMMIT.)
Noi #10 – Vacation’s all I ever wanted. May 26, 2009
Posted by Noi in Noi's Rants.6 comments
Testing out the new theme here. Looks awesome, though using the skit faces as they currently are might be a little too big, so I’m down scaling it to 60% for this one. Letting Len do the honors. I never got to use this portrait anyway, so might as well.
Anyway, since a week ago, I’ve been enjoying the liberties and wonders of not having anymore college work. The last few weeks were hectic and I might just fail a class, but eh, what can you do. At least now I have more time to play games and actually watch anime, which is something I haven’t done much as of late.
In gaming news, I still haven’t even come close to playing Devil Summoner 2. Doesn’t help that I need to be in the mood to play RPGs in general, so I don’t think I’ll be playing that in a while. I did manage to nab Onimusha: Warlords and Onimusha Blade Warriors for about 5 bux each, so at least I got that to keep me entertained as well as my other 65 unfinished games orz.
Let’s talk marathons though. As of my last post, where I was lamenting my poor luck, I managed to buy another RetroDuo at the cost of my soul, so now I’ll be able to play Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VI in their original forms, which pleases me greatly. It’ll be a while before I reach V, so the matter of skipping it or not will take a while before I really need to worry about it.
Animu! Gotta love this season, and with the unveiling of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya S2, things only got better. There’s a lot of good things to watch, like Eden of the East, K-On!, Sengoku BASARA and Valkyria Chronicles, which might prompt me to make my own anime updates rather than leaving that job entirely to Arc. I just finished watching Great Teacher Onizuka today though, and wow. For such a classic, I don’t know why I didn’t bother to see it before. If you haven’t seen GTO before, then I’ve taken the liberty of making a little chart for you.
Pick one or two of the following facts:
- You are male.
- You are vaguely interested in anime.
- You are a wuss.
If you picked either the first two, you will love GTO. If you picked the first two combined, then you MUST see GTO. If any of your choices involved the third choice, then I feel sorry for you, but you still have to see GTO.
Anyway, that’ll wrap up this here rant, if you can call it one. Hopefully it won’t take me months before I write up another one.
A.R.C.:Sailor Moon May 25, 2009
Posted by Arc in Animu Review Corner.2 comments
Back in ‘95, shit was booming.
I was being introduced to anime. Now when you think about a childhood anime if you were born in the early 90’s, we all kinda have the same title in our minds. Dragon Ball Z.
Shit, I mean, if you were a guy and you didn’t know about DBZ, you were a loser. What do boys like? Macho fights, fuck yeah. Despite how shallow they may be and DBZ delivered. So what could America get their grimy fat sausage finger hands on to show love to the girls? Well, why not something with pretty girls who can show those sexist who’s boss? So Sailor Moon came up in their heads. DIC got licensing right and dubbed it.
Back then, I could hardly form an opinion other than “I like it” and “I don’t like it” and I didn’t even know what other countries there were out there but whatever. If I grew up with it, most likely I’ll like the dub compared to the original. Pretty Much DBZ Dub > Jap VAs but this time I decided to roll with the Japanese voice actors.
Sailor Moon started as a mini series that featured one of the Sailor warriors, Sailor Venus. The mini series name was Codename: Sailor V which ran from 1991 to 1997 created by Naoko Takeuchi. She then moved on to do the Sailor Moon manga which started February 1992 and finished in March 1997. An anime was quickly made right after the first month of release.
Running from March 7, 1992 to February 8, 1997, spanning over 5 different series and 200 episodes.
But in this review I’ll be talking about the original Sailor Moon anime. (more…)
Arc #002-The Filler Arc R2: The House of Ruins May 24, 2009
Posted by Arc in Arc's Rants.9 comments
Yos! What’s Good?
Been easy for me this past week. Only worked 2 days of the week and they were easy sweet 16 with a lot of womenz. So I had the other 5 days to just chill and relax.
Most of that time went toward playing Gears (of Course) and watching the first Sailor Moon series which I’m two episodes away form finishing.
Just trying to find a good amount of time where I can finish them and make a review right after I’m done since I get if I put it off and not do it immediately when I’m done with the show. I still gotta do Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu. :<
New animu for this week. It seems like I never get to talk about Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood since the group I get subs from it release later on in the day when I post earlier in the day, the day being Sunday. Maybe I should just wait…or edit the post to feature a section for it. Yea, I’ll do that. (more…)
Len #24 – She broke me and yet I’m feeling so refreshed. May 23, 2009
Posted by Ren in Len's Rants.8 comments
EDIT – TO RANTERS/STAFF: THERE’S A NEW PAGE UP, IT’S PRIVATE. IT’S CALLED “STAFF BOARD” WHERE WE POST MESSAGES AND WHATEVER IF WE CAN’T CATCH EACH OTHER. MACH, TAKE A LOOK AT IT.
And so ends my 5 months of misery. Thanks a lot, babe.
AN~Y~WAY. I got lots of gaming news, but at the same time, not really. I’m so pumped up on a Red Bull right now, I just don’t feeling like sleeping on this dazzling Saturday night. Especially with those stupid loud ass Guyanese people screaming next door. What a fun little neighborhood I live in.
I need to get some new headphones. I always fucking destroy them, I don’t know WHY or how. I need to learn how to take care of my shit, JESUS. And I threw my awesome chain somewhere, but I have no idea where. I have to give it to my best friend before the summer.
I just bought these cheap ass 2 dollar headphones today, it’s funny, because my girlfriend is supposed to give me a pair and my old friend has also purchased some really good ones for me. Oh well, whatever. I’ll probably destroy these in 2 weeks, anyway. Over the past 12 months, I’ve probably destroyed about 10-15 headphones, respectively. Good times.
Anyway, gaming news time. Well, yesterday my girlfriend bought me Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Whatever vs. Some King Fag. The special edition with the Jack Frost doll dressed up as Raidou. It’s cute. Unfortunately, I’m dumping her on Wednesday. So oh well. I haven’t started it yet. In fact I’m currently torrenting Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Whatever vs. The Souless Army on my desktop computer. I feel the need to play the first one before actually commencing with the 2nd one.
MAI BEE-EFF-EFF Adam Golden gave me his much dusty and unused PlayStation Portable a few weeks ago. The firmware version was 2.60, so it was quite easy to “mod”. My firmware is now 5.00m33-6. Good shit. I decided not to go too game-crazy with it like I did when I “modded” my PS2 and just burned a shitload of games that I haven’t even touched yet. I downloaded about 6 games for it, which were Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII undubbed, Star Ocean: The First Departure, Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, Patapon, and Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2.
So far, I’ve beaten: Crisis Core and just today(well, yesterday) TotW:RM. I haven’t progressed much in SO just yet, I’m just about 2 hours in and as for VP:L, well.. it’s quite confusing. I don’t know, I just don’t quite understand the battle mechanism and such. It seems complicated, but I’m probably overspeculating its difficulty level. It’s the same as the PSOne version which I briefly started and progressed in in August. It was a time killer for Tales of Vesperia, but I never got back to it. I downloaded Patapon in hopes to enjoy it, but it immediately turned me off, however; quite the opposite for my best friend whom actually enjoyed it. So I’ll just keep it on there for her, whenever she’s around me when I’ve got my PSP. As for TotW:RM2… it’s in complete Japanese. And I don’t feel like playing it RIGHT after I beat the first one which was extremely tedious. I’ll play it whenever Namdai in America feels damned to bring it over to the states. Until then, it’s off the PSP and on the desktop computer where it will rot.
I’ll talk about TotW:RM in my next ASintoT post. I’ll probably write it soon.. or maybe not.
Anyway, CRISIS CORE. It exceeded my expectations. I really, really enjoyed it. It reversed my hate for Final Fantasy VII and Aerith. Aerith is so adorable, I don’t know why I hated her, anyway. I don’t like Tifa anymore, though.. quite the opposite, actually. And Zack is just a BADASS. The ending made me shed manly tears, though. Lots and lots of manly tears. Twice. I watched it on YouTube again. >_>
The battle system can get tedious sometimes, but it’s fun. I love how they made it.. real-time, finally.. and everything else. I don’t have much to say on it, just that I enjoyed it. We finally learn the story of how our emo hero Cloud gets his big ass sword. IT’S FROM ZACK. If you’ve ever played FFVII or seen Advent Children then you pretty much know what happens to our dear hero, Zack. He’s by far my favorite FF character now, though. Sorry, Squall.
Beating Crisis Core beckoned me to start Final Fantasy VII again and this time, actually play it. So far, I’ve gotten like an hour into it. Meh, I’ll play more when I feel bothered enough to get up and turn on my PSOne. That’s why it’s awesome to have 2 portables right next to you.
I’ve got a summer gaming list set.. I hope I get to them all. OH BY THE WAY, WILLING TO TRADE GRAND THEFT AUTO IV BECAUSE I HATE IT. Take a look at my backlog notes if you want it.
Anyway, summer gaming list:
[Hopeful Summer Starts/Progressions]
>Tales of Rebirth
>Tales of Destiny (PS)
>Skies of Arcadia Legends
>Resident Evil 4
>The Legend of Dragoon
>Star Ocean: The Second Story
>.hack//Infection
>Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII
>Final Fantasy X International
>God of War
>Grandia III
>GrimGrimoire
>Kingdom Hearts 2
>Rogue Galaxy
>Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked
>Shadow Hearts
>Wild ARMs 5
>Ys: The Ark of Napishtim
>Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth
>Secret of Mana
>Final Fantasy IX
I will most likely not get to these, but I at least hope to get far in some and actually beat them. I STILL have to beat Chrono Trigger but I’m so LAZY. I have to get a certain important character back.
Not much else to say, I’m quite bored now. I can’t wait for Tales of VS.. they better bring some Legendia characters in it, god damn it. Senel would make an awesome add for that game. OR NORMA WITH HER STRAW. Or Jay, he’d make an interesting add. But they could easily add Farah and ignore Senel.. that’d still be awesome though, because Farah > Senel. I just hope to see some Legendia in there.. stop with the neglecting, Namdai.
So yeah, that’s it. Happy gaming, fags.
