Let us pretend!

Ok let us pretend I didn’t get so absorbed into Warframe again, that I haven’t been posting since August. (Now December 20th)

I didn’t think that was an option. but WORRY NOT!

I have not once missed a “binge Watch Weekend”!  But I will have to list off what I watched here. Minus a few outstanding ones I must talk about.

• King of Thorn
• Bayonetta; Bloody Fate
• Big Order
• Chaos;Child
• Arpeggio of Blue Steel
• Hand Shakers
• Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid
• Tonari no Seki-kun: The Master of Killing Time
• Aria the Scarlet Ammo
• Gunslinger Girl
• Black Blood Brothers

Still Watching

• The Ancient Magus Bride
• Kings Game
• Hunter X Hunter
• Sengoku Night Blood
• Black Clover
• Restaurant to Another World
• My Hero Academia
• Bloodiviores
• Yu Yu Hakusho (Picking up where I left off Years ago)

Wow I hope that was all of them.  I also fit in a few games in there too believe it of not. More on those later.  I was trying to make a habit of posting after each weekend. However when I started playing Warframe again, I just focused on that and little else. This time on the PS4. So I started from scratch which I’m glad I did.

I know this is vague.  I know this is just a sum up of the obvious. However I have almost 2 weeks until I begin a commitment I set to myself. And i’m excited to see how it starts and if it lasts.

 

As always I leave the rest to you.

 

-ja ne

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

I have a great deal to catch up on don’t I?  I’m going to do my best to do just that.  I’m going to start with Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.  This game made it to my “Favorite games I have every played” top 5. By no means does that insinuate that this was the perfect game.  It looked amazing. It sounded amazing. The story was amazing.  That is why i’m going to start with the things I did not like.

Warning: Light Spoilers. I have no intentions on being diplomatic in the games pro’s and cons.  I loved this game, and that will show.  However I will not shy from the short comings.

Subtitles:

In this instance I need subtitles a great deal of the time when watching or playing games in a different language.  I usual turn on the subtitles when I start a game out of habit even though I didn’t need to.  In this game it was a mistake.  Not only is there a lot of clutter on the screen since there are voices in Senua’s head, but whoever was in charge of implementing this feature wasn’t at his or her best.  Most of the dialog being spoken differed from what was displayed in text.  Not a completely different conversation, just annoying when trying to sync the information in your head through sight and sound.  Minor gripe.

Battle environment:

The battle system was very easy to understand and pull off.  What I felt was a short coming is the very small fighting environment you had to battle in.  It was usually an unmarked circle that you had to square off in.  Some took place on bridges and other straightaways.  Never the less the amount of enemies you had to go up against were frustrating to say the least.  The only way to curb that frustration was to drop the difficultly level so you can just plow through them with two or three hits.  That annoyed me because I love challenges.  But with the combination of; battery life on my controller, monotony of wave after wave of enemies, and the perma-death system, I had to drop the difficulty towards the end of the game.  I was aggravated. I just wasn’t going to let that brand the game for me.

Here are the things I liked.  I will attempt to curb my enthusiasm, and just explain the major things.

Actors, Voice Actors, and live action actors:

First and foremost… Senua was pretty cute.  However Melina Juergens, Senua’s human counterpart is incredibly cute!

Now with that out of my system lets get down to it.  There was NO voice talent in this game that was bad. Not even Meh.  They were all a huge credit to their profession.  The various accents depicting where these characters hailed from was such a wonderful addition.  The voices in Senua’s head not only gave hints, but help you immerse yourself further into senua’s fractured being. There was more than one narrator in this game.  The distinction of them were clear as day.  Never a confused moment understanding who was saying what. That coming from a game that was meant to cloud your senses with all the clutter in Senua’s mind.

Puzzles:

The puzzles in the game seem to be of the love/hate variety.  Some found them mundane or just frustrating.  While others (including myself) found them kind of interesting but otherwise filler content to allow some sort of story telling while you ran around solving them. It was a good idea considering there is a lot of story and background story in a short span of the game.

Lore:

The game wasn’t meant to be a history lesson on Nordic lore.  However they used that lore to fuel the game.  It did that very well.  I know my share of Nordic lore, however the fact that I understood the stories they were telling, made it so much more immersive for me.

Conclusion:

This was the short version.  The reasons this game was so great for me is not just from what I wrote above.  There are some personal reasons.  When you play this game, I have no doubt you will feel the same way.  I wont deny it!  Ninja Theory broke ground and raised the stage.  Such a great game.  Triple A quality at the Indy price. Made with an Indy budget.  Yes i’m blow smoke up the ass of Ninja Theory.  They deserve it with this game, and i’m not ashamed to admit it.  Lastly when you are done playing the game.  There is an option on the main menu that is like a “making of” Hellblade.  Don’t watch it before you complete the game. But when done, its worth watching. The lengths they went to make this game was very impressive.

With that being said… I leave the rest to you.  Must play title! I can’t recommend it enough.

 

-ja ne

Warframe (PS4) Strikes Back

Sooo.  um…

So I’ve been playing Warframe again. This time on Console.  Of course got a bit addicted to it again.  Clocked 370 hrs so far.  And if haven’t been following my tweets, then you missed the whole thing.

Warframe has improved a great deal since I last played.  A bunch of new warframes. Many many new weapons of all kinds. Quests and a Start Map 2.0.  The only thing that hasn’t changed is Digital Extremes lack of story.  There is lore all over the place, and most of it makes no sense what so ever.  Any new player would be so lost in trying to grasp onto a plot or connecting any of the new quest system together.

The “quest system” is a really nice improvement.  The newer warframes have a quest tied to them. As you progress through the story you get the parts to build yourself that frame.  Some give you the parts during the quest, and some give you the blueprint for the Warframe at the end for you to farm the parts for.  Its a nice system IF some of them were not tied to a pay wall.  I know that sounds negative.  It is! A few of the quests have a small plot with a boss at the end.  In some cases you have to farm materials to craft a key of sorts to fight that boss in hopes of it dropping the parts blueprints you need.  Guaranteed drop, but you don’t know if your going to get something that had already dropped for you from the last 5 fights. So you head to where you need to farm the materials to craft the key for the boss.  However one of those materials comes from the Invasions.  You might only be able to get one or two in a day. Three is an oddity, but we can hope.  And we need to hope because we need three for that key. Best case scenario is we only need three keys. When all is said and done you have the three blueprints for all three parts that make up the warframe.  Back to farming for the materials for all of them. Good! Now you can start crafting those three parts.  When those are done (24 hrs later), You can start the foundry on making you that frame. 3 days later you have a new frame.  Many see all that work as unnecessary or just plan stupid.  So they break out the wallet and pay real money to get buy the warframe straight from the market.  I can hardly blame them. For me something like that takes away from the game. If wasted all that money on flat out buying things, there would be nothing left to do. My opinion of course.

There are many things to keep you busy in this game. Some are soul shattering grinds, and some are just enjoyable missions you can mess around in to try out new frames or weapons.. or both.  I’ll talk about those as they come to mind for future posts.

As usual I leave the rest for you.  Its a great free to play game worth the time if its holds you interests.

 

-ja ne

KONOSUBA

This is the funniest anime I have seen in such a long time!

I watched the first episode reluctantly.  I read the small description and thought it was going to be a bit boring.  The first few minutes confirmed that.  But once again this was a binge watch weekend favorite.  As soon as the first episode ended, I just kept watching until the end of the season.

It does have its hentai undertones (and over ones) that fit in perfectly.  I tried to describe it as “what you might find if you actually DID end up in an RPG world”.  The four main characters are by far the worst team members you would want on your team… on paper anyway.  Each has a remarkable talent, but gimped by a rather comical flaw.

The way they deal with situations dire or otherwise, just kept me laughing.  Even with all the face palm moments, you couldn’t resist laughing and looking forward to the next episode. I was pretty disappointed when the first season ended.  However Season 2 is on its way.  When I haven’t a clue.  All I found out was it will be a 10 episode season.  To be honest 10 episodes are far better than no episodes.

As usual I leave the rest to you.  This one is a must see.

 

-ja ne

Warframe: Tenno on a Mission!

It has been around two years give or take, since I played Warframe on the PC.  I just recently started playing it again on the PS4.  There has been so much done to the game in my absence.  I’m honestly so pleased for this. Almost all the little nit picking I had back on PC has been addressed and improved. So let me get the 2 left out of the way.

There is real money currency (platinum).  You can’t lose that anymore. All MMO and multiplayer games have these. However… Platinum is allowed to be used as currency for personal trades as well. I just don’t like that.  I don’t like Auction House’s as well, but I would much rather having one of them instead.  Lastly the only other thing that bugs the hell out of me is how long things take to craft. Let me break it down for an example.  Each warframe has 3 seperate parts that need to be built as well as one crafting material.  Now each part takes 24 hours to craft.  You can collect the materials needed and make them at the same time to save time.  Now that you have those 3 parts and 1 reagent, You need to craft the Warframe. That takes 3 days.  The only out for any of that is to “rush” the process using platinum.  I’m sure there is a greater plan to all this.  I surely don’t know it.  You could argue “Greed”.  I really don’t think its that cut and dry.  In comparison they stay better than the normal.  Platinum costs pretty much the same as any other game’s real money currency.  In my experience you get more for your money.  Items aren’t too expensive compared to what you get for your real money.  Please understand I flat out don’t like real money currency.  I just have to chose the lesser evil.

NOW to the good stuff. WooT! There are more weapons, Warframes, and map tiles.  The difficulty more or less stayed the same.  It is really difficult to solo everything.  It can be done.  If your familiar with the game. I have been solo since I started back up, and I just got to Neptune.  Lets start at the beginning.  The Warframe I chose at the beginning was Mag. I liked playing Mag back in the day, so what the heck it was a good starter.  Less than an hour later a friend gave me a welcoming gift.  Banshee.  I love playing Banshee.  I actually prefer using Banshee over Loki in stealth like situations.  So around level 20 I decided to use the Platinum I was given to buy Frost.  My all time favorite Warframe.  I haven’t looked back.  I use Frost for everything. I use him to progress through the star map.  I use him to farm bosses to get the blueprints for more Warframes. As i’m typing I have Nyx, Valkyr, Trinity, and Rhino in the works in the foundry.  Those are the only ones I can solo no problem.  I have defeated other bosses up to Neptune, but only just.  It would take way too much time to put it on farm.  I rather find my limit, and then go back and jump into a group to farm them.  I feel doing it this way will give me a pretty solid backlog of good mods and weapons. It is also how I like playing these kind of games. I both want and have to see just how far I can push myself solo.

To Be Continued…

Arpeggio of Blue Steel

This was an unintentional binge watch this weekend.  I was going through the anime list on Crunchyroll to see what I would like to check out next.  My little ritual when choosing what I watch next is pretty simple.  First I go against the rules. I Judge a book by its cover.  Followed by reading the description.  Lastly I watch the first episode to see if I like it.  With this anime, I just kept going until the last episode.

It wasn’t such a bad series. I enjoyed it a fair bit.  I am a very big fan of all things of the sea.  Boats, fish, untold depths, all of it.  So when this anime was about AI submarines and battleships with physical representation of their AI selves I got a little curious.  Personally I thought it could of done a little more with the crew of I-401.  In some parts it felt like the only characters with.. um “character” were the AI’s.  Most of them silly in their own way. Others strictly series.

I really can’t go in to a great deal of detail without spoilers, So i’ll keep this one short. I finished 2 anime series this weekend, so I’ll have more to recommend.

As always I leave the rest to you.

 

-ja ne

Mass Effect: Andromeda (PS4) 40+ hrs

Well honestly not much has happend in 20+ more hours. I did a lot of running around for quests i’m not all that interested in.  Farming up kills and resource nodes so I can make the weapons and armor I want to use.  I spend a fair amount of time testing out different skills to see what I would like.  Then I did a respec to what I found most fun to use.

I’m pretty glad they have a difficulty mode dedicated to just story, It is like easy mode, but much easier.  That would be the only reason I would replay this game. I’m currently on the Normal difficulty and even that is pretty easy in some ways.  I wish I could tell you that “so much has happend”.  Nope. killed a lot to get some quests done, and progressed the main story maybe twice.

Since these update posts are just what i’m thinking at the time.  I have interest in doing a post game conversation.  Here’s hoping I have more to talk about. lol

 

-ja ne

Mass Effect: Andromeda (PS4) 20+ hrs

Here is my 20+ hr impressions.  Oh boy….

Almost everything being hated on right now has a shred of truth.

• Visuals look dated (not horrible, just dated)
• Facial animations are things made of nightmares
• Voice overs in rare situations
• Model glitches (I recorded Liam spinning around on the spot  for a while, or when I stopped laughing)
• Character creation blows!

That is all the nitpicking I have the patients for.  I think its pretty fun.  Yes I do believe they should of spent more time on it before releasing it.  There really isn’t all that much you can do about it.  I spent the money, so I’m going to play it.  I am pretty happy with what I’ve got.  Dialog is goofy (to be polite). But the combat and exploration is pretty good. the story as well.  Nothing ground breaking, but It’s a little bit of polish from what we had in the first Mass Effect trilogy.

IMPORTANT

I think it is important to realize that Andromeda is a stand alone game in the franchise.  We are not the Maverick Shepard.  We aren’t out to save the world.  We are in the business of exploration and discovery.  There are always heroes and villains. Ryder is in no way an N7 vet that is going to save the galaxy from doom like Shepard. The plot in the beginning is where I think the people who like to bitch and complain start off.  The game is full of flaws, and will not make game of the year. But there actually IS a game there to play. An enjoyable one at that.

 

To Be Continued…

I’ll keep you posted!  🙂

 

-ja ne

Trinity Seven

First.. I made fun of the title.  Trinity seven.. That’s like 21 by my last count.  *hears crickets. *cough

I have very little bad to say about this anime.  I really liked it.  I’m so used to the lead roll so unassuming in some anime.  Arata never once hid from the perverted thing he said of did.  That made it even more funny to me.  I would of liked to see a little more done with dimension ability.  I kind of liked how that worked.  Someone strong enough to create a world just sounds like a cool concept to me.

Hands down our leading man Arata Kasuga was the main reason I liked this anime.  Played his part in this harem roll pretty darn well.  I personally thought the unique traits of all seven girls were quite good.  These girls making up the “Trinity seven”.   I’ll keep going back to it, but Arata’s attitude and his very personality was so much fun to watch.  He was told what he needed to do to get his childhood friend Hijiri back from what ever void she fell into.  Then he just started out after that goal.  He was rarely shocked or panicked in situations.  He would take the rational approach to remedy the situation.  I’m making him sound really smart and gifted.  He isn’t.  He didn’t know a thing about magic yet he just drove forward with confidence.  Truth be told he probably never fully understands… period.

Magic and level of mastery was a little more thought out than most.  Every mage needs to pick a school of study.  That is the beginning and the end of a mages life.  They choose from the seven deadly sins.  Each meaning something more than its actual definition.  Once a mage has chosen, they study it for the rest of their lives in order to master it.  However there are very powerful mages called Demon Lord candidates.  Yes Arata is one of them.  Even though he has no idea what he’s doing.  His goals are simple.  See as many girls naked as possible, and save Hijiri.

Honestly I still have to do my research to the future of this anime. As it looks as far as Crunchyroll is concerned, there is a OVA at the end of season 1.  If there is going to be a season 2, that would make me very happy.  I still want to see what comes next after what happens in the last episode.

As always I leave the rest to you.  It’s a fun watch. I recommend it without hesitation.

 

-ja ne

Strike the Blood

Pleasantly surprised.  I’m still a bit bitter with “Noblesse: Awakening”.  So I sort of skim over vampire anime.  Though to contradict myseslf, I have far more vampire anime that I love to stop and at least try.  I’m really glad I did on this one.  I thought all the characters were well done, that including the voice acting.

I’ll actually start off by saying that i’m really looking forward to more of this anime.  There were a few unanswered questions.  One being really important in my opinion.

Our main man Kojou Akatsuki has more or less adopted the vampiric power to become the strongest of them all.  The title for that is Progenitor.  There are 4.  In the first series here we only met one other of them.  Of course Kojou being the forth.  Kojou was human previously, and was given the power from Avrora Florestina.  This is that big unanswered question.  We don’t know how or why just yet.  Kojou has little memory of it. He only gets a few flash backs, but nothing to draw much on.  However being a new blood he doesn’t have all that much power, and his familiars don’t recognize him as worthy of their power.  Buuuuuut in the best way possible, he just needs a little blood to form a foundation and respect needed to summon them. Of course this comes from all the women that love him.  In proper fashion of course.  The beautiful big breasted classmates timidly offer their neck in support.  With each of these girls comes a new familiar.  Except in one case where he needed two blood pacts to summon the familiar with 2 heads that can devour the dimensions around the enemy.  Naturally all the girls love him. So again in proper fashion, he keeps getting himself into awkward situations that leave one if not all of them jealous and angry.

I Love Harem Anime!

I think it all started with “Samurai Harem”.  Sorry back to subject.

All of this story takes place on the floating island called Itogami City.  This island is dubbed the Demon District.  Here all sorts live among each other.  Many are here in secret to Observe the fourth progenitor.  Yukina Himeragi is one such person.  She is sent by the “lion King Organization” to observe him.  Yes the first lady on the scene is the matriarch of the love interests, and first to offer her neck to help Kojou.

As its seems to of turned out.  There are 2 OVA’s instead of a second season. That saddens me a bit.  However i’m not giving up too much hope.  The anime is making headway still.  We here in the U.S. are still getting the graphic novel translated.  That’s a good sign in my opinion.

 

As always I leave the rest to you. I hope you enjoy this one.  I really did. To the point maybe that even I will invest in the graphic novels.