Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie Limited Edition Blu-Ray Box Set

Just received my imported box set of Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie today with the translation booklet from Aniplex of America.

 Aniplex of America's imported edition comes with 3 postcards of the movie posters plus the translation booklet for the Material Book that comes with the box set in Japan.

 This beautiful case is underneath the Ultimate Madoka hardcover slipcase.

 Material Booklet with artwork, interviews, and track listing for the movie soundtrack.

Part 1: Beginnings on the left, Part 2: Eternal in the center, and the movie soundtrack on the right.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie Part 3: Rebellion is schedule to be released in Japan October 26 2013, and Aniplex of America has announced somewhere that they will do US screenings of the movie shortly after once again.  Will be looking forward to that when  the time comes.

Finished watching Date A Live

Well I've just finished watching Date A Live from this past Spring 2013 anime season and I thoroughly enjoyed it for what it is. Parodying visual novels from time to time with a story about saving the world by dating Spirts to seal their destructive powers.  I was mainly attracted to this series because of Tsunako's moe artwork, mainly as I enjoyed Tsunako's other work with the designs for Hyperdimension Neptunia.  The anime itself is based on the light novels written by Koushi Tachibana, with currently 7 or 8 novels about.  This series seems to be based around the first 4 novels.

The cast of character's in this anime was pretty likeable, with my favorites being Tobuichi Origami for her straightforward awkwardness and her monotonous voice leads to some funny interactions with Shido.  Another character I enjoyed was Itsuka Kotori, Shido's younger sister, mainly because she's your textbook twin-tailed loli tsundere that is in almost every romantic comedy anime.  One character that I dislike but is apparently a huge fan favorite is Tokisaki Kurumi.  I don't really have a reason do dislike her but I just do.

I'm not a great judge on animation quality, but I love the animation and the bright colors used in the show. Fanservice was on the tame side for my taste, only appearing on episodes where needed.  I found the voice acting and OST to be pretty good, as well as the OP and ED themes.

After the 12th episode ended there was a preview of the second season that will be aired sometime in the future continuing the story.  Looking forward to it when it does.

*picture from July 2013 Newtype magazine.

Hatsune Miku Project Diva F Demo

This past Tuesday Sega release a demo of the English version of Project Diva F.  Compared to the Vita version which sadly they opted not to port over as well, the graphics are definitely sharper and the colors feel more vibrant.  The brightness of the game as well as the larger screen can be a problem as I've found myself dropping combos due to losing track of where the notes are flying, but it might be just me not having picked up the game recently.

However, I'm kinda disappointed that they didn't actually translate the lyrics to the songs and just put them into romaji, which for those who do not know Japanese is just instead of using Japanese kana and kanji, it is written out in alphabetical letters.  I'd hope that they would change it or add it to the release build.

The game is scheduled for a PSN only release on the PS3 in August.  Still debating whether to double dip as I've bought the Japanese Vita version along with the DLC songs. :/

Ten Games Japanese Gamers Reccomend

Following up on that article from Kotaku I mentioned in my Dungeon Travelers 2 post, I can agree on most of their recommendations.  Aside from Dungeon Travelers 2 I've also played Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus and DmC.  Those are really fun games and they play really well (ignoring Senran Kagura's excessive fanservice).  I'm surprised as with most people that the Japanese loved Far Cry 3, which I haven't gotten my hands on yet but am looking for it to be on sale during the Steam Summer Sale.

Demon Gaze and 7th Dragon 2020 II are some RPG's I haven't really heard much of, but they do like like excellent games.  The 7th Dragon series has never and localization and probably never will, but as Demon Gaze is a new IP, I'm hoping one of the niche developers here in the US like Atlus, Aksys, NIS America, or Xseed will pick it up.

NIS's The Guided Fate Paradox is coming over sometime in the Fall and I am looking forward to the spirtual sequel to Z.H.P. Unlosing Ranger vs Darkdeath Evilman.  That was a fun spin on the roguelike RPG genre and had quite a few cameos from Disgaea and various manga/anime.  Hoping Guided Fate Paradox will do the same.

Soul Sacrifice is out right now but I haven't the opportunity try it out/ buy it, but the reviews have been positive.  Macross 30 is something the states will never see but as new Macross fan I'll believe the Japanese to its quality.

Dungeon Travelers 2 The Royal Library and the Seal of Mamono

After reading an article that caught my eye at Kotaku that lists ten games Japanese gamers recommend this year, Dungeon Travelers 2 caught my interest.  Easily described as a Moe dungeon crawler RPG with tons of fanservice, with tons of ecchi CG's and just about every enemy in the game being some kind of anthropomorphosized monster-girl, or fruit,(seriously Fruit.).  Aside from all of that, it is a pretty enjoyable game that differentiates itself a lot from other dungeon crawlers.

For one, you don't create your own characters in this game.  Instead as you progress, new girls join your team about every chapter of the game and each of them have their own classes available and you build your party around it.  Speaking of classes, there are tons of them as there are five base classes that split into a large class tree.  From the first class it splits into two, and from those it splits into another two.
For example here is the fighter class tree from this wiki

Fighter	Paladin	Valkyrie
		Samurai
	Berserker	Samurai
		Dark Lord

Gameplay is standard dungeon crawler RPG fare, explore dungeons, find treasure, fill maps, random encounters, trap floors etc.  In battle each character takes turns like your normal RPG instead of the usual your team then enemy team turn orders most dungeon crawlers take like Etrian Odyssey.  The battles flow pretty fast from what I've played and aren't as slow or as difficult as many dungeon crawlers usually are.

I happened across a sale on the Limited Edition premium box set for the game shortly after reading the article at yesasia.com.  From their full retail price of $128.99 to just $79.99 I took the opportunity to snag it up for myself.  Consider myself lucky :P

The premium box set includes a cardboard box that holds inside the game, a deck of playing cards decorated with some of the monsters from the game, a artbook, soundtrack, and drama CD.  I was also lucky to still receive the pre-order bonus that I guess yesasia had leftovers of which include a PSP skin and a PSN code for a PSP custom theme.

The game was released in Japan in March 28 2013 and is rated for 17+.

Developed by Aquaplus, Game Website http://aquaplus.jp/dt2/   

Cleaning up the dust

After neglecting my blog for so long I'm back!.  Dunno why I just stopped writing but I guess I just got lazy and have just been using my twitter for all the small talk.  With summer approaching and so many great games played within the past 6 months or so since I've stopped, I figured I should start writing up stuff again.  I'll be trying to post so impressions or reviews with the games I've played as well as some interesting news/topics I'd like to comment about.

Next month I'll be heading down to Anime Expo in Los Angeles for my 6th year and will write about some stuff that I'll see.  For now I'll try and post some stuff I've done recently regarding my gaming life and maybe some anime(which is a topic I've never really blogged about much).

[Review] Magical Drop V

A cult-classic puzzle game by some, the Magical Drop series is a fast-paced puzzle game with an emphasis on matching colored orbs to create combos to crowd your opponents screen to win, similar to the Bust-A-Move series by Taito.  Back in the day I've played a bit with an earlier entry, Magical Drop 3, and it was extremely fun.  Now the newest entry in the series makes it's appearance on Steam and it is a blast.

Released on November 15th, Magical Drop V features a story mode for solo play, along with local play versus modes, which includes a 2-on-2 team battle mode and a 4 player king of the hill.  There's also online play for each of the modes and leaderboards for high scores.  The game features 10 playable characters w/ 4 unlockables.  Each character in the Magical Drop series is made unique with a drop pattern.  As you create combos, orbs will drop in a pattern unique to that character.

New in Magical Drop V is the Ghostlop game mode, which apparently was an unreleased arcade game that got incorporated into Magical Drop V.  Ghostlop is accessed by playing a select few characters and at first glance it looks similar to playing Bust-A-Move, but it is completely different.  Ghostlop is played by tossing a fireball up towards an arrangement of blue and orange colored ghost orbs, and to break them your fireball can switch between a blue and orange glow to destroy the appropriate colors.  It's a more difficult game mode from my experience.

Winning a round of Magical Drop comes down to 2 different objectives. First is to meet the quota, which is to destroy a certain number of orbs before your opponent. The other method is if a column of orbs reaches the bottom of the screen.  So to do real well in this game is to be fast and have a good eye for setting up combos.

The story mode is just your typical arcade style solo play where you pick a character and go through some short dialouge between them and the various cast of the game till you reach the final stage and play off against a boss character.

The graphics are in a clean and crisp HD with a very colorful scheme to it all.  The visual effects are great when combos are made as orbs explode, and as high combos are made, there are some nice magical visual effects such as water bubbling, fire blazing, and thunder appearing on screen.

The sound effects are satisfying as you pop orbs and that really energizing ding you hear when you keep comboing goes into a higher pitch gets you pumped up.  Characters are voiced in Japanese, but some of them can sound a little bit obnoxious.  Music is a nice, light, and cheerful tune when on the various menu screens, while during matches they're more faster paced, but it's difficult to pay attention to it when the sound of popping orbs and combos are just all over the place.

Overall, Magical Drop V is a real fun fast paced puzzler that is great to kill any amount of free time.  The game is available on Steam for $9.99.