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Told you that it wouldn’t take long to finish this project, and on an even better note, I think I’m completely out of my melancholy! Regarding kit building at least. Taiga had a lot to do with it though. The sculpt was absolutely wonderful and so easy to work with! After looking at some of the other kits in my collection which still need to be built, I wonder how much time I’ll need to spend to get those looking decent…
But this post is about Taiga and I have to admit that she turned out much better than I had anticipated.
Many thanks to Radiant Dreamer for the suggestion on the colour scheme. The original kit had Taiga in either a lilac or brown dress but that seemed a little dull because pretty much everybody who owns the kit used those schemes, especially the brown dress so this blue ensemble worked really well.
Continue reading A Wild Taiga Appears!
Well, colour me a little surprised. Just before I was ready to complete my Japanese copy of Project X zone, it was announced that the game would get a western release! Well, the game was my primary reason to get a cool-as-hell JP 3DS but not the only reason. That would just be silly! I do have a number of other JP only games which I wanted to try out and the next game is a bit of an oldie now… Senran Kagura Burst!
Now, one of the reasons I wanted to play this game is simply because there’s not much info on it! The game got some coverage on western games sites but they were all mocking in tone. You can’t really blame them though, since the advertising on the game basically revolved around the gimmick of being able to see animated boobies in 3D!! Hell, even the producer of the game said that was the reason why he wanted to make the game! Not the most auspicious of starts!
This is actually the second game released. It was billed as a sequel but, to be more honest, it’s more like an expansion pack, which allows you to play as the villains from the first game while also containing the previous game in its entirety! Buyers of the first game must have been peeved!!! Anyway, if you watch the Promo videos, you do get to see a little bit of gameplay, in between the scenes of clothes being torn off and whatnot and it’s basically a side scrolling fighting game!
There’s a whole bunch of text to go through as well, since the game does try to tell a bit of a story (Which is sorta covered by the anime adaptation) though the stories from the 2 sides don’t seem to have much overlap (and when they do, they tend to contradict themselves so best think of them as separate stories).but the bulk of the game is the side scrolling fighting. Stages are separated into various missions which story missions being needed to be completed to progress and must be done by a specific character and free missions which can be done by anyone. Completing missions gives your character experience points to level up as well as fill up one of 2 bars which increase your stats in the game.
Controls are very simple, with a light and heavy attack button, dash and jump button for the face buttons and a ninpo buttons and a special attack which knocks enemies around you away but takes away health. As you take damage, your clothes do as well and eventually, your character can end up playing in their undies. You can also manually trigger a mode which removes the clothes off at the start of the stage which grants you enhanced speed and strength but reduces your defence to near nothing! It’s also the only way to fill one of the 2 bars to power up your characters.
Initially, you are limited to very simple combos which usually end with a launcher attack which you can follow up by using the dash button to continue your combo in the air. Once you fill up your ninpo bar, pressing the L button triggers your shinobi transformation which gives the characters their better known looks. It also unlocks the characters super moves and, as they get stronger, more combo options.
The battle system in the game is incredibly simple and somewhat reminds me of Muramasa on the Wii, but without the gorgeous hand drawn graphics. There is also a high emphasis on fanservice in this game, with the ability to customise your characters looks and costumes in the game with additional costumes unlocked as you progress.
So, how does it fare?
Continue reading Mini Review – Senran Kagura Burst
Well, this post is a little late! I spent the evening which I should have spent writing the weekly post watching the Sony PS4 reveal. I had hoped that they would give enough info to make things interesting but alas, it was not meant to be. I found the event to be rather lacklustre and, while I am looking forward to the consoles release, I am not particularly excited about it.
So, this weeks post is a quick WIP post on the kit I am currently working on. I found myself with some time on my hands and while randomly rummaging through stuff, I found an Aisaka Taiga kit I bought a while back but never built. She’s a pretty cute number so I decided to work on her. The only problem was that I wasn’t really interested in doing the same colour scheme as everyone else who bought the kit seemed to have done so I wanted to do something different. Thanks to Radiant Dreamer, I was able to think of a base colour scheme, which was then extended when I saw the Queens Blade Grimoire Alicia figure. And here’s where I’m up to right now…
I still have the hair and dress details to do, not to mention the face but she has been progressing quite quickly. Especially considering how long my other recent kits have been taking. I’ve basically been working on her for about 2 weeks and she’s already up to this stage!
The colour scheme is basically a 2 tier blue look with a darker blue on the trim and stockings. Some of the parts of the stockings need some cleanup but it’s pretty good going so far. Hopefully, it won’t take much longer to finish her, though I have metal gear rising arriving soon…
Well, Wonder Festival happened over the weekend, which happened to coincide with chinese new year so I was with family while the event was going on but I still managed to remain mostly abreast of the situation. There was a nice spread of figures this time around and even some PVC figures which caught my interest, notably Honda Futayo from Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon! Now, I just need a good Aoi Kimi and I’ll be satisfied! There was also an interesting PVC figure of Mu-12 from Blazblue as well. The only problem is that the figure is made by FREEing, and their track record for BB has been… well, shit!!!
But enough about that, lets look at the Garage kits which caught my eye!
These were the Big 3 for me this time around. Sheryl makes an appearance, as always but the other 2 were fun interpretations of 2 busou shinki figures which I own. Sadly, my budget restrictions meant that I could only try for 1 of the 2 shinkis along with Sheryl. I haven’t heard back from my proxy yet so I don’t know if I was successful either…
Anyways, on with the rest!
Continue reading Winter Wonder Festival 2013 Garage Kits
After last weeks post, It may not come as a surprise to hear that I am rather fond of the Xeno- series. Specifically, Xenogears and the Xenosaga Trilogy. Regular readers will also know that I am not averse to dropping a considerable sum to acquire a particular GK when I think it’s worth it. Afterall, I have done it twice before! Well, time to chalk up another one and, given my previous works, this one may not come as much of a surprise. Here’s T-ELOS!
This is the Charagumin kit of T-ELOS, which was the only one which was available at the time I purchased her. There is an uncoloured version out there as well and, truth be told, I’d rather have that one but what’s done is done! One thing you can’t argue with when it comes to the Charagumin line, they definitely know how to design their boxes!!
Even the back look gorgeous!! As this is a charagumin kit, the parts are already molded in colour so, in theory, all you need to do is put them all together to get a complete kit, bet you want to know how she looks, right?
Continue reading Here comes a New Challenger!
First off, apologies to anyone out there who was expecting a blog post last week. I got floored by a particularly stubborn virus and was completely out of commission for pretty much the entire week and then some. Damn thing is still kicking about, even now! but it did give me a chance to watch my Blu-ray copy of the Avengers with Joss Whedon directors commentary, which was very cool and also gave me some Xenosaga goodness to share with everyone.
The first would be the Kotobukiya KOS-MOS plamo which was finished a couple of weeks ago. She would have been posted last week if my health didn’t nosedive!
It seems kinda fitting that the figure to get me out of my model making melancholy (at least for a little while) would be one of my top 3 favourite characters. Top being the Galaxy Fairy, Sheryl Nome! KOS-MOS ranks just above Noel Vermillion from Blazblue (though she could tumble come Chrono Phantasma. Not a fan of her new look…)
Continue reading Re-light my fire
Hurrah for new anime season! Double hurrah for it being a bit lower on the numbers. That means that I can catch up with the last bunch of shows since I went for just over a week without watching any of them cos I was with family celebrating Christmas so I fell behind… This actually caused something somewhat interesting when it comes to my end of year lists but I’ll get to that later. As per the usual, lets go through the previous seasons shows.
Best show
Psycho Pass
Oh man, this was a close one. It was between this and Shin Sekai Yori and I had a really hard time choosing. Shin Sekai Yori has the deeper story and sucks you in better but it’s really a show which you really have to concentrate and pay attention to. Psycho Pass is simpler but no less engaging. Ultimately though, what swung the vote was that if I had to recommend one of them to a friend who isn’t into anime or the like, Psycho Pass would be a safer bet than Shin Sekai yori as it’s more easily accessible. That was it.
Then again, I vaguely remember thinking similar things about a show last year which ended up really crap. But the cast of Psycho Pass are already way more interesting and likeable than the ones from that show…
Runner up: Shin Sekai Yori
Continue reading Anime Roundup: Winter 2013
OK, this one has been a long time coming. 2 months in fact! But then again, I did need to get a japanese 3DS to play it and then progress far enough to get a decent feel for the game but we’re here now. This weeks post is a review of Project X zone on the 3DS
Now, before we begin, I should say that this is not going to be a “mini” review. I’ve noticed that the game hasn’t really had much coverage since its release and there’s not really any explanation on how the game actually plays. This might be because every news outlet knows something we don’t and a western release is on the horizon, but I have my doubts for reasons I’ll get into later. But what that means for is that this post is going to be rather long and wordy! I’ll try and pad it out with some pics but there’s such a dearth of pics on the net, aside from the stuff collected by andriasang.com that I had to take some myself using my trusty cameraphone (ergo, they suck!)
You might want to get into a comfy chair and have a hot cup of good tea handy as well…
OK? Here we go! Project X zone is a direct sequel to Namco X Capcom, a Strategy RPG which was released on the PS2 and combined many characters from various games from the 2 companies, spanning right down to some of their earliest titles. The game also tried to do something different by giving you limited control of your characters during the attack and defence phase. You needed to input basic button presses to launch attacks and, by careful timing, combo them together for bonus effects. Project X Zone continues in a similar trend but adds Sega into the mix as well as a good helping of another game which was developed by monolith soft… The game occasionally references the events of NxC, especially between characters who made it into both games and certain stages from NxC are lifted wholesale and placed into Project X Zone, so it’s pretty safe to say that this is a direct sequel. But for now, lets get into the meat of the game.
Continue reading Mini Review: Project X Zone
This is the first post of 2013, so a part of me feels like it should be a big happy one! But it isn’t. I have a few big posts lined up but the first one of the new year is a little bittersweet. Before the Christmas holidays, I had started to build my Real Grade Freedom gundam. Well, she’s (mostly) finished.
There’s still the “new plastic sheen” on the kit so I should either paint it or sand the parts down a little like I did with the RG Strike Gundam. The problem is that, while building this kit, I found it really hard to build up any enthusiasm for building it!
I’ve been collecting Gunpla for around 14 years now. I still remember walking around the shops in Hong Kong with a massive smile as I tried to choose which ones I would be taking back. I fondly remember locking myself in my room and spending hours building all types of kits, but mostly MG and PG kits and yet, now, I had to almost force myself to build the wings of the RG Freedom Gundam. I could never imagine myself not enjoying building gunpla and yet, it’s happening now! Worse still, I’ve been rather lethargic when it comes to my current GK project as well, although that may also have to do with the fact that the parts quality is terrible and I’m spending ages just trying to get them to look presentable…
By biggest worry is that I might be falling out of love with my hobby… It’s not a good sign when a simply gunpla project feels like work! And it’s a pretty sorry state of affairs for my gunpla building history. It was my gateway drug in many respects. Heck, I stumbled on Dannychoo.com (ver 3) and Figure.fm (the original one) and made many online friends after searching for gunpla stuff! But what’s really worrying is how it just suddenly became a chore. Or rather, I suddenly realised it. Is this how things will go? Will I suddenly decide to stop working on my kits because I can’t be bothered one day? I said a while back that the last kit I ever build will be my Volks Knight of Gold and I still hold myself to that, but if I go through with it at the late stages, It’s going to be a terrible job done half heartedly. Should I do it soon while my interest still holds and go out on a high?
Maybe I’m overthinking things. Maybe this is just a passing phase but right now, it’s a nagging question with an answer which will shape a lot of things in the coming days…
(possibly) falling out of love of something might be as painful as falling in love…
And now we bid farewell to another year and, quite frankly, one I’m quite happy to see the back of. It started well enough but the later half is definitely one I’ll be happy to forget. But enough about that, time to look back at the non-figure stuff which have caught my attention over the past year. Some of the more fondly remembered anime and video games over the past year. And so, here are my fave anime shows of the year!
It was surprisingly hard to pick out a top 5 this year. Many shows were good but it took a while to settle for a top 5 as there weren’t really any which really stood out above the rest. It was easier to make the worst of 2012. In fact, here it is!
*edit: I added a little more which I initially forgot about when I wrote this post. Not sure how I could have forgotten going to the May’n concert in October!*
Continue reading One more time!
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