Terminus

Well, got my Xbox 360. I'm liking Halo a lot more than I was expecting (I'm a huge fan of not aiming down the sight in shooters), and I've liked a few other things I've tried on there. I'm pretty happy with it, although coming from years of a mostly PlayStation/Nintendo environment, whe whole dashboard interface just feels terrible. I'm really not a big fan of the ads, and the dashboard feels really clunky to navigate through, especially compared to PS's XMB or Nintendo's tile-based system. Also I can't decide which is worse, the Nintendo store or the Xbox store. All in all, good system, terrible interface.

I just watched this week's Ninja Slayer, and went in expecting to drop it after this week, but ended up being surprised with a somewhat decent episode (the lack of the boring cutout animation prevalent in earlier episodes really didn't hurt), so I'll stick around some more. And numbers, because I think things have changed around since two weeks ago: 1. Fate/stay night UBW 2. Nisekoi: 3. Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches 4. The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-Chan 5. DanMachi 6. I Can't Understand What my Husband is Saying 2 7. Seraph of the End 8. Ninja Slayer 9. Triage X

Watched Age of Ultron last night, it was a pretty good movie. It was a lot more of a comedy than I was expecting, there were a bunch of moments (specifically when the hammer/language were mentioned) when the entire (packed) theater was cracking up. Definitely one of the more fun MCU movies (seen them all except Hulk), and I like fun movies. Really excited to see how next week's SHIELD ties into it.

I hope "The Final Chapter" turns out to be an actual description of the game, and not just the title. The game's gotten too big for it's own good. So glad this happened. Wouldn't have minded if the modders got more of the money, but 75% of the money going to companies who really had no involvement in making the mods is really too much.

Wow, another F-Zero game is up for preorder at GameStop, and Nintendo hasn't even announced it yet? That's the only real flaw I see in the fake cover, otherwise it looks like a standard generic cut-and-paste GS placeholder box. Might be able to trick mallgoers who aren't up to date with Nintendo a announcements, though. Anyways, speaking of GameStop, I might be getting a used 360 bundle from there later sometime soon for $150, know it comes with the first Halo port, might pick up the other Halo games as well.

Well, it seems like Silent Hills has been cancelled, and the PT demo for it is being pulled in a couple days. Not surprised, since Kojima seems to have vanished off the face of the earth, but it's still kinda disappointing. I'm not a horror game person, but I liked PT and would have liked to play the full game. Edit: Silent Hills cancellation confirmed, also Konami isn't on the New York Stock Exchange anymore. What in the word (besides the Kojima stuff) is going on over there?

I need to get a New 3DS and the Xenoblade port, I never finished it and at this point starting over from the beginning would probably be good to refresh myself on the story. ... Also, what is the big deal with Xenoblade, anyways? It was good, but I never felt it really got any more than good. Also since people seem to be familiar with Destiny here, are Raid Matchmaking and Text Chat really not things in that game?

I've mostly been watching Mizzetq's videos for the past few months, she's got great guides for Final Fantasy XIV endgame content, and my Guild coordinates most of our raid runs based off her strategies. I also like Markiplier and Rooster Teeth, although I usually only watch them when I'm hanging out with friends.

I completely forgot about the Nisekoi OVAs, mainly because they aren't on Crunchyroll, and I pretty much completely left the fansub scene once I became a premium member there. I saw the fist one shortly after it came out, gonna have to check out the other two soon.

I really need to get around to RahXephon. It's at least on Amazon Prime, so it's easily available to me, I might try and watch it when I can. I already have far too much on my list of things to watch/finish (including the second half of the second season of Code Geass, which I've somehow been putting off for months now) to really start any new non-simulcasting shows. Anyways, on Eva- if there's anythingEva is good at, it's ditching it's plot for something else at the most important time. 3.33 was really important because it's the penultimate rebuild movie that would lead into Final. Then we got the timeskip (which I really wouldn't mind, were the rest of the movie handled better), hype surrounding two new characters (who really served no purpose, period) right around the time the movie hit theaters, no more development for Mari (again, another useless character introduced in the movies who I just can't care about), and then something like an hour of Shinji x Kaworu fanservice. IMO the only good things to come out of that movie were some of the redesigns (specify the Evas and Asuka's red & white plugsuit) and Kaworu's death (because if you already didn't like him, then watching made the hour before kinda worth it), and then there was also some good mecha action but that doesn't really make or break the plot. It's also very much middle ground for the series as content goes, it wasn't as psychological as the later episodes, nor generally straightforward as earlier parts, so yeah, more problems there. If there's one thing the spinoff manga series (I've read Campus Apocalypse and The Shinji Ikari Raising Project) are good at, it's staying consistent throughout their runs, unlike main Eva. And this season. Overall, not too bad: 1. Fate/stay night UBW 2. Nisekoi: 3. Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon (DanMachi) 4. The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-Chan 5. Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches 6. I Can't Understand What my Husband is Saying 2 7. Seraph of the End 8. Triage X 9. Ninja Slayer F/SN is doing really well with the original material over the past couple weeks. It kinda made me hope that they might change the moment I inevitably knew was coming, but... Nope. This is still the UBW storyline, and they're sticking with it. At least I know the next season of Prisma Illya is airing next season... Paula's introduction in Nisekoi was a pretty good show of how entertaining this series can be even when it's not focusing on the usual main cast. It's also a reminder that the underclassmen exist, because at the current point in the manga, the only one who really ever appears is Haru (who has only showed up in the OP so far), and I kinda forgot Paula and other girl in the OP exist. DanMachi is probably the biggest surprise of the season for me- the first novel has been fully adapted in the first three episodes, and it's an all-around improvement. If nothing else, the fact that the novel's bad writing style doesn't really carry over into animation is an improvement in itself, and it lets me get into other parts of the series more, and the RPG-like setting is much more tolerable when "THIS IS AN RPG!!!" isn't constantly being crammed down your throat. Nagato Yuki-chan is a nice, quiet little slice-of-life show... And then Haruhi showed up, and things got crazy (albeit with no espers, time-travelers, or aliens this time). It's definitely doing a pretty good job of adapting the manga, IMO, both visually and plotwise. Yamada was pretty good, it's the second time I've seen the body-swapping thing in anime (haven't seen any since Kokoro Connect a few years ago), and once again I enjoyed the concept and execution. It also gets bonus points for being one of the only series to ever get me to start yelling at my TV (when Yamada had switched bodies and was confronted by the bullies, "Deck them. DECK THEM!" Because I know he could. And it was so satisfying when he snapped.). I Can't Understand What My Husband is Saying is still 3 minutes of funny with a kinda loose overarching story and not much else to say about it. Pretty much just what I was expecting after the first season. Seraph is pretty decent, although I'm not really a fan of the color palette- the lime greens are a bit too lime green, and everything is just a tad bright for my tastes. Still, it at least holds up nicely in the animation department, so I guess things kinda balance out. So far it's been a pretty faithful adaptation of the manga, but I wonder how it'll go in later episodes. Triage X started out good enough to get me interested- so much so that I've now read about half of the manga, and I've really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I'm now familiar with the source material and have it really fresh in my mind- and while the first episode was a good adaptation, the second was not as much. The second episode adapted the entire second arc, which is twice as long as the first. The first arc was just short enough to fit into a single episode fine, but so much actual, important plot was cut from the second arc to fit it into a single episode that it really didn't hold together well at all. And lastly, there's Ninja Slayer. There's some neat animation to be had here, somewhere between the mess of moving cardboard cutouts that comprised 90% of the episode. I really wasn't hoping for this, as Inferno Cop really was not my thing, and the cardboard cutouts plus neon explosion, along with the comedy that really didn't do it for me... Feeling like this one's gonna be a dud.

All my friends hate me now because I'm the only one who got both versions of Smash. Haven't tried him out that much (2-3 matches), but I like him so far.

TBH I'm just one of those people who really liked EVA when it was a funny mecha show with some really good battles, post-apocalyptic undertones, and a good deal of symbolism. The ending really just lacked the action and humor that I came to love throughout the series, and to me replacing all that with a mentally interesting but otherwise boring therapy session was the real mindscrew. (Of course all the meta stuff was too, while I was first watching it when I was 14 or so) Also I'm one of those people who likes the idea of Death & Rebirth > End of Evangelion > Last episode. That timeline at least made EoE and the last episode a bit more tolerable for me plotwise.

At this point, I'm just hoping Final has a good ending. Like, an actual ending that can easily be followed and grasped while watching the movie, without requiring looking back on everything after it's all over to get it. I really don't care about the rest of the movie, just give me five-ten minutes of decentness at the very end. Because the ending was the worst part of EVA, IMO, including EoE. Anyways, I've started pretty much everything I'll be watching this season, with the exception of things that haven't started streaming yet (Yamada-kun, Ninja Slayer, and Grisaia), and I've yet to start Food Wars. Nisekoi is my candidate for best OP of the season, simply because the video was really funny (as was the entire episode). Wondering how far it'll go this season, I'm guessing that if it takes up the same amount of chapters as last season, it'll end right before the last girl shows up. Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon (which I just found out is shortened to DanMachi by fans, which is a heck of a lot less of a mouthful) improves a good deal on the novel, as I was hoping. The blatant RPG elements of numerical stats, loot drops and the like are pretty toned down a bit, plus it even feels a good bit less harem-y (elf girl at the guild, waitress girl, and hero girl Aiz have gotten a lot less time here than in the novel), which leads me to finally enjoy the world building a bit more, because a setting that combines Greco-Roman, Norse, Hindu, and Shinto mythology could turn out pretty good. The surprising not-badness of this anime has gotten me excited for the second novel, which just so happens to be coming out a few days before the anime starts adapting it. That'll definitely be a day one read. Picked up Triage X due to it being recommended by some friends, who also happened to recommend HotD to me a while back, and that just so happens to be really high on my list of awful anime series, so between who was recommending it and it's connection with one of the few anime series I've absolutely hated enough to drop (although I think the guy who does Triage only does HotD's art), so I really wasn't expecting anything, and I ended up getting something that felt like a kinda trashy old OVA. And I can enjoy those once in a while. And this season just seems to be that once in a while.

The Xbox line has never had very many exclusives. It always was the system to get for the multiplats since it had architecture that was similar enough to PCs that made it easy to dev for as a lead system. Now that the PS4 is not only technologically superior in every aspect (if only by virtue of 10% of the CPU on the Xbox One reserved for Kinect...even when it isn't used), but also has x86-based architecture, it... doesn't have much going for it. It doesn't help that everything it gets as an exclusive is ported over to PC. The only exception so far is Master Chief Collection, and with the whole Halo Online thing, I wouldn't be shocked if even that gets ported over if Halo 5 undersells. I'm honestly pretty sure that the Xbox line is going to be discontinued as consoles next gen. Might be some Steam-esc service on PC or Microsoft publishes games as a third-party (like what they did with their DS titles). Yeah, everything gets ported over to PC because they beg for it. Anyways, I'm thinking the 9th gen is going to be the last series of dedicated consoles we're going to see from both Microsoft and Sony. Technology isn't up to par yet. I'd honestly like to see consoles go away, then I'd get a PC and be able to play absolutely everything. But I really don't see that happening anytime in the near future. Given the history of movies based off games, and the game said movie would be based off of... I don't expect it to be any good at all. Also my friends who are part of the crazy fanbase have completely killed the series for me.

Not necessarily. The service that monitors and prevents hacking is moved to new sequels, so when Advanced Warfare 2 or 3 comes out, AW will be sadly rendered unplayable.Really? Because last time I checked (a while ago, but still sometime after AW's release) MW2 on PS3 was still working perfectly fine. Also Xbox needs to get more exclusives I'd want to play, because I've been pretty interested in Scalebound since it was announced.

Another problem I see is that so many of the big AAA games are sequels. I don't always see a problem with that, but I'm not going to jump into Assassin's Creed 6 since I'd be missing out on a ton of prior story from the other games, and since pretty much every Call of Duty is the same, I'll be set with Advanced Warfare for pretty much the rest of the generation. Anyways, I'd like to play a GoT game, but Walking Dead seriously turned me off from anything involving Telltale. It was kinda floating in the middle ground between a regular game and a visual novel, and between the story I really couldn't get into and the awful gameplay, I'm surprised I managed to complete it. I kinda feel GoT would lend itself more to an RPG or the like anyways. I'd like to see that in the future.

Personally, I wouldn't separate the story from the game. Yes, gameplay is an important part of the game, but the story is still part of the full game, along with all the other art (models, sprites, backgrounds, etc) that goes into making a full video game. If we're going to compare games to movies, I'd say the way the story and gameplay sections tie together (especially in really linear games), video games are more like interactive movies. I'd also point to Visual Novels and Adventure Games, where gameplay is extremely minimal or virtually non-exist outside of menus or choosing option A, B, or C. I get what you're saying, but the statement "video games which were made by computers" is just wrong. Replace "by" with "with" and then I'd agree with you on that statement, but as a 3D Modeling & Animaton student, I can say that creating 3D models for games involves quite a bit of work by the artist- simply building and rigging a model is a pretty involved process, and then you also need to texture the models, which generally involves some form of digital painting, be it in a 3D painting program or photoshop. Also, I'd recommend looking at Flower, which is probably one of my favorite examples in favor of video games being art.

I'd definitely say that's debatable. Anyways, I'm thinking of giving the Souls games a try, wondering where to start. Thinking of trying either Demon's Souls or Dark Souls on PS3, or just jumping in with DS2 on PS4. Also, this month's free PS+ game on vita is Killzone: Mercenary. I'm not a big fan of the default controls, and there are no in-game control options (i.e., switching what button makes you run, etc), but then I remembered about Vita's custom button mapping feature. That is my new favorite feature of the Vita.

I remember seeing that somewhere. I lol'd so hard when I was watching some clips from that game.

Pretty much the only solid evidence we have about Final this year is that Utada will be writing the ending theme this year. I'd expect it to come out really late this year if it happens this year, but I'm not really expecting it to hit until 2016 at the earliest. I'm really hoping it'll hit this year, because 20th anniversary of Evangelion and all. Of course, Sailor Moon's 20th anniversary has been going on for something like 3 years now, so I wouldn't put it beyond Evangelion to do the same thing. I'm just hoping 3.33 comes Stateside this year, been waiting forever for that on BD.

Well, this season is off to a good start. F/SN had another really good episode for the S2 opener. Yay for really excited for what happens next week. I've also started Nagato Yuki-Chan and Seraph of the End, Yuki-Chan got the transition to anime pretty right, and I rather enjoyed it. I'm wondering how far it'll go in 16 episodes, though. Seraph had a pretty good start, and it rekindled my faith in adaptations of Jump action series after the awful World Trigger adaptation. I forgot how brutal the first chapter of this was... Anyways, also got the first two volumes of the Parasyte manga recently. It's pretty good, and it's neat to see the differences between the source material and the adaptation. Also my copy of Madoka Magica the Movie: Rebellion is coming tomorrow. Haven't watched the dubbed versions of Beginnings and Eternal yet, precisely because I waned to marathon all 3 movies dubbed at once, so I'll be doing that tomorrow.

I remember seeing Pokemon ORAS was sold as a set at a slightly discounted price, so I wouldn't put it past Nintendo to release both versions of FE in a single package over here, although I'd also expect them to bring over all the over complicated stuff.

I'm kinda surprised about how it looks too, especially since it is made by the DeSu team. Although Persona has pretty much been the entirety of MegaTen these past few years. Although I'm really getting Final Fantasy XIII vibes from that summoned mecha-Pegasus thing. Really hoping stuff like that isn't the entirety of monster summoning for the game.

SMTxFE IS ALIVE. SO EXCITED RIGHT NOW. In other news DS and N64 games are headed to the WiiU VC, which is pretty cool. Kinda wish they'd bring those to the 3DS, especially since the N3DS now has all the controls needed for N64 games.

Just finished the last main storyline quest in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (which was part of the latest update that launched today). Even though I'm pretty sure things will turn out fine in Heavensward, it was still pretty packed with the feels.