Enjoying TOKIO’s latest PV for “NaNaNa – Taiyou Nante Iranee 太陽なんていらねぇ”. The song is used as the theme for Unubore Deka, a love comedy starring Nagase Tomoya and Ikuta Toma. As the lead singer for TOKIO, Nagase not only sings well but is also a versatile actor who can play many roles. If you like his comedic acts, or want to enjoy a fun drama series, I suggest you start watching Unubore Deka! Hey! Hey! Hey!

A 30-year-old single detective (Nagase Tomoya), who is under the illusion that he is popular with females is called ‘Unubore’ by friends. He is an ultra romantic and susceptible to conceitedness. He has such a strong desire to marry to the extent that he has bought an apartment for his newlywed life. He falls in love with female criminals at first sight each time. While the sheer desire to meet wraps around him, he will get proof that the female is the culprit. And so, he will thrust both the arrest warrant and marriage papers at her, proposing with the words, “If you marry me, I won’t arrest you.” If that still does not work, he will hold out an engagement ring and his handcuffs. In the end, the criminal will choose to be arrested and his heart will be broken. He will cry as he puts the handcuffs on her… (from DramaWiki)

I sentence you to marry me.

Held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) from 30 July 2010 to 3 August 2010, I got the opportunity to visit this annual event during my time in Hong Kong. I’ve always wondered what an event of this type will be like? Meeting lots of people with the same interest in the popular Japanese anime culture? Otaku? Cosplayers? Celebrities? Normal people?

For full photo coverage, please visit the ACG Hong Kong 2010 Gallery

Yep, I was able to meet them all. There were heaps of cosplayers around the whole place and managed to see local HK celebrity Linda Chung playing the Wii with a few people on stage. She was amazingly good and trashed almost everyone in the New Super Mario Bros. Wii. The famous 4-Girl Japanese rock band SCANDAL, also appeared and performed Shunkan Sentimental.

I took a lot of photos of some Gundam model kits which were on display. There were many detailed and innovative model kits. Kinda miss my times building model kits and was actually really tempted in buying the Real Grade Gundam RX-78-2 but ended up I just got myself a Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Snake figure and a few Final Fantasy XIII soft toys.

These are only a few preview photos. For full photo coverage, please visit the ACG Hong Kong 2010 Gallery

For full photo coverage, please visit the ACG Hong Kong 2010 Gallery

For full photo coverage, please visit the ACG Hong Kong 2010 Gallery

The Final Fantasy series have never seem to let me down throughout the many years of my gaming experience. Final Fantasy has always been about the storyline to me, and the improvements in graphics and gameplay are there to enhance the overall experience of it. Keeping this in mind, Square Enix brought Final Fantasy XIII on to a brand new direction on the PlayStation 3, full with new characters, new worlds, and new gameplay mechanics to revolutionize traditional JRPGs.

In the past few weeks I spent some time on and off and by the time I finished the main story I was probably around the 60 hours mark. I spent another good 30 hours finishing side missions and collecting all the items to finally get the Platinum trophy. Now that I’m completely done with this game, I thought that I should share with you my overall thoughts about it, without any major spoilers to the game. As most of you may know, one of the main things that have been the criticized in this game is the extremely linear path which the players must take throughout the game. By linear I mean that we’re just walking down one path to continue the story. They also removed the traditional elements of the towns/villages, side quests and there are no places to explore, not until towards the end of the game.

Despite this, as someone who completed the game and as someone who has played Final Fantasy since 10 years ago, I can see why Square Enix made this game incredibly linear. They wanted the players to be immersed into the exciting story of the game and they didn’t want players to diverge away from the main plot. That being said, there was great character and plot development which showed us how the main characters ended up being together and how their actions affected some of the main conflicts between Cocoon (planet above the ground) and Pulse (the land below).

Background Story

I decided to write a bit on the background on the story of the game without any major spoilers as it could sometimes get a bit confusing with all the different terms used in the game. In the world where Final Fantasy XIII takes place, the Maker has created human life and to help and protect mankind, he created superior beings known as fal’Cie to perform a host of tasks and duties. The fal’Cie later on created a floating utopia above the planet known as Cocoon as a paradise to meet the needs and desires of humans. In Cocoon, many fal’Cie existed to nurture and support humans with everything from power (Kujata), food (Carbuncle) and weather (Pheonix). With these support in place, the humans were allowed to govern themselves and eventually led to the creation of a government called the Sanctum.

The land below Cocoon, an entirely different world known as Pulse, also has its own fal’Cie and group of inhabitants. However, because of the war which happened few hundred years ago between these two worlds, citizens of Cocoon are in constant fear of Pulse and they are forbidden to enter Pulse. Anyone who leaves Cocoon is immediately exiled from the planet.

These fal’Cie from both words alike have the power to bind humans to a task. L’Cie is the name given to such humans, and the task given to them is called a Focus. Once humans become a l’Cie, they are granted magical abilities to help them complete their Focus, which are only conveyed to them by vague, dreamlike thoughts. L’Cie who fail to complete or those who entirely reject their Focus face a terrible fate as they become monsters known as Cie’th. Despite that, even those who fulfill their Focus are not free to return to their previous lives. The “reward” for completing their Focus is not an eternal life, but an eternal sleep where they are transformed into crystal. Because of this fact alone, it is perceived that being selected as a l’Cie is as good as being cursed.

This leads on to the story of the game where they found that a Pulse l’Cie was lying around on Ewleede Canyon and the Sanctum eventually decided that everyone at the nearby coastal city Bodhum be Purged from Cocoon. The Purge was a Sanctum initiative designed to protect the stability of Cocoon by focusing potentially dangerous civilians to relocate to Pulse. However, it was later found that the Purge was simply a facade to cover for the massacre that was to come.

Battle System

A new battle system was introduced in Final Fantasy XIII, which utilized the Paradigm Shift system. This system is very similar to the Gambit system used in Final Fantasy XII. Square Enix have done a great job in combining those main elements in the Final Fantasy XII and polished it into an automated interface which is less complicated to use. In the new Paradigm Shift system, each party member is assigned one of 6 main roles (Commando, Ravager, Sentinel, Saboteur, Synergist and Medic) to perform their respective actions during battle.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Using the Paradigm Shift system, players have to utilize these roles by quickly switching around with it during battle to deal damage and to Stagger the opponent. Staggering an opponent is one of the key elements in the battle system as staggered opponents are much easier to take down. However, players need to fill up the Chain Gauge and once it is full, the enemy is Staggered, making it more susceptible to physical damage and status ailments. After spending a lot of time using this battle system, I think it is very simple to use but it takes sometime to get used to. It takes a bit of trial and error to know what roles are best for certain battles, but you will get the satisfaction once you have mastered the system and understanding how the AI works when you assign a role to a character.

The AI attempts to perform actions based on the party leader. It actually does a pretty good job in remembering the types of attacks that does the best damage to an enemy. Once you’ve used Libra and you know what their weaknesses are, the AI will attempt to cast spells and attacks that are most appropriate for that enemy. If they are weak against fire, your AI characters will use fire-based attacks and so on. However, there are some episodes of near misses when they fail to do what we want them to do. When I wanted them to revive a dead ally, they just wouldn’t do it as their priority would be to heal everyone else until they have green HP, before actually attempting to revive someone. This can be prevented later on, once you’ve understood how the AI reacts and once you’ve learned how to adapt to it.

Within these roles, there are actually nothing more to it than just developing their skills using a system similar to the Sphere Grid system in Final Fantasy X. After battles, instead of gaining XP, we gain Crystogen points which are then spent on the Crystarium. The Crystarium allows us to upgrade the strength, magic and health of characters by taking a path in within a role. Basically, the “leveling” system is not complicated as you will follow a linear progression for each role that you want to improve on. There are limitations, however, as you will need to continue to progress in the story to unlock the Crystarium stages. Once again, this shows how they designed the game to keep players immersed into the main plot of the game.

Beyond the Story

As mentioned earlier, exploration in this game is very limited, but there are still a number of places that you can visit, even after completing the main story. All of the locations in the game were well planned out and presented at their best visually. Stunning graphics and an incredibly seamless type of gameplay – there were hardly any loading time for battles and cutscenes. Moreover, the voice acting was done tremendously well with all the lip-syncing efforts in place too. The only drawback I felt was with Fang and Vanille because their accent did not really fit in very well to the game.

Other than that, I would say that I really enjoyed playing Final Fantasy XIII, not only because it is Final Fantasy, but because of the plot and the well-designed gameplay mechanics. The battle system is definitely not as complicated as Final Fantasy XII, but I guess it could be justified by the its wonderful cinematic storyline.

What else can be done after you finish the main story? Well, if you haven’t done those Cie’th Stone missions, you can go ahead and finish them. Most of them are finished easily later on in the game but I guess it’s sometimes fun and challenging if you attempt to beat it when you’re weak (with the right tactic and accessories). If you’re looking for more challenge, you could try to get the Ultimate Hero trophy, provided that you are able to spend lots of time going through those boring battles with Adamantoises.

Final Fantasy XIII is without a doubt a first class game, keeping intact all the main elements from its predecessors, with a bit of drastic changes to gameplay. Chocobos and Cactuars? Yup, they’re there. Eidolons? Well, not much of a use and probably just an eye-candy for battles. It would definitely be a better game if they allowed more freedom during the early stages of the game, allowing us to customize and personalize our characters. Asking for these features is a bit too late now, but it is clear that Square Enix had set out a focus to deliver a video game with an epic story, mixing in revolutionary graphics with a seamless, exciting gameplay, and Final Fantasy XIII will give you just that.

Got a copy of the Final Fantasy XIII Collector’s Edition Official Guide a day before the release of FFXIII. Don’t think I’ll be using it at the beginning, but it surely is a very detailed book containing all the walkthrough for each chapter (with minimal story spoilers), all the side quests, mini-games and explanation of all the Trophies or Achievements. The book contains all the official artwork and hi-res screenshots from the game printed on high quality paper. Its only a one-time print run and each copy gets its own number at the back of the hardcover. Don’t miss out on this great addition to your Final Fantasy Collection.

Buy Final Fantasy XIII Collector’s Edition Prima Guide at Play-Asia.com

Most of you might have known but apparently the PlayStation Network is currently in havoc mode. Lots of gamers around the world can’t sign-in to their accounts and some have had their trophy data corrupted. Also, there are issues that prevent players from accessing certain games such as Heavy Rain, where they get kicked back out to the XMB.

All of this seems to only happen on the early “phat” PS3 units and users of the slim PS3 have reported that they are connecting normally. It might be due to an internal hardware or firmware issue and maybe similar to the Microsoft Zune problems with the way it handles the leap year. I guess the safest way is to leave your PS3 turned off for now until there’s a fix to this problem. Lucky for me, I haven’t signed in today.

You can read about some official updates on the matter via Twitter.

Sony have now made a number of official responses via Twitter.

- We’re aware that many of you are having problems connecting to PSN, and yes, we’re looking into it. Stay tuned for updates.
- PSN status update: We’re narrowing down the issue and continue to work to restore service to all. Updates as soon as we have them.
- PSN status update (part 2): Readers/followers are confirming that “slim” units (120/250 GB models) are connecting normally.

Some of the errors involved (as posted on the PlayStation Blog):

Errors include:

• The date of the PS3 system may be re-set to Jan 1, 2000.
• When the user tries to sign in to the PlayStation Network, the following
  message appears on the screen; “An error has occurred. You have been
  signed out of PlayStation Network (8001050F)”.
• When the user tries to launch a game, the following error message appears
  on the screen and the trophy data may disappear; “Failed to install
  trophies. Please exit your game.”
• When the user tries to set the time and date of the system via the
  Internet, the following message appears on the screen; “The current date
  and time could not be obtained. (8001050F)”
• Users are not able to play back certain rental video downloaded from the
  PlayStation Store before the expiration date.

Update

It seems like everything is restored to normal for now. However, the date of the PS3 system might not be correct. Looks like Sony weren’t sitting around all day for nothing.

From PlayStation Twitter.