A lot of modifications have been made, making Rachel a low tier and Bang the ultimate tier. Which I can understand.

He was good in the original if you could use him, now he seems even deadlier

Noel lost her sure way combos that everyone tried to learn and use if they weren´t button mashing the drive button. Those got removed and she got another combo instead as show here.

But with our without combos I love the gameplay and I can´t wait for it to be released outside of Japan.

Many times when you watch anime you likely say “What the fuck am I watching?” Cencoroll is seemingly like that, but not because of it’s bizzarity. Because it has little to no explanation for what goes on.

That’s not necessarily bad. Cencoroll has it’s faults, but it’s a very fun experience.

Story

There’s not too much to spoil.

Tetsu is boy bonded to a creature. This creature’s name is Cenco and has the ability to transform into anything as long as it is within range of his own mass. The default form of Cenco is apparently a giant fluffy hippopotamus, that apparently needs to eat similar creatures to survive. Though the film implies that Cenco’s transformation abilities is unique.

There is no explanation given as to where these creatures come from. But an offhand mention by one character implies that these creatures are common, though no-one knows anything about them.

Tetsu meets Yuki, a pretty-cool-gal who doesn’t afraid of anything (couldn’t resist the meme). She discovers his connection to Cenco (it’s hard to miss that a bike has a giant eye sticking out of it), and so they form an odd friendship.

Yuki and Tetsu encounter two other creatures, controlled by another boy, Shuu, who is apparently more carefree in use of his beings (being alot less subtle). With a mix of shenanigans, action scenes, and explosions. The film ends not on an empty note, but simply a confusing note.

Artistic Design

The most notable trait of the film is that it perfectly portrays the bleakness of it’s world.

For example

1. The color motif throughout the film is grey to white, along with the sky that also has some realistic looking light pollution.

2. There is little music, I think there were about two tracks in the whole thing.

3. The characters have little to no serious motivation or drama.

This bleakness was interesting to behold, because iother anime/manga (like Texhnolyze, Blame!, Kara no Kyoukai) the bleakness sort of hits my heart so that I feel sad; In Cencoroll the bleakness is more natural, it feels like the real world, neither good nor bad.

Characters

The characters not being well characterized was something I was unsure off, but by the end I could definitely say that they were interesting.

Tetsu is indifferent, semi-lazy, and almost perpetually tired. I could almost feel that he was a satire of the world’s modern teenager. Cenco is similarly looks indifferent, but there’s no way to tell if he is lazy.
The relationship between the two could best be compared to a dog and his owner that rely on each other out of choice. Only Cenco apparently retains more memories that an average pet.

Yuki is the most active character in the film, she is less indifferent than Tetsu. The entire film ends up being about her encounter with Tetsu and Cenco, and ultimately she plays a larger role near the end.

Shuu is similarly indifferent like Tetsu. Though sort of designated as the “villain”, but other than his snarcky attitude, there is nothing to suggest that he is evil, rather than he is just doing what he wants.

Overall

For being directed, animated, and written by one person (Atsuya Uki). Cencoroll is pretty impressive.

I haven’t had time to analyze any symbolism in the film, though I can bet that there is some.

The animation of the film is your basic movie quality animation. Though the transformation sequences did wow me a bit. The real power comes from the artistic design I mentioned earlier

I feel the greatest advantage of the film is that it leaves a lot unexplained. This allows the viewer to create their own story from what they’ve seen. To me this was the actual feature of the whole project.

Apparently this is not the last we’ve seen of Cenco. So I will definitely look forward to the next film.

A big step for mankind and loads of money for Square-Enix. However you choose to look at it, Final Fantasy will never be the same again after this title. Not for me anyway.

It´s quite fun to see how they managed to make a game that is so damn hard to follow and where battles are a choice of either sitting and inputing more commands than FFXII or just letting the game´s AI choose the attacks for you.

My first impression is pretty mixed so we´ll just point some stuff out.

Story
Lightning boards a train that holds a lot of people that are going to be purged. Removed from the floating city of Cocoon thanks to a fal’Cie. But given that Lightnings sister is a l’Cie, a human cursed by the fal’Cie she isn´t going to let her die.

Wrecking havoc on the train with her gravitional skills and that she was a part of the protective corps gives her an edge.

After kicking some personal and mechanic butt Lightning and a crew of people gathered at the fal’Cie finds Serah, only to watch as she turns to crystal, having fullfilled her focus.

Thrown into despair the fal’Cie crashes down into the world below the floating city Cocoon.

Then all of a sudden we are thrown back two days before anything has happend and we get to see Snow propose to Serah.

Back again to where we left our heroes, in a icy field of crystals. Having decided what to do: Destroy Sanctum that goes after l’Cie.

For everyone, a destiny
This is the first irritating thing about FFXIII, the story is told from so many directions. We start out with Lightning, get thrown to Snow, back to Lightning, then we are suddenly playing as Hope a third character along with Vanille. Then back to Lightning, then back to Vanille and back to two days before anything happends, before everything started or even further away from the stuff that you´ve done.

And with this time I´ve spent I´ve played as every character, which is five in total. It gets a little irritating always being thrown around the characters.

A determined fighter
Fighting battles is easy, pick automatic battle and the AI does the rest. What you have to keep your focus on is what classes that the characters are using. Against certain opponents a hard hitting commando, a sentinel for defence and a medic for healing might be a good choice.

For another enemy a status inflicting Saboteur with a magic using Ravanger protected by a Synergist is a good combo. You decide what role a character should have in battle. But you only controll the leader which is also seen as the on screen character.

If you want to make your own decisions all completely then pick “ability” and a list of available abilities for the role you´re using at the moment becomes availabke. Pick anyone, for a maximum of three abilities(in the beginning) and then choose who to unleash the pain on.

Rince and repeat.

The battles are pretty showy, Lightning doing backflips and using her gunsword as a gun firing away for example.

Confusing at first, but ?_? at the end
With all the jumping around in the storyline where every character gets his/her own time as the main character, developing their feelings of hate or regret or just about anything it´s hard to pick one character to like as you rarely get the time needed to get to know them.

Getting summons is also a pain in the ass. Each eidolon that you face need to see that you are worthy of being it´s master, so it challanges you. First of all it casts Doom on you, which places a time limit on the fight. Then you have a meter where is says “gestalt” that you need to fill before time runs out or you are killed to acquire the eidolon and can then summon it at will as long as you have the required TP.

Conclussion
The story is part interesting and part confusing. The battles are meant to be showy and irritating as a false choice of role for your characters makes it game over and you have to retry it. Getting sent back to just before the battle.

So it is indeed a new type of Final Fantasy, and as I both enjoy the game and look at it with a ?_? face I really cant say. This Final Fantasy is not for everyone, that is one thing that is for sure.

p.s if this text is a lot weirder than what I usually write it´s because I´m sick and have some kind of semi-version of the flu. No fever but muscle pains, running nose and a sore throat. Which trashes my mind and my ability to write properly. Sorry bout that. But I think the point got trough.

Live action anime/manga movies. What do you think ’bout ‘em? Sometimes I like them, since they’re so cheesy it’s funny. I wonder if there are any actually good ones.

DMC
The anime is short and hilarious. So is the movie. But the anime still pwns it. Watch the anime if you haven’t. It’s awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7Fk1yDNrl8

Death Note
I liked the anime, and the manga. Haven’t watched the movies yet, tho, but you gotta admit Ryuk looks fucking sweet (not seen in that trailer, tho).

Uzumaki
The manga was friggin’ sweet, but I laughed my way though parts of the movie. They manage to make interesting things with the directing. Music is sweet to. And Shuichi is so ugly in this >:D

Tomie
I haven’t watched this one either, since I haven’t finished the manga yet. The manga (by the guy behind Uzumaki) isn’t nearly close to as good as the author’s other works, but still decent. I’ve heard the movie sucks though.

What’s your thoughts on this?

While we’re on the subject of corny stuff, I’ve started watching Kamen Rider W. It’s hilarious.

“T-REXU!”

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Sony did the world a favour when they released Grandia for PSN.

Why I love it? First of all Feena is gorgeus! Second, the battle system is worth it´s weight in gold. It´s never a dull moment and you can play it anyway you want. Which is great.

Want to be a magic user? Sure thing, just wait till you get hold of those mana eggs and then blast away. Physical is your way? Then by all means get the latest weapon and bash the enemies with axes, swords, bow & arrow, throwing stars, whips or knives to mention a few of weapons.

The story is a bit cliché but what JRPG story isn´t?

Just is a kid who dreams of being a adventurer like his dad. His most valued posession is the Spirit Stone, a green stone that he got from his late father.

One day while visiting the Sult Ruins a mysterious girl appears and greets him and asks him to meet with her. Her name is Liete and she holds the truth about the world.

The eveil forces are a military force that for some reason also want the mysterious power that the Spirit Stone has. Which means that they will gross paths with Justin and his best friend Sue many many times.

In all way a classical beginning. But given the amount of fun that the battle system is you don´t really care about the story. There are some memorable moments, like when Justin for the first time meets Feena, a seasoned adventurer, everything that Justin ever hoped to be.

If you are in the market for a nice 30-40 hourish JRPG and you haven´t played it before I recomend that you get in gear and buy it from the NTSC PSN store right now. It´s only 9.99US so it´s quite cheap.

Leave it to a good localization team to make this guy’s name sound awesome in America as it does in Japan (in Japan it’s Mitsurugi Reiji)

This is the first of the Ace Attorney series that I have actually played. I had just been watching play-throughs of the other games, seeing that they aren’t too bad.

For uninitiated. Miles Edgeworth is the childhood friend and rival of the original protagonist, Pheonix Wright. Miles is probably one of the best characters in the franchise, being smooth talking and very sharp (…excusing the pun in his name EDGE/POINT GET IT).

So ultimately Capcom figured they should give him his own game, and so they did.

Story:

Having completed 4/5ths (four of five cases) of the game, the story is not too bad. Whilst not relying on character development the story makes do with simple characterization and allows the player to focus more on the mystery aspect.

You don’t feel a sense of attachment to the characters, but most of them have a aura of coolness that keeps them in your mind at least.

Like the previous games, there is an over-arcing story that ties all five cases together. This follows Miles’s involvement in the investigation of a smuggling ring, and a mysterious vigilante that is trying to expose it (I should write movie summaries).

Mechanics:

Unlike the previous games, Investigations actually features some section where you physically move around other than click “go here”. I think this is a bit of an improvement over the other games because seeing controllable sprites on the Nintendo DS makes the game a bit more appropriate for the platform.

Like the previous games you have to display evidence and such. Knowing what evidence to submit is sometimes not as obvious as I would hope, (ie. the game makes you have to think). Though this is actually a good thing in retrospect.

Music:

Having listened well to most of the series’s discography. I say that this soundtrack is probably one of the best.

The games before it (other than the fourth game Apollo Justice, which many people have trouble accepting, which I’ll sympathize with) all had a particularly noticeable MIDI background music. The music in Investigations sounds a lot more “real” and more orchestrated.

The 2009 version of Announce the Truth is quite beautiful. Whilst the newest “Objection theme” doesn’t disappoint. Though some of the MIDI-ness is still there, and it also does not disappoint.

Overall:

As part of the Ace Attorney series, I say this game makes a great addition. Of course this is the first one I played, but the experience has been quite enjoyable, so I’ll just pray that no-one yells at me for being wrong.

I would complain that there is apparently no way to change the text-speed, which is kind of weird considering the game is like 98% text and I am a fast reader. However it is not as bad as the massive annoying nature of Hotel Dusk which features much slower text which really breaks the follow of the gameplay.

For any person who wants a simple visual novel, I would recommend this. The plot is not horribly complicated, but this game is a really nice way to pass the time.

Yeah, I´ll continue to talk about the internet problem I had last week.

From the looks on things I might have solved it. At least for now.

The things I did? They were quite simple.

I formated the router that we use so that every change I´ve done is turned back to the factory defaults. Then I made the needed changes, like adding the wireless internet and such, creating a name for the connection, choosed a security rating and everything.

I also upgraded the firmware of the router to the latest firmware.

Now when I surf and have bittorrent going at the same time, which before made the internet fail so hard well everything seems to work. At least now for the moment.

So it was a simle solution to it once again and I´m happy for that. But I don´t know why the other computers that have wireless connection keeps telling me they aren´t connected to a high speed USB port so they could run faster And from the look on things there are a lot of USB ports, but whichever port I choose it´s still not a high-speed USB port So what the heck can I do to upgrade that firmware? On one computer the bios is updated to latest version. Shouldn´t that have fixed the USB ports as well?

At least now I´m happy that I can use bittorrent and surf again at the same time.