Knightly Record 2012

After poking around in the game a bunch, I finally finished The White Knight's Tale: Awakening of Light and Dark (AKA White Knight Chronicles II). All told, it's very easy to see that the game was built from the dried-out husk of an MMO and repurposed as a single-player Role-Playing Game (with multiplayer online missions). The story was kind of bland and forgettable, though it did have some well-executed twists that I enjoyed. All told, I feel the game's true strengths lie in its gameplay, character customization, and free quests. I'll probably get play around in the postgame for a week or two before moving on to Climax U.C. (Which I've played a bit of and enjoyed despite the lock-on system being a bit wonky at times).

I've had a couple of plastic model kits lying around unbuilt, and this past weekend I finally got around to building one while watching Yuu Yuu Hakusho with a friend (A Super Deformed version of my favorite Gundam, the Force Impulse, pictured below with my High-Grade Nobel Gundam).














Yep. Another Gundam game. This time around, it's Mobile Suit Gundam: Battlefield Record 0081, which I've been wanting to play ever since it was announced, but only now have had the financial stability to be able to afford importing. This one features some customization of the player's Mobile Suits, up to and including being able to change some of the weaponry they carry. I'm looking forward to playing through both the Federation "Phantom Sweep" and Zeon "Invisible Knights" storylines, though I'll of course be starting with the former when I actually get around to playing.

Fantastic Phantom Climax

I finished Fantastic Children last night and the "Another Marrone" scenario of Phantom Brave Portable earlier today. The former was a pretty good show. Nothing too spectacular and filled with a few too many flashbacks for my liking (flashbacking can be a useful tool in telling a story, but sometimes you've just gotta lay off and show something right from the beginning). Though I do have to admit that I found it satisfying that the reincarnation of the lead girl's love interest didn't turn out to be the lead guy, or even anybody featured as a major character in the series at all. It felt like a nice change of pace from the norm without trying too hard to be different for the sake of being different.

As for the latter, I enjoyed Phantom Brave tremendously. While I do tend to get attached to characters in stories that I'm watching, reading, playing out, etc. a little more easily than others, this game in particular had a cast of characters that I grew particularly fond of. The principal lead Marrone (Marona in the English version) is simply such so much of a kind, thoughtful, endearing little girl that I think it'd be hard for most people to not grow attached to her and want to see her succeed. This goes double for the bonus scenario's eponymous alternate dimension version of the character, who has been thoroughly broken emotionally, and yet under it all, you can still catch glimmers of the wonderful person at her core. The endings for both the normal game and the extra scenario had me emotionally invested enough to shed a tear or two of joy.

And now, on to today's swag.














Various Gundam video games, especially ones for the PS2, tend to be not so great. This title, Mobile Suit Gundam: Climax U.C., is one I've heard many fans speak highly of, and so I decided to procure a copy for myself to check it out. I'm particularly looking forward to playing the game's "Progressive Mode", in which the player takes control of a succession of somewhat customizable characters taking part in battles throughout the Universal Century timeline. Of course, I'll be doing my first run aligning with the Earth Federation and AEUG factions.

FUKKATSU

So yeah, I pretty much abandoned this blog for awhile, mostly because I found myself writing waaaaaaaaaay the fudge too much and it took an hour minimum for each post. Gonna try not to do that anymore.

And now for something that will probably make up the bulk of my posts for the foreseeable future, the swag report.

So while watching Eureka Seven a few months ago, I was checking out the trailers, and was intrigued by this show called Flag. Just got the boxset in today:

Surprisingly, the second volume is apparently the only one that is difficult to find, as very few of my usual go-to places (Amazon, Rightstuf, etc.) had it, while they did have the other three. Luckily I found the whole set on ebay for a decent price. Looking forward to watching it.