Tales of Xillia (PS3)

Tales of Xillia is the thirteenth core game in the Tales of series and the first to be specifically developed for the PS3.  Originally released in Japan in 2011, it finally received a Western localisation in 2013 thanks to the success of Tales of Graces f.  The battle system is familiar to players of previous Tales games, this time around it is called the Dual Raid Linear Motion Battle System.  The amount of moves are restricted by your Assault Counter, for example, a counter of "5" means you can use five moves consecutively before you have to pause for a brief bit to regain the points again.  Magic is called Artes, which are activated by pressing circle and a movement of the left stick.  Artes use up Technical Points, in addition to the Assault Counter.  The new addition here are the linked artes in which you can pair with another character to get benefits.  Linking with another character allows you to stop other monsters from attacking you from behind, character specific abilities (such as Milla's bind which paralyzes monsters or Alvin's guard break, which can break a monster's guard) and the flashy linked artes.

Linked artes can be used when a gauge on the left side of the screen fills up.  They are more powerful than normal moves and involves both characters (Mystic Artes still exist but are slightly harder to execute compared to past games).  Once the gauge completely fills you can go into overlimit which allows rapid chaining of linked artes which looks amazing.  The other three characters in your party will be controlled by AI.  You have some input through the form of Strategies.  It's a basic system in which your decide on the behavior of your parties members such as prioritizing healing or defeating weaker monsters first.  Your AI can automatically use items through a "If, Then" condition which you pre-populate.  It's a simple and effective system.  You may freely switch between characters during battle as well as swapping party members in and out on the fly.  This allows much more versatility meaning you're never trapped with a fixed party during boss battles.

Thanks to all the constant special effects, especially near the end of the game, battle lag can happen and it's actually quite annoying when there is a slight delay in your inputting the button and your character executing it.  Cooking makes a comeback although it is nowhere near as involves or strategic as Tales of Graces f.  You just have to purchase food, use it and the effects will come into play.  Effects range from increased attack power to restoring HP at the end of every battle.  A neat thing about newer JRPGs is the non-random battles.  Enemies roam the battlefield and you can choose to avoid or fight.  Once you're in contact with an enemy it transitions to the battle screen.  Transitioning can take a few seconds the first time you're on a map but any encounters afterwards has a quick transition.  The leveling up system is great, you gain experience points per normal but the stats raising system is called the Lillium Orb.

The Lillium Orb allows you the freedom of choosing what you want to raise and when to learn new moves and skills, to a certain extent.  It is still fairly linear as you need to raise a certain amount of each layer (shaped in a hexagon with a number of orbs in each line) in order to unlock the next layer.  It reminds me of the Crystarium system from Final Fantasy XIII but much better and having more freedom.  To be honest, the graphics are very average.  It is not horrible and it achieves the objective of playing an anime but you wish that the detailing was slightly better or things not looking as flat as they are.  Hair in particular doesn't look that great, they usually move in chunks which looks awkward.  Clipping often happens.  Lip syncing isn't the best since the mouths move based off the original Japanese script.  However, I don't find the voice actors to be that bad.

Exploring is heaps of fun here.  Map sizes are huge, while the game still dictates you move from this point to the next, the maps allows a lot of exploration.  You can return to an area to find out that you actually missed a whole piece that you didn't explore when you first ran through it!  The fact that the camera can be controlled is welcomed here.  Maps also add a bit of verticality with many places allowing you to climb up to different elevations of height.  This means what originally appears as a tiny space is actually a huge area with many levels.  On the other hand, these areas are filled to the brim with roaming enemies who respawn frequently, this gets quite annoying.  Towns are fun to explore and contain what you would expect.  At least they are quite varied in terms of themes, the first town is one in perpetual twilight with a more down to earth and urban feel while later towns has a bright colorful palette out in the countryside.  Sadly, there are a significant amount of pop-in which is ridiculous but it could be a byproduct of the extremely short load times.

The story isn't the most captivating and at times it feels bland and boring.  It drags on for a bit and in true JRPG fashion, there are some events that could be cut out and still wouldn't have affected anything.  That said, there were a fair few moments where it was touching or exciting.  The humor isn't as apparent here though and this lack of funniness is what really causes the story to drag.  A lot of the skits and the end-battle dialogue isn't funny (as in the writers did not try very hard), which makes them more of a chore.  In general, after you get past Chapter One, the story picks up.  Sure, there will still be some annoying characters such as Ivar and Alvin (who redeems himself in the end).  Also, just when you thought the story was about to reach its finale, something unexpected comes up and blows it out of the water.

One thing that is obvious is that due to the two viewpoints (you either pick Jude or Milla as the character to play through), party members frequently leave and rejoin, making it annoying once you've got your preferred party.  While both of the stories share a huge amount of content which are exactly the same, each has a few unique dungeons, story moments and bosses.  Once you've cleared one story though, you can play the other through the New Game Plus which allows you to carryover stats as well as purchase bonuses through the Grade system (which are points you earn through in-game achievements).  The story is told via cutscenes that are usually rendered with the in-game engine.  Occasionally, anime cutscenes appear and these are fantastic and beautiful.  They've very rare in the first three quarters of the game but frequently appear near the end.

In additional to the meaty story, there are sidequests which are called sub-events in this game.  This includes from just cutscenes to fetch quests and battling specific monsters.  A number of them add in sidestories which makes them more interesting to play through and adds a significant amount of game time.  All this amounts to a long game, it took me 60 hours on my first playthrough, which includes completing all areas and sidequests.  Instead of going with the tradition of "new town, new equipment", all the shops share the same inventory list.  The difference is that you use monster drops to increase Shop Levels.  Increasing the levels will equate to either new items to purchase or cheaper existing system, this makes it addictive and difficult sometimes to pick between getting the discounted equipment or the newly unlocked expensive equipment.  Tales of Xillia is a solid JRPG that keeps the spirit and mechanics of the genre.  It's not the best Tales game due to the average story but the game mechanics are solid.  The combat system is a blast to play, environments are suitably huge and encourages exploration.  Recommended if you're itching for a classic JRPG.

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Book Review: The Purple Emperor

Review:  #466
Title:  The Purple Emperor
Series:  Faerie Wars Chronicles - 2nd book
Author:  Herbie Brennan
Read Before:  yes
Comments:  The Purple Emperor is a brilliant fantasy novel that while it may start off slow, it creeps up on you unsuspectingly and before you know it, you keep turning the pages in a bid to find out what’s going to happen next.  One of the trademark features of this series is the fact that every chapter ends in a cliffhanger and the next chapter switches to a different character’s point of view.  It can get slightly annoying, especially when some of the chapters are short but it does add to the suspense.  The story is fantastic and the twists and turns it presents felt natural, plausible and can be huge revelations.  The writing is good and characters are likeable.  One of the more interesting things is that the main character, Henry, doesn’t have any special powers or is courageous or very heroic; then again, Henry didn’t have much screen time.  The humour is cleverly balanced, with just the right amount to make it enjoyable yet not too much that you don’t take the story seriously.  A fun and engaging story makes this one of the best novels.

Rating:  8/10

X-Men: The Last Stand

You could tell at the end of X-Men 2 that there will definitely be a sequel but X-Men:  The Last Stand doesn’t really deliver the same epic feel.  The plot is about a cure to remove the powers of a mutant and the repercussions that lead from this.  Magneto amasses an army and wages an all-out battle against the humans and other mutants who stands in his way.  While this sounds like a great set up, ready for some fantastic battle scenes it doesn’t give you much.  The escalation and tension that should come with war isn’t present.  It also decided to kill off a few main characters or have something happen to them such that they don’t even play a prominent role anymore.  That’s pretty disappointing to be honest and it feels as if the plot isn’t as intricate as it can be.  The storyline feels scattered and unfocused with some elements that feels forced (especially Jean’s story arc).  There are plenty of special effects but sometimes it relied too heavily upon them.  The death of villains isn’t satisfying as they don’t feel the same pain that they have, they just die a quick painless death.  It’s not a bad movie but it feels as if it never took off beyond the initial concept.

Toy Review: Transformers Prime Beast Hunters Hardshell

Review:  #215
Name:  Hardshell
Brand:  Transformers
Allegiance:  Decepticon
Line:  Prime - Beast Hunters
Year of Release:  2013
Size Class:  Commander (Wave 2)
Variations:  repainted into Predacons Rising Bombshock

INSECT MODE:

Hardshell transforms into rhinoceros beetle, this isn't Beast Wars so the insect mode doesn't strive to be as realistic as possible.

Nevertheless, this is still a decent alternate mode, at least you can immediately tell what it is supposed to be.  Although the rear legs doesn't peg in anywhere and can dislodge when moving Hardshell around.

The wings are on balljoints and can be adjusted to your preference.  The wings themselves are made of a softer plastic so it feels weaker and easier to snap.

Hardshell is a Commander sized figure although the horn and wings make Hardshell feel bigger, he is still fairly small.

The head sculpt of the insect mode is really nice, with red eyes and silver face.

Not only that but his mouth is jointed to open, this is not part of transformation either.

You can leave the weapon off his back if you wish.

Hardshell can stand on his six legs easily although he tends to rest on his abdomen since the rear legs are on balljoints which aren't tight enough to sustain his weight for too long.

A good insect mode that doesn't have any critical flaws but this is his better mode.

TRANSFORMATION:

Transformation is really easy but quite clever at the same time.  It manages to create such a different looking robot mode which is quite ingenious.  That being said, his head is a large chunk of kibble though which felt like something could have been done with it to integrate it to the robot better.

ROBOT MODE:

Hardshell's robot mode looked like he had just jumped out from the show.  He is really screen accurate which is amazing for something at this size.

He carries a lot of kibble though, while you can excuse his wings (which can look like a nice cape), his insect head and particularly the insect front legs sit on his back sticking out.

You can fold those insect legs straight out the back or against his body.  I prefer the former because it gets them out of the way, otherwise the insect legs gets caught and affects poseability.

The head sculpt is fantastic.  Even though the head itself is really small they managed to pack in heaps of detail it and conveys Hardshell's evilness.  Unfortunately, the head is fixed in place with meaningful movement.

Hardshell is a Commander and he's the average height for something this size.

Despite being small he still manages to convey the hulking menace his character was in the show.

Hardshell lacks in the articulation department even in comparison to other Commander toys.  Most disappointingly is his legs which lacks any backward knee bend due to transformation.  His ankle balljoints compensate somewhat but it's not enough.

He also has the "gorilla arms" elbow syndrome.  Lacking wrist swivels (which is not possible due to transformation), it limits the amount of ways you can pose his arms without it looking awkward.

His weapon is a gun of some sort.  This is a pressure launcher, able to fire the missile when you push it out.  Unfortunately, it's made of the same bendy plastic as his wings which means the weapon itself might bend instead of firing the missile.

Hardshell can hold the weapon in either hand but of course, thanks to the bad elbow design, he can't hold it as a handheld weapon that well.

The better way is to plug it into a slot on the outside of his forearm which acts as both a projectile weapon and a shield.

There are no other gimmicks in this mode, which is a shame as it feels like his torso is one big piece that doesn't do anything during transformation so they could have done something with it to make the robot mode even better.

Nevertheless, a robot mode that works better as a display piece rather than something you would pose around due to the limited poseability and kibble.

OVERALL:

As a figure, Hardshell is an average figure.  However, taking into account that he is relatively inexpensive and is the only toy that represents the Insections from Prime, then Hardshell is easier to recommend.  The insect mode is the winner which the restrictive legs in robot mode let him down.

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Book Review: Just Crazy!

Review:  #465
Title:  Just Crazy!
Series:  Just! - 4th book
Author:  Andy Griffiths
Read Before:  yes
Comments:  A collection of short stories (but following the same character in the same world) with the theme of “craziness”.  You will often think to yourself that the stories are a little bit crazy/stupid and that’s exactly the author’s aim.  It gets a little bit tedious and predictable when you know it is not going to turn out well for Andy, that something is going to happen and he’ll get misunderstood.  There were a few sections where it was a bit disgusting and even a more coarse and violent than you would have expected.  The illustrations, or, doodles on the side, add a lot to the humour and are very amusing to read.  While the stories may be simple, it entertains and therefore, worthy of being read.

Rating:  6/10

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F (PS3)

For those not in the know, Hatsune Miku is massively popular in Japan and also has a decently sized following outside of Japan.  Sega realized it and in 2013, they announced that they will be localizing the PS3 exclusive Hatsune Miku:  Project DIVA F game.  It's a bold and risky move and one that I hope paid off for Sega (it must have as the Vita version and sequel was released later on).  Unfortunately, only America had the physical copy while elsewhere was digital only.  So, that's the background.  Project DIVA F itself is a rhythm game.  It's self explanatory, you must tap buttons in time with on screen prompts.

On harder difficulties, it requires good hand eye coordination, attention to detail and practice in order to get a good score.  The tracks in this game are sung by Vocaloids, which are computer synthesized voices.  Yup, the voices that you hear are all artificially produced without a real person behind them singing the song.  It's pretty amazing actually.  The game doesn't only star the titular Hatsune Miku (even though the vast majority of songs has her as the default singer), but also features Kaito, Megurine Luka, Meiko, Kagamine Rin and Kagamine Len (google them if you don't know who they are).

There are 38 tracks in total, which includes six songs which were DLC on the Vita version, so there is a fair amount of choices.  To be honest, unless you're already a Miku fan or heard of her, I don't think the game will be purchased by just any random person off the street.  There are already a few Miku games before Project DIVA F so to this game doesn't have many (if at all) of the well known songs such as "World is Mine" or "Romeo and Cinderella".  That said, most of the songs are catchy and I find that playing the rhythm game allows you to appreciate the melody and the way the lyrics are placed more than you would if you were just listening to it.

My favorite track would have to be "Acute", the scene was fantastic and you could feel the theme right away even if you didn't understand the lyrics.  Oh yes, the lyrics.  While the game may have been localized, only the menus were translated into English, the song lyrics were preserved int heir original Japanese voices, which is the way it should be.  It would seem weird if they were speaking English especially when the English speaking Vocaloid software is not as matured.  However, it would have been nice if they could have translated the meaning of the lyrics into English so that you can actually know what they're singing about.

Now, onto the actual gameplay.  It's your standard rhythm game and there are a few little change ups to make it more interesting.  The basic mechanics are pressing the four face buttons on the PS3 controller, flicking the analogue sticks and combining directional buttons with face buttons.  It sounds simple by believe you me, your hands will get confused on the harder levels.  There are other mechanics such as "Chance TIme" which is a particular section on every song where if you get enough points in that period, it changes the scene and also gives you a nice boost in scores.  "Technical Zone" sections occur where the aim is to not miss a beat, again, for a nice score boost.

For a newcomer to rhythm games, even the Normal difficulty is difficult.  You will need some practice to get used to the timing (also note the possibility of display lag, where it seems that the game registers the pressing of buttons later than you expect.  The game offers a solution through a calibration setting to help offset this).  Soon after, you will find yourself getting better and ready to tackle the harder difficulties.  There are four difficulties:  Easy, Normal, Hard and Extreme.  I find that the Hard and Extreme difficulties have buttons that are timed better to the lyrics which makes it more fun and sometimes more intuitive on when to press the buttons compared to Easy or Normal.

Watching videos online of gameplay will probably confuse you since there are symbols flying everywhere.  How are you supposed to to keep track of the stuff that's popping up everywhere?  Answer, you will get used to it and it's actually not as hard as it may seem at first.  The markers are placed in such a way that your eyes will naturally follow where to go next, but you still have to pay close attention.  I find that the backgrounds, especially the ones with heaps of colors to be distracting and even hide the markers until it is too late.  The game also tends to rely heavily in getting the technical sections perfect in order to get high scores and ratings beyond just "Standard".

There is more to this game than just the rhythm mode.  There is an online function which has user generated content which you can download.  Naturally, this means there is an Edit mode in which you can create your own dance moves and button patterns.  It takes a while to learn how to navigate the different possibilities and creating a decent dance routine is painstakingly slow.  You're also not limited to the songs provided in the game, you can make dance moves to any song stored in your PS3's hard drive.

The other major mode is the Diva Room, which, to be honest, I don't really see the much point in.  For each of the six Vocaloids, they have their own room which you can customize, from the theme to the type of furniture and decorations.  You can raise your affinity levels with the character by rubbing their head (yes, it's as weird as it sounds), giving them food, playing games (a type of rock paper scissors which gets boring after a few goes) and other gifts.  It is superficial and quite boring, if it wasn't related to trophies, I wouldn't touch it for longer than a few minutes.

There are other bonus extras such as Live Stage which shows videos of six more songs (These are unplayable but does include the famous "World is Mine" song) and a photo mode in which you create stills with the Vocaloids as the star.  You wouldn't expect it but the game has a lot of loading screens, it is highly recommended that you install game data as it drastically reduces the loading time to a more painless length.  A cool thing is that loading screens show fan art.  You can watch videos of any song after you've cleared it once.  This is good because when you're playing them in the rhythm game, most likely, you weren't paying attention to what they were doing.

You can also customize the songs to a certain degree such as giving characters different costumes or swapping them out completely.  You earn Diva points from playing the rhythm game and one of the trophies is getting all items, which is a huge grind if you're not too good at the game.  You pretty much have to manage to make next to no mistakes on the hardest difficulty to get a decent amount of points.  Hatsune Miku:  Project DIVA F is a fantastic rhythm game and is highly addictive to play.  You don't really have to be a fan of Vocaloids to have fun although obviously it will enhance the experience if you have some idea of what to expect.  It's a shame that only America had the physical copy but thankfully, it sold well in its localization, so bring on Project DIVA F 2nd!!

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Dogma

Dogma features subject matters that are widely controversial and at the time of its release, predictably and understandably, there was a lot of outrage.  Nevertheless, the movie was made and broadcasted and it is a fantastic and funny film.  The plot revolves around the touchy subject of religion and God.  It not only makes fun of Catholics but it also points out something thoughtful points (and to a degree, problems) about religions and believers.  Barring the sensitive nature and the non-serious take of the plot, it makes some meaningful observations.  The plot focuses a woman who’s lost her faith charged with stopping two fallen angels who’s found a loophole to re-enter Heaven (which also coincidentally will end the world).  It was a fun adventure and it’s a film that doesn’t take itself too seriously, who does wonders for the atmosphere.  The dialogue was good and while it can be crude and a large amount of swearing at times, it doesn’t feel pointless and doesn’t fall flat on its face from trying too hard.  It can get violent, particularly during the end of the film where there was huge amounts of blood but it doesn’t leave a big impact because it doesn’t show all the gory and doesn’t strive for realism.  Overall, a good movie that’s well worth watching.