Technical Difficulties

Well due to technical difficulties with the group namely the idea of college (most of the group being in college and scheduling issues the campaign is on temporary hiatus until we can get things straightened out with the game and such its on hold the group and I apologize for those who have been checking our site out.

Character Blog: Robo-Hell

Ashely Hays July 18th 2136

Day after day i wake up to the same pain . Nor only physical pain nor emotional pain but also an annoying pain. A few months back I was taken to somewhere I have no clue where I assume it was to some strange facility by these strange things i vaguely remember them referring to themselves as technoparas.

When i got back to Earth i heard the voice of one of the bastards in my head. It refers to itself as a Gold King, apparently its one of the last generation of its kind and is higher on the food chain than any of the techno paras race. Their intention is to take over earth and turn us into resource slaves.

According to what he's told me their a highly advanced techno organic organism that hold dominion over several large star systems. Their plans to expand come into play because they have stripped out the resources on their home world and are trying to develop an imperial dominion over the surrounding galaxies to gain access to resources.

Shortly after I returned to Earth from their facility I was taken into a military facility and the officers who brought me up to speed about what happened as I'd woke up virtually amnesiac and far from feeling the most sane as I struggled to suppress the Techno-Paras from taking me over.

The military officers put me through intense training to hone my body in the hopes of giving me a fighting chance against the parasite's control By the time I'd finished I was able to make use of the suit that the Techno paras generated but at the same time it also made me a more viable host for the Techno paras as it would take that much more to bring me harm.

The officers who belonged to a division of the joint Earth-Valinian military command known as the Valion Force directed me to attend Glendale academy as a way of learning to overcome the Gold King's control One of the officers that advised me mentioned something similar happening during the late 1980's where a young man named Kotaro Minami was taken captive by a group known as the Golgom Empire.

When the Gold King inside me heard the reference he let out a sigh of disgust and then told me that his ancestors fought against the man they named.

I hate to be abrupt but I have to go the bastard is starting to run his mouth and i need to turn on some tunes to drown him out.

Character Blog: A New Challenger Approaches

Tenryu Saisen July 17th 2136

Me and My brother Tobikau have been hanging out aboard the ship since we boarded it a few days ago. Before we get to far into this I'd probably have to explain a few things. I'm fairly new to this kinda thing seeing as i was raised in a small rural village in the Osaka prefecture of Japan and our family is pretty far backwards as far as technology goes.

Our family has a long standing history of being heroes it starts generations ago with one of my distant ancestors whom is my name sake. he was a great hero during the warring states period and was responsible for founding and protecting the village where our family resides to this day.

it seemed like it took for ever to convince our dad to allow us to attend Glendale Academy he believes "Heroes aren't taught, They make themselves." and from that you can imagine he's fairly stubborn about modern culture taking a back seat to tradition.

While I have all the respect in the world for my dad he's way too pig headed about these things. it took a lot of work on my uncle's (Tobikau's dad) part to convince him to allow us to go. But I think I'll enjoy it. I'm sure digging the sites thus far. Nothing but gorgeous babes as far as the eye can see =) everybody is treating it like a summer's end cruise and both Tobikau and I couldn't be happier.

But that's it for now I'll post more later

See ya.

Game Review: Fist of The North Star Ken's Rage

Now before I start this review i want to state that I'm not a hard core dynasty warriors fan nor am I an OCD Hokuto No Ken fan boy. that being said i do believe this game is one of the best adaptations of the series into video game format the other being the arcade fighter by Sega and Arc System Works.

that formality now over with I would like to say that with out a doubt that Fist of the North Star Ken's rage is one of the best adaptations of an anime I've seen.

First a little background info. Fist of the North Star (or Hokuto no Ken depending on your regional locale) is the great granddaddy of the Shounen (Young male) and to a certain extent the Seinen (18-30 male) Anime genre. its a hyper violent action anime based around martial artists who seek to bring peace to the world through their own self absorbed means following the events of a nuclear war which devastated the world and left human civilization in ruins.

In the now war torn world bandit gangs run rampant and menace the remaining civilian populace. Enter the protaginist Kenshiro Kasumi or simply Ken. The 64th heir to the deadly martial arts style of Hokuto Shinken (The Divine Fist of the North Star) a man who bears 7 scars on his chest and the burden of being the one to bring the world back from the brink of non existence.

Hokuto Shinken is a fictional martial art which is one of the three primary styles shown in the source material the others being Nanto Seiken (The Divine Fist of the South Star) and Taizanji Kenpo. although the main cast is split between Hokuto and Nanto.

The basic premise of the game and its source material by extension is that you the player battle your way back from the depths of hell (not in the literal sense) to take back Yuria, and then to take up the burden of the Hokuto Shinken successorship and the responsibilities it entails.

The game gives a digest version of the plot covering the primary arcs of the source material but leaving out many of the filler arcs and encounters that happened in the manga and anime. I won't go into extensive detail as it would take much too long to properly explain but i will say for what it covers it handles it really well with CG rendered cut scenes depicting the major plot bits. admittedly it could have included more of them to flesh out and establish things better but thats a minor nit pick point. the presentation is spectacular I actually think they picked some fairly competent voice actors and the writers stayed faithful to most of the dialog as well.

Game play

Yes for those who haven't picked up on it after reading the first paragraph of the post its a Dynasty warriors game. Is that a bad thing... for this adaptation i'd say "Absolutely not." after all the main draw is the idea of Ken and company's various crazy martial arts wreaking havoc over armies of low ranking peons with the occasional commander and then boss fights at the end of any major level in the story mode.

Just a word of warning to the Devil May Cry and God Of War crowd. This game does have a bit of clunky crunch to it. but in relation to the source material it fits you see Hokuto fighters like Ken are slow but heavy hitters. Nanto Fighters like Rei and Ken's primary rival Shin are speedsters who in the right hands can destroy large crowds with ease using their massively powerful air combos.

For those who stick with the game for more than one or two stages will find its very well built and action packed as you can build combos and do all the staple maneuvers of many classic beat em ups like God hand. such as canceling and other interrupt actions which can help give you some more agile combat without it feeling like your losing a sense of visceral impact. But being creative with your kills is encouraged as it yields bonus karma points which are used toward earning skill points used to upgrade your character.

Between stages you can upgrade your character on the Meridian chart which unlocks new moves, stat boosts and skills you can apply to your character to enhance them in ways such as lowering the requirement of the above mentioned karma points (Easier skill point grinding) passive recharge for your spirit (Musou for Dynasty warriors players) gauge for special attacks or even passive abilities that use levels gained to boost your primary stats (Vitality, Attack, and Defense) [note these abilities don't stop you from gaining skill points in exchange for the stat boosts.]

Once you've gotten upgraded and accustomed to the combat system the levels play a lot more smoothly. That said it won't be a total cake walk, if your playing in the later levels without any upgrades you will get your butt kicked if not by the peons the bosses.

On that topic the boss battles are fairly entertaining early on although those who dislike Quick Time events may be put off by the system the game uses to finish boss fights. basically once the boss's health is drained you walk up and press B on Xbox 360 (or Circle on Playstation 3) to initiate a timed button sequence mini game where you get a random sequence of buttons to press and a limited amount of time to do it in. starting out (the first few boss fights of each character where applicable) its fairly easy normally 3 or 4 sets of 3 face buttons but later on in the game it can get a little difficult.

One thing many of the main stream reviewers over look is that bosses have weaknesses to certain signature attacks (This game's Musou attack used with B or Circle depending on your platform) [Normally the attack that finished them in the source material.] each time you fail the Quick time sequence they regenerate part of their health bar but it can be reduced by hitting them with their weakness. [unfortunately Megaman logic doesn't apply here weakness doesn't grant excessively greater damage it just modifies how much they can regenerate if you fail the QTE.] after enough hits they'll only regenerate just barely enough to sustain a hit from a full 2-4 hit combo.

Now the end game boss fights can be unfair if you walk into them unprepared but usually the game gives you a decent hint about what you should do relative to the boss although the reliable tactic is with characters who have dodge cancels like Rei and Ken simply get a few hits in and break the enemy's guard and do an evade (Right Bumper or R1) or guard cancel to break your current string and quickly set up for another. Other characters profit from throw or jump canceling which as the name implies are canceling combos by doing the named action.

there's a cast of 8 or so playable characters including DLC characters each of them classified into groups by their fighting style Hokuto (Ken) Nanto (Rei) or Unique (Mamiya.) each one playing in their own special style which gives you a distinct way to play each one Hokuto as mentioned above are power characters, Nanto are speedsters and Unique are more based around ranged combat and special effects with Area of Effect moves to add to their range of usefulness.

Most of the characters are unlocked by completing Ken's story in Legend mode although a few are exclusive to the Dream mode which covers original side plots that were produced with input from the original creators of the source material.

Style

As you'd expect the game isn't to graphically flashy [it is a post nuclear wasteland after all. Thanks a lot Modern Warefare 2 :)] and as some of the reviewers tend to harp on their aren't that many varieties of minions four types in all (Basic grunts that look like cheesy Mad Max cosplayers. Brutes, large muscular walls of human flesh who take a series of chained hits to break their guard before you can land an effective hit. Tubbies who as their nickname implies are bulky guys who are basically fatter shorter versions of the brutes, they are slower to attack and are more resilient than the brutes but aren't heavy on per hit damage. Then we have the Bash brothers as I like to call them Bash Brothers are slightly taller than the normal mooks and carry around dual spiked clubs that they use to bash the ground and generate Area of Effect shock waves. their alternate model collectively known as spike are basically bash brothers wearing spiked armor thats resistant to standard attacks and can only be damaged by signatures and attacks that launch projectile. But to compensate they rarely guard.

The Bad

While the game over all plays fairly well there are a few minor glaring flaws that should have been removed or not put in, the biggest objection to it was the addition of platforming segments which feel tacked on to differentiate it from standard dynasty warriors fare.

It was a novel idea but it falls apart quickly as the engine which appears to be a modified version of the engine used in Dynasty Warriors 6 or possibly strike force i'd have to consult with someone else on it for conformation either that or if any viewers have the info provide it in the comments. but the engine simply isn't built for platforming.

The only other major flaw is the end game bosses can be overpowered and the difficulty settings aren't very well balanced its a cake walk on easy a fair challenge on normal and brokenly difficult on hard. (the only massive change between them is the amount of damage you take vs how much you deal .

The Verdict

other than that its a great game and a good value with a fairly complex if not mildly grindy upgrade system that will give you hours of replay time maxing out your characters in preparation for the boss rush mode which seems to be functionally hard mode on steroids as the bosses really don't change attack patterns or anything its more of the old stand by of them doing vastly more damage to you than you can dish out to them. But i could imagine a maxed out character in the hands of a player who knew the bosses patterns well enough could handle it. the one shining benefit of the boss rush mode is the bosses die without the QTE sequence at the end.

I'd give it a 4 out of 5 with a strong positive recommendation. The demo is available on Playstation Network and Xbox live Marketplace. But don't let the demo sour your opinion of the game if you can rent the full game before passing a negative judgment

Schedule slippage

I'm sorry that i haven't updated in the past few days i've been playing Fist of the North Star Ken's Rage and its been too great to pull myself away from. i marathoned the story mode as ken and blew through it in two days but i'm still going strong trying to 100% it

Character Blog: His Second Home

Rei Isagarra July 17th 2135

We've been on the ship a few days now and while i saw Kira's little post in reference to Mea back home I can say that far as my boyfriend Jiro he can kiss my ass right now because knowing him he's hanging out at the Dark Horse club with my dad getting sloshed and he probably doesn't have a clue I'm gone. i think i heard back from Ami he was actually living in a condo Joe Kiriga the bar keep built on as a way to keep the streets clean from his patrons going out drunk.

Shortly before I left the two of us got into a fight and I told him out right if he wanted to be in a drunken stupor all day he could move in to the condo I wasn't gonna deal with his crap any more. In the mean time I'm gonna play the field and see what kinda guys I can snag.

See Ya :3

Character Blog: Kinda Homesick

Kira Isagarra July 14th 2135 10:00am EST

As i sit on the cruise ship hanging out and lounging around I have a hard time not looking at the girls running around half dressed in their bathing suits as though its a party boat without thinking of my girlfriend Mea back in North City.

She'd enjoy the atmosphere here and I think she'd also like the Academy. Admittedly a lot of this is coming from the fact that shortly before I left for the Academy we'd celebrated our two year anniversery of our first date by me coming out and proposing to her. I figured the time I'd be spending at the Academy for my first term would give her enough time to make plans for our wedding although I'd mentioned to her that i wanted to wait until next year at the earliest since the two of us are 20 and I was wanting to wait till we're at least 21 before we get married cause my dad always told me he regretted rushing into getting married to mom

Any way that aside I'm eager to get to the academy from the brochure they put out it looks pretty impressive. So it'll be fun to see how things play out in the Kabuto program if I decide to join.

See ya