Distant Worlds: Final Fantasy 2014

Good afternoon!

It's been over a year since I last updated my blog. I'm busy with doujins so I really don't have time to write anime reviews, let alone have the muse to do so. My Japanese language sensei suggested that I'd write again since I often write brief reviews on my facebook posts. But allow me to restart with writing a review on Distant Worlds as requested by a friend

Due to unfortunate events, we arrived late for the concert; as a result we couldn't enter the concert hall until the orchestra finished one set. But we were able to listen from outside and it was equally beautiful. The moment we got in they started playing Dancing Mad (Final Fantasy VI's final battle theme) which the conductor Arnie Roth claimed that it was something they have never done before.

After Kefkka's final form theme, it's Final Fantasy XIII's signature music, Light Eternal. Not quite familiar with it since I don't really have any interest playing the game, but watching the movie above the orchestra makes me want to play FFXIII. Next they performed You're Not Alone from Final Fantasy IX, which is my favourite piece from the game though it didn't sound too different from the last Distant World's concert in Kuala Lumpur. Before the interval, it's Chocobo Medley; also a little disappointing to me although they put an effort to make it a little different. I am still hoping they mix all the medleys from every game.

So it turns out we missed 6 songs and I was a little upset that I couldn't make it in time to hear Battle with the Four Fiends, and I think it affected my mood during the first half of the concert. But I personally think that the second half was better because of.... FEELS.

Final Fantasy VII's Opening - Bombing Mission wasn't anything special, Final Fantasy VIII's Fisherman's Horizon was ok and I love the choir part. I was excited that they're gonna play Final Fantasy XII's The Dalmasca Estersand as it's the best song in the game though it wasn't as epic as the studio version. Then we go back to VIII's with Don't Be Afraid.

Now the next part has the best feels, both songs from Final Fantasy X back-to-back. The Hymn of the Fayth was short but it gave me goosebumps. I personally think that Zanarkand was the most beautiful piece in this concert. Now this reminds me why have I not playerd FFX remastered yet?? (Oh wait I don't even have the BD yet!)

Battle & Victory Theme Medley was next, I was kinda hoping that they mix all the normal battle medleys something like this because I love all of the battle themes! But oh well at least they performed Gilgamesh aka Battle on the Big Bridge (Final Fantasy V) and Those Who Fight (Final Fantasy VII).

Final Fantasy VI's Opera 'Mario & Draco' (which is a mix of The Opening, Aria di Mezzo Carattere, The Wedding  Grand Finale performed consecutively) has something new in it; the inclusion of a narrator. Though I expected the narrator to have better voice as heard in The Black Mages version (it's in Japanese but you get my point) or sound more British because British accent is sexy. Nonetheless a mouthed the lyrics along with the singers. Maria & Draco never cease to amaze me in spite of being just a minor scene in the game, and I still wonder what is really the significance (Does it has something to do with Locke x Celes?)

A Final Fantasy concert is incomplete without the Main Theme and this is also gives me (forgive my lack of vocab and tumblr influence) SO MUCH FEELS ;__;

And of course, what's a Final Fantasy concert without Sephiroth's theme? One Winged Angel (Final Fantasy VII) was played during the encore and I wasn't surprised. I guess you really can't deny the awesomeness of this song (though some people argue that Kefka's theme was better).

Overall, I think the fast paced songs especially battle themes were not that great, maybe because I'm used to listen to the rock covers or The Black Mages' rendition. Some songs sounded a bit too fast from its original pace. However, I love the slower songs a lot as in... it gave me the chills and made my hair stood at its end. The movie which was played along with the concert was sometimes distracting, the 32-bit cutscenes looks awkward with the live orchestra (but they did maeke me wanna play the games again, and I haven't even finished the classics! Trust me the gameplay seemed much harder than the recent ones). And I do think the 'AMV's could have done been better.

The first DW in KL was better I think...?

So yeah done with the review. I'll try my best to get back to anime reviews next. Luckily I have MyAnimeList that helps me keep track of my completed animes.

Fictional Characters I Want to Marry

Today's Twitter Trending Topic is #FictionalCharactersIWanttoMarry and also inspired by Klux Nee-chan's blogpost, so I'm gonna do my version of husbandos.

Oh yeah... please note that not all my fave male characters, and the ones i find incredible sexy and incredibly GAR are in my husbando candidate list. So you may wonder where they stand cos I have another category for them XD

[disclaimer: images do not belong to me but their respective owners/artists]

10. Sarutobi Sasuke (Sengoku Basara)

I'm pretty much drawn to characters who are vassal to a lord or royals, I get turned on by the protectiveness and loyalty. Initially I wanted to include waifus (female characters in the list) and you'd see most of them are the vassal/knight type characters. Plus being with Sasuke allows me to side Sanada too, and I'd rather side with the Crimson Warrior rather than the One-Eyed Dragon.

9. Kanji Tatsumi (Persona 4)

gay domestic BAMF husbando

8. Edgar Roni Figaro (Final Fantasy 6)

play the game, put in him in your party, enjoy his TOOLS skill. His job class is a technician, kinda weird to exist in a fantasy setting (but then FF6 is considered as steampunk), but i'm sure we'd have fun inventing the funny tools XD

7. Lestat de Lioncourt (Vampire Chronicles)

pre-Twilight vampire, a TRUE VAMPIRE and is as sexy as the vampires in Vassalord. He's a rock star too. Oh and he's not really a bad guy, he's just... unorthodox. Unorthodox is my thing~

6. Sirius Black (Harry Potter series) 

Harry has a sexy godfather. 

Actually the latter 5 is harder for me to think so it may not be in order. But the next five is confirmed to be the characters I want to marry.

5. Suoh Tamaki (Ouran High School Host Club)

Reading the manga, I realize that he's more than just a narcissistic prince-type character. Most shoujo mangas often portray the prince type as cool, ridiculously perfect and seemingly flawless (although personally I think their flaw is being picky about who they want to be nice to). Tamaki isn't forever stuck as that shallow bastard but he really grows up. I'm glad he didn't become the typical "fuck what everyone thinks of me" but he definitely tried his best to make his worst 'enemy' approve of him ^^ 

4. Kusama Nowaki (Junjou Romantica)

I'm into semes like him

3. Yatogami Kuroh (K-Project)

Just another vassal-type character like number 10, but he's the only guy who I can consider as a WAIFU rather than husbando. Even his character song is about cooking.

2. Kotetsu T. Kaburagi (Tiger & Bunny)

=//////= Blue Rose + Barnaby Brooks Jr = me

1. Kamina (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann)

I need an optimistic guy in my life, to keep me going. It was thanks to him that I reached a turning point in my life (from being pointlessly emo into someone who knows how to appreciate herself). I doubt there are any real life men who can beat this guy... I mean, my forever-sorrowful days have been taken away by him so you really can't just come into my life expecting me to worship you as a hero. F*ck 3DPD, you're just a bunch of oppurtunists t(^0^t

 Okay finish.
I feel sad that I can't include Midorima Shintarou, Vincent Valentine, Grell Sutcliffe and even my first anime crush Sanosuke Sagara... but I love them anyways (as favourite gundiks wwwww)

End note: OMG I AM A NECROPHILE.

Review: Wreck-it Ralph

The other day I ranted about how children’s stories in the west love making bad guys “born bad”, while the Japanese know logically that a villain would turn bad due to an unfortunate event. And these Japanese-made villains have a choice to redeem himself, while the Western ones have no hope at all (okay maybe not all is like this but *shrugs*)

Wreck-It Ralph questions this phenomenon. Every simple arcade games would have the bad guy ‘programmed’ to be bad, they have no backstory or whatsoever (unlike the games we play today). Ralph is the bad guy of the game Fix-it Felix. Everytime the arcade centre is closed, the characters of the games take a break and suddenly have their own free will. Yes, it’s like Toy Story all over again! But there’s nothing bad about it, because this show is really great.

Back to Ralph, he laments on the fact that he’s ‘programmed’ to be bad. He goes to a weekly gathering of villains where the bad guys are very optimistic about their roles. Bison, Zangief, Clyde, Dr. Robotnic and a zombie were so damn civilized. Ralph is jealous of the good guy, Felix, who gets medals, and loved by the people and gets cake. And this I think, might make us think that Felix is the bad guy if we follow from Ralph’s POV. One day Ralph decided not to hide his jealousy, he politely crashed the party, and Felix had mixed feelings about letting him in. Here’s where the so-called good people discriminate Ralph and he got all “CHALLENGED ACCEPTED” when someone tells him that he will never get a medal.

So all the trouble started here; he hijacked a modern game, stole a medal, accidentally hijacked another game, stolen medal got stolen, and all of a sudden he becomes a brother figure to a really cute loli. And the loli is antagonized for a wicked reason.

congrats Vanellope! you just made it to my favourite loli list!

On one hand, we have a pair who developed some kind of brother-sister relationship, which looks way much better than those anime imouto stories. On the other, we have Felix and Colhoun – a female game character “programmed with a tragic past” – which why she’s badass (and Jane Lynch). So this is what surprised me, for I thought Felix would be a jackass good guy. Though the reason is for him to save his game from being stowed away, I think he was probably the only one who truly cared about Ralph. I’d say the best parts of this story is the relationship between the (original) characters, and how they develop. And speaking of relationships, you’ll get to see an UNLIKELY couple.

There were plenty of video game references, like glitches and even cheat codes. I think this is one of the reasons I love this show. Cameos of popular video game franchise appear now and then. It’s really interesting to see how one character from one game interacts with one from the other. And the characters of the games which are thrown out became beggars LOL.

And they also have the "onee-sama" type

Though those who watch could tell who the main villain is, but there was this unexpected plot twist. I don’t know about you but that was really unpredictable. Probably because we don’t really know how the inter-game world works but still it was… WOW.

I’ve long quitted being a Disney Princesses fan, and not really keen about those magical fairy tale curses shit anymore. I don't think I can brain anymore Disney f*cking up those tales, it's better if they write something original. I’m glad Disney finally came up with something totally different (after Toy Story and Nightmare Before Christmas) and still giving you a happy ending.

As my cousin said, "Disney has got back their magic" :3

And LOOK! It's AKB48!!

Rant on Assassin's Creed series

So I'm gonna compile thoughts on all five Assassin's Creed games in one post. Don't think I have to write about them one by one, especially since I'll be away this weekend. But i won't elaborate much since I'm sure there are better reviews out there.

wallpaper by http://senzorka.deviantart.com

The first game I played was Assassin's Creed 2, where two of my friends shoved the disc into my face (in a good way). And i asked others whether I should really try this out, I was totally convinced when someone said something about Leonardo da Vinci.

I was afraid of playing stealth games, I couldn't finish Ninja Gaiden cos I totally sucked (back then I was more of an RPG-fag). But AC2 gives you a GPS so you basically know where the red dots are walking. But you have a choice to become incognito or nortorious. So it wasn't that hard. In the end I enjoyed the game because it was fun to figure out a way to kill your target in stealth mode. And Ezio has a romantic way of killing people it makes me blush... Other than that, it was like a vacation to different parts of Italy. Florence, Tuscan, Forli, San Gimignano and especially VENICE (row the gondola too)! And you have mercenaries, courtesans and thieves to assist you in your mission - and they turn out to be sub-sections of the Order of the Assassin's. Minigames are important to the plot, and you have the obligation to finish it to see what is meant to be seen.

Venice is a romantic place... owait-

AC: Brotherhood inherits the awesomeness of of its predecessor, but even better when you have assassin recruits to come to your aid. Now you have side missions to liberate forts (again this makes assassination a really fun thing to do) and try out the machineries Leonardo invented. The only drawback is probably that you only stick around Rome, but Rome is a freakin' huge place to have a walk in. Thankfully the architecture makes up with it.

Before carrying on the Revelations, I decided to finish the first game first. Since I am aware that Revelations is about tracking Altair's memories, I thought I should connect with Altiar first before I get confused in the fourth game. So we go all the way back to where assassins originated from, Masyaf (now in Syria), and i suppose the inhabitants were Muslims (it's more cool to call Muslims 'assassins' rather than ;terrorists' ww). AC was an extremely straightforward game, and I found myself feeling awkward that I don't have allies to depend on. Which makes it a challenge to move about as a lone wolf bird of prey, and trust me the combat system was still troublesome. There were a lot of running and falling, and you need to at least hide rather than going out of the radius when guards are on high alert. Yet you have a lot more freedom in killing people. The funniest part is when a WILD TEMPLAR APPEARS and start throwing curses at you. Here we also learn the three tenets of the Order; do not kill innocents, hide in plain sight and do not betray your Brotherhood. The worst part is to collect the flags, but in the end I couldn't care less (no trophies lol) and the fact that Altair cannot swim.... AC wasn't as awesome as AC2 and Brotherhood, but at least you get another vacation, this time in the Middle East - more architecture p0rn!

AC1 may feel like nothing but here's my favourite character. No kidding.

AC was really a PROLOGUE for the whole plot. It's when you start AC2 you realize it's actually the real "chapter 1". It was only in AC2 you know more about the current timeline issues, and the Templar's main plot. So now let's move on to Revelations. Ezio travels to Turkey, and whoopie more beautiful buildings!! This is when I realize you have to be super specific when it comes to fighting different types of opponents. We get to kill everyone with our litte allies and assassin recruits. And eagle vision has a massive improvement; now you can see traces of the glowing red/gold people! While funding money is very easy in the last two games, Revelations is a bit difficult due to the Islamic banking system (no interest, it's haram). Ezio has become wise with age, and I kind of feel sorry for him when he pants after dropping from a ledge =A="

Recently I've just finished Assassin's Creed 3. It was a game I anticipated most this year, and I actually bought it as a birthday present. I had fun with Altair and Ezio, and I was looking forward to have the similar feeling with Connor. However, the game began with a faux protagonist. You wonder why it isn't Connor, but this guy, I think you can see where it's coming. But then there's a plot twist that makes you go "Wait. What?" (just as Desmond did) and rewards you a trophy called "so how do you like 'em apples?". So much for trolling. But once you get to control Connor, you find yourself missing Haytham a lot more.

I would love to rant but all my feelings about AC3 are paralleled to this article: 7 reasons why Assassin's Creed 3 is actually disappointing

this sequence was fun but simply not enough FEEEEELLLLSSS

All the feels, yet the thing that disturbs me most is the nearly impossible and what-the-fuck-is-it-even-necessary Secondary Objectives. Sure, I have no problems replaying the part where I need to assassinate a guy from above. But when you're telling me to protect two important guys while throwing redcoats into the water makes me think "What? Why can't I just shoot them from above and act like a REAL ASSASSIN?". Now I know that these Secondary Objectives existed since AC2 trilogy, and it starts to get a little ridiculous in Revelations, but I don't remember feeling like I want to throw the controller at the TV just to give a fuck about 100 Sync. The interactive trailer fooled you by hinting that you CAN have different ways of reaching your target. There was so little freedom that I started to appreciate AC1 a whole lot more because Altair DID what a spy/assassin is supposed to do; investigate the enemy, analyze the area, and comes up with THREE options on how to go for the kill. You want a full frontal assault badassery? Go ahead. You want to sneak into secret passages like a ninja? Go ahead!

Another goddamn disappointment is the declination of the Eagle Vision. Connor didn't even need it; he's a Native American, and obviously he had hunting skills. All he needed is too look for clues. And oh there are no clues left behind by Subject No.6 to unlock. Here I was hoping that he could see traces of red like Ezio could in Revelations, but there weren't any. So now you cannot even have fun playing tricks on the guards with your trip mines (i loved planting those funny bombs in Revelations just to see how the guards react lolol). More importantly, you don't have any information on where the guards might walk unless you stick around for a few minutes to see the patrol pattern.... ONLY if you do not have any time limit to consider!

I had floating maidens. What about you?

You might think this review here has a lot of whining but I don't think whether you're veteran or a newbie is the problem. The post wraps up on how the game really is like at certain parts. The main point is the fact that it's no longer a stealth game and you don't have that similar enjoyment as you had in the previous four games. There were many cases where Connor breaks the second tenet of the Order (FUKKEN HIDE IN FUKKEN PLAIN FUKKEN SIGHT and why the hell are you commanding the patriots??), and other than that it's just really hard to be stealthy because now the guards a lot smarter. Probably it's because you're now in America *shrugs*... or sometimes a little dumb (or it could be a glitch) because sometimes i randomly get "HEY YOU!" while I'm just walking peacefully several metres away from the fukken lobsters D:. Now that you're in infant America, a really boring setting because most houses are made of wood and there aren't any minarets and towers with aethestic carvings to jawdrop at. Could've chosen settings where CULTURE exists.

But guess what the best part of the game is? The Naval Battles (is that a very assassin thing to do?) and the Assassin Recruits. And I also thought Davenport Homestead will become an assassin HQ but instead you're just rounding up outcasts to live happily ever after with.

Now I'm not gonna talk about the story or the characters of the wholse series, you can look at it elsewhere and I agree with them whatsoever. But I can tell you that AC3 doesn't have memorable ones as you found in AC2 (or otherwise people around Altair if you care to notice)

I am actually surprised to have found this in a bookstore here. It costs around RM35 - RM39, in BORDERS. Just bought the first one, and I hope I look forward to Connor's true colours he failed to show in the game.

In spite of all the crap I said about AC3, do try to play it if you think you can handle the gameplay. I know there may be pros who hold pride that they face the challenges like robots, but not everyone is lucky. And if you have not tried the Assassin's Creed games, go pick it up now. It's worth it. You might wanna skip AC3 thought and just read the spoilers, but you'll miss out the Naval Battles.