Very busy lately

Lately, I just don't have time to update my blog along size my youtube channel. In an attempt to think of which one to keep I decided to keep going with the Youtube channel and take a break on the blog, I will return back to it once everything has settled down a bit more.

God Eater 2 Rage Burst

<Due to problems with my PSVita right now I was unable to acquire any images. It is now in the shop getting fixed atm>

God Eater 2 Rage Burst has been one of my most anticipated games for 2015. As someone who has played the God Eater Series ever since it's first release on the Playstation Portable. I purchased the game once it released in Taiwan and while the amount of time I once had for playing video games has been taken away by my current workload and passion of music. I found myself constantly being pulled back to play this game.

As a full disclosure measure, I must say that my views may be slanted in favour of this game as it was one of the series that came to me in my time of need. I was going through a time of soul searching when the game first came into my crosshairs and having picked up and played hundreds of hours in the series combined. I fear my opinions might need to be taken with a grain of salt as everyone's experience and opinion is different. 

Plot:

God Eater 2 Rage Burst picks up the story after the GE2 ended and stars the player, as the silent protagonist, as you continue to find out about the fate of Julius Visconti through the investigation of the Helix Tree. New Aragami, the main enemies in the game, are introduced as well as a powerful ability called the Rage Burst.

Gameplay:

The game's various systems were kept fairly intact. I dare say that the developers did nothing to change the combat systems introduced in God Eater but instead added things to it. Much of the addition have been for balance sake and also to create even more of an urgency and a sense of danger to the game. From here I will list some of the addition to the gameplay system to make things more clear as well as some of my thoughts.

1) Addition of new weapon: Valiant Scythe
     From the first God Eater I have always wondered how a Scythe weapon would work with the arsenals. I have to say I was impressed with the weapon, while not really all that strong when it comes to breaking pieces off the Aragami the scythe is capable of dishing out pretty decent damage because of it's range and combo abilities. The scythe's currently one of the longest hitting melee weapon in the game and synergises well with gunner oriented players.

2) Rage Burst System
     The newly introduced Rage Burst system gives the player something in the line of limited god mode to help offset the new down status or death system. In order to activate Rage Burst, the player must first deal enough damage to the enemies enough to charge up a bar next to the radar. Once charged, the player must complete some tasks in order to activate Rage Burst, being taken down prior to activation will cancel out and completely waste the charge so be very careful when activated. Once activated, Rage Burst makes it so that you cannot be damage, no decrease in OP, ST, and increased damage to all weapons.

3) New Downed System
     Traditionally God Eater's never had anything keeping the player from being picked up by allies constantly to finish a mission, except the occasional situation in the entire team being taken down. In order to offset that, the developers have added a new blue bar into the HUD to tell the players how many times they can be downed before the game pretty much kicks you and your team out of the mission. This is a good thing, as it increased the difficulty of the game as well as making the game feel more is at stake if you get downed.

4) Return of the Mail System
    While this is not a very big feature the developers has returned the mail system back to the game. While minor, the mail system gives the player more of a interaction with the npcs.

5) New Arragami types

6) New Story and Plot

Personal Thoughts and Conclusion:
This expansion to God Eater 2 is totally worth the price. The developers did all they could to upgrade the systems brought forth by GE2 and made it even better and more streamlined. A lot of the problems which was overshadowed by the original gameplay, story and plot was actually addressed and fixed. As I have stated with the New downed system, there was really no need to do it but having it is a great addition.  Keep in mind that I will most likely be biased as I have played this game from the beginning, but I stand by to saying this game is a great addition to the PSVita library. Anyone interested in Monster Hunter style gameplay will probably like it as well. Should you get it? The choice is yours, I'm here to inform you as a consumer to make your own decision. 

Gundam Breaker 2 Vita

Hello Everyone,

It's time to talk about Gundam Breaker 2 for the PSVita. The game is a recent release by Bandai Namco as well as being a sequel to Gundam Breaker released last year, around the same time. I was always fond of the previous game, and had high hopes for the recent sequel. How will that effect my in depth look into the game? Hopefully nothing, but keep in mind as I try to be objective that I do have an extreme love for the Gundam Franchise and the Breaker series of games.

Also, if you want more information about the gameplay please check my youtube video about it. (Link On Top). Because Bandai Namco have locked screen capture function on the PSVita for the game. Hence why some of my blog posts do not have pictures or images.

Settings:

Gundam Breaker 2 revolves around an unnamed, voiceless protagonist. In a world where Gunpla's popularity started a virtual game involving using these models to fight in a virtual environment to enact different Gundam battles. For those interested to a Gundam anime that is kind of like this check out Gundam Build Fighter.

The game is separated by two modes. Story mode goes through a fairly long game play with a plot line revolving the Archangel, the assault ship from Gundam Seed. I will not go further in to the storyline as it may take away too much from the game. Challenge mode, which I felt to be a bit more bare boned, is a more arena based gameplay style and is has more focus on multi game modes.

Different modes of the game involves: Capture the Points, Survival, Capsule Defence, Team death match. In my experience, Capture the point is the most annoying to win at times if your Gunpla isn't upgraded enough as enemy spawns are random and sometimes your friendly npc gets confused.

What is New:

Gundam Breaker 2's difference from Gundam Breaker is not just more emphasis on the story mode. But also some of the upgrade systems brought up from the original.

1) More emphasis on Gunpla upgrade through the scratch systems. In the previous game, scratch is usually used to change modes ie. Banshee's arm to a stronger version. Different, piece specific EX attacks, Burst attacks, and option attacks can be upgraded through this Scratch system as well.

2) Weapons no longer drop. The weapon building system took care of that. ACE enemies will sometimes drop the necessary cores, upgrade systems to craft your weapons.

3) More Mobile Suits.

4) More Mobile Armor encounters. I really do not like fighting them to be honest, a lot of them are  quite cheap and is hard to long on.

5) Long Rifles no longer lock on, you have to use your aim.

Problems with the Game:

Like any game released as of recent years, there are problems. The game suffers from many glitches and game crashes, while I don't know how to really recreate the crashes at all. There was however 1 major bug that involved ACEs not spawning despite having the alarm sound sometimes. Often occurring after a long sleep mode on the Vita this bug pretty much rendered your last mission run null and void.

The Lock-on get's annoying sometimes, though you can deactivate, it really hinders your view at times when a mission involves aiming a specific area or enemy.

Conclusion:

Overall, the game is a solid Gundam experience on the PSVita. While I felt that the game could have been better, the amount of effort and changes Bandai Namco did to the game and some of it's mechanics really made the game quite enjoyable.

Earth Defence Force 2 Portable V2

Hello Everyone,

Today, I am going to talk about Earth Defense Force 2 Portable V2. This is a 3rd person shooter created by Sandlot and published by D3 publisher. On the vita this is the second game to be published as EDF3 released last year, with a few issues in terms of frame rate. For EDF3 the frame rate fluctuates so much on infernal mode that it becomes nearly impossible to play at times and was a main concern when I first bought EDF2 PV2.

Gameplay:

The game plays like all the rendition of the EDF series. The player have the choice of 3 different troop type Ground, Pale wing, and Air Raid and must defend the earth from an alien takeover. The ground troops uses physical projectiles weapons but also have medium mobility within the game. Pale Wing uses energy weapons tapped into the jetpack power source and has the highest mobility but also have the lowest of all the different stats for balance. Air raid uses weapons that requires activation and is the slowest of all the troop types in speed, reload.

Players first chooses a Troop type out of the three mentioned, chooses a stage, and was thrown into a mission of pure giant monster killing fun. The enemy choices of the game has always been the same. Except this particular version being a slightly upgraded version of EDF 2 does not have as much enemy as EDF3.

Graphics:

Graphics really was a problem when EDF3 was on PSV. In terms of graphics, this game has lowered the fidelity but improved the frame rate significantly. There are still moments of graphics lag present with the higher levels, but has been reduced to a playable point.

Conclusion:

Thinking of the game as a whole it plays just fine. In fact, I would say it's a lot more stable for me than EDF3. The controls have this floaty mechanics to it and takes a while to get used to (unless you're a EDF veteran and have been conditioned to the control style). Overall, this is really a great game for any EDF fans to be in their collection. I have spent countless hours this week on this game and had a great time. Keep in mind, if this type of game is not your cup of tea, it will not sway you. The game is just like any other EDF game and is catered towards a very specific fan base and cult following. 

Phantasy Star Nova

Hello Everyone,

Today, we are going to talk about Phantasy Star Nova for the PSVita. Before we start, I have said before in my video that I am a huge Phantasy Star fan but that doesn't mean I can't look at this game objectively. SEGA has litterally dropped the ball this time.

Phantasy Star Nova is set around the time of Phantasy Star Online 2 Timeline and it shows. In my video I've talked about how the game is pretty much looks the same as PSO2 (a 10+ year old game by now) and follows much of the same concept.

Settings

The story places the player aboard an exploration vessel Alter and after getting shot down and crash landed on a planet. The player and their partner found out about their inability to use photon arts leading them to find another power source. The story continues by having the player going through many fetch quests and story quests to try and leave the planet.

The game's basic premise is like many of the other games within the Phantasy Star series. Player do quests, follow the storyline, and continue from there. It's a MMO experience, without the MMO aspect. Yes, you just read it, this game does not have a working online mode. Which is a huge downfall for this game as it may have been the reason why the NPCs are as strong as they are, many times "helping" the player fail a capture gigantes mission.

While the ideas of putting huge monsters in a Phantasy Star game is not new, this game really flaunts it and added them to every other levels in the game.

Some of the problems I have faced while fighting these big giant bosses are:

1) Massive slowdown in graphics and control
2) Camera problems leading to unfair death

New Contents

Some of the so called "New" contents in this game can't really be considered new. In fact, many of them are just a tweaked version of things we've seen before.

1) The Buster class is nothing more than a different version of the Rogue from Phantasy Star Portable series.

2) The Halo weapon is a Talisman with Force Capabilities crossed with Melee skills

3) The Drill Weapon is a Melee weapon with Rifle Capabilities

Unfortunately, all of these seems extremely lacking in terms of innovation for the game series despite having the same premise.

Major Problems

So far, I have my riddles of problems with this game. In terms of graphics the game looks old, due to the game being build off of PSO2. The game also felt rushed, and not properly optimised. Note: I am using a Generation 1 Limited Edition Hatsune Miku PSVita for the game. I have hit quite a bit of graphic frame drop during my game play and it is annoying to be fine and then suddenly moving to a crawl.

Conclusion

From the standpoint of a single player game, the game is fine, Storyline is a bit lacking, but retained much of the addicting gameplay that Phantasy Star series have. From the standpoint of current conditions however,  the game and SEGA lost the plot by giving the player something they could have easily gotten free from PSO2 on the vita and probably why the sales of this game is not to expectation. I would love to see SEGA update this but the sales probably won't justify it. Had the game been made to have multiplayer there may still be hope for a better turnout in sales.

Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax

Hello everyone,

Today, I will talk a little about Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax. It is a character action fighting game featuring many popular Dengeki characters published by Sega. There are 2 versions released for household use PS3 and PS Vita as well as a Arcade version used for Japanese game Center. Since I am a handheld gamer, I will be talking about the PS Vita version.  (Due to Time Constraints, I was not able to photograph any pictures this week but you can see the gameplay etc on the youtube video.)

This game is part of the 20th Anniversary Campaign of Dengeki Bunko, a Japanese publishing company. All the characters in the game came from their most popular publication like Sword Art Online, Durarara, etc. with the exception of the 2 boss characters from story mode which is SEGA's personal IPs.

Gameplay:

This game has a extremely limited move list. However, in order to fully get good at the game will require understanding of each character's strength and weaknesses. While the move list is small, the characters are all different in terms of fighting style.

An example would be Shizuo from Durarara: medium attack power, high defensive ability, and has the ability to counter. Where as Kirito from Sword Art Online: low attack power, extremely fast, and no range abilities. All characters in this game have different play style and personality to suit the taste of the player. Unfortunately, some characters I felt could be a bit too overpowered in terms of how some skills can take up a huge part of the screen *cough* Tomoko from Ro Kyu Bu.

Graphics:

The Game uses beautiful 2d graphics with a bit of 3d cell shading animation for the dialogue screen for the story mode. The characters look extremely well detailed on the small Vita screen to the point you can tell this originally was ported from the Arcade.

Conclusion:

Due to this game being a fighting game, I do have a bias when it comes to these. But, it is a well designed port for those who enjoy playing them. The animation is definitely smooth due to the game being in 2d so the machine does not need to work too hard to run it. My only problem would be the character list might be a bit too small and would hope that more characters be added in through DLCs as the current state of this game is set at round 14 playable characters and 23 assist characters. This is a game I feel if I was more of a fighting game enthusiast would love even more. 

My Channel's Code of Ethics (Revealed)

For the first part of my youtube channel's life I've ran without a code of ethics. However, one video in particular have always bothered me: RinniePie Rants: Warriors Orochi 2 Ultimate for the PSVita. Although this video has been quite a while back for me, and my video's format style have long since changed, it was due to this video that has made me discover a need for a code of ethics. I never wanted to mislead the audience and in my blind rage over the game I posted a video I wasn't proud of.  After re-watching it several months back, it has caused the shift in my approach to the current First Impressions series style.

I have recently made the video private, not because I am scared of people calling me out on various things mentioned in the video. While I still hold true to my thoughts that the game is nothing more than a cash in and a poorly optimised port, I felt that I cannot allow a video that is so poorly done to remain on the video list. 

Enclosed here is a version of my Code of Ethics, which I have written soon after re-watching the video.

RinniePie's Code Of Ethics:

What is the Goal of the Channel- 

1)  Promote and Inform Customers of Various Handheld Games. (Mostly Japanese Import)

     - Try to answer any questions in the comment section. Due to the nature of the First Impression format, it is not always clear on some of the things encountered during filming.  

    

2)  Share my personal interests with video logs.

3)  Practice for speeches and reaction

4)  Make a living? (Not interested in becoming a youtuber at the moment)

Channel Series:

RinniePie Vlog~ 

To talk about current affairs for me personally.

First Impressions~ 

This is the main focus of the channel, 1 Unboxing video to show what is enclosed in the game box. Disclose if any gifts were given during the purchase of the game. 

Promote discussion, and provide description on what the game is about, interesting systems, anything that sets the game apart from all the others. 

Let's Plays~

Play games, have fun, do commentary. 

Paid Promotion:

-I will avoid any paid promotion I do not fully endorse. 

-In the unlikely circumstances that I do take a paid promotion. I will inform the audience through verbal statements in the video or through the description. 

-------------

The ideas listed above is the code of ethics that I have been following for most of my most recent videos. To be honest, I put the paid promotion part as a joke since I am not really looking for fame or  to becomes a full youtuber. The whole reason why I started doing youtube video was because of how shy I was. I was scared to be in the limelight and saw youtube as a platform in which to help me get over my fears and become a better speaker.

-Thank you for reading, I will see you all a little later

 RinniePie