Almost makes Bastok look attractive, doesn't it. ^^

When I was walking to work the other day, I couldn't help but notice that every ant nest on my route to work (and there are a lot of them) was engaged in the annual ant Departing the Nest Festival. The air was thick with them - I believe I may have inhaled/swallowed two. Curious that the nests were quiet on the days before and after - they all just chose that particular day to fly, despite the weather conditions being pretty much the same all week. Strange how nature works. I have also decided that ants were never, ever designed to fly, and it is fortunate that they only have to engage in that particular activity for one or two days in the year. I'm not sure if they have any control over their flight, or if they just flap like mad until they hit something.

*** Warning *** Today's "Arghh! I don't want to read any more of this random drivel!" character graphic is Arno from Summon Night Craft Sword Monogatari 2. I strongly suggest you scroll down to safety now.

You probably noticed the content of last Thursday's post was a little different from the usual fare. It's been a while since I've written a decent amount here on something other than otakunews, and the change of topic was rather refreshing. So, I thought I'd give it another go this week. Rather than something seemingly entirely random like last time, I thought that today I would attempt something much more popular among regular bloggers - a dream log.

There is just one tiny snag - I don't dream. It hasn't always been this way. I remember having dreams aplenty throughout my childhood, right up until perhaps my 5th year of secondary school, at which point the dreaming suddenly stopped. The only possible explanation I have been able to come up with is that around this time, my sleeping patterns started to become much more disrupted, which is the state in which they remain to this day. So, as you can see, this makes writing a dreamlog somewhat of a challenge.

My brain does, however, seem to have a habit of engaging in strange dream-fantasies when in a semi-awake state - for example, in those moments just after my clock radio has gone off in the morning and jolted my brain into gear, but before my foghorn has sounded, bringing with it a swift return to conscious thought. (Yes, I need multiple alarms, otherwise I just don't move. One day, I will forget to set any and never, ever wake up again.) Given the time between the set alarms, I would estimate this period of semi-conscious time to be around 20 minutes in length - more than long enough for the spongey matter to generate a substantial random fantasy of some sort. Unlike classic REM sleep dreams, I have far more control over these, although I would say that I am more of a participant in these fantasy worlds rather than an omnipotent controller. I am also able to recall events much more vividly.

These dream-fantasies (I wonder if there is a less clumsy word I could use - they're not really daydreams) often include elements of whatever happened to be on my mind the night before. Recently, I have been playing Ragnarok Online as a way of winding down before heading off to bed, and so the other morning, I was treated to a random RO-oriented dream. This is perhaps the third or fourth time I have had this dream or one very similar to it - the scenario seems to be a popular one with the spongey matter. I shall attempt to explain it for anyone who hasn't yet browsed elsewhere. Go now, it's not too late.

...

... ...

Hmm, a glutton for punishment, eh? Well, don't say I didn't warn you.

It starts off in AzieƖ's hut, located in a quiet part of the forest, a couple of miles north of the town of Payon. It is early summer; the leaves on the trees are fully grown, shielding the ground from the sky in most places with a thick, green spread. The air is heavy and warm.

It is mid morning and AzieƖ is fletching arrows, the shafts of which are laid out side-by-side across the table in the centre of the hut. Tomoko is there too (my subconscious apparently decided catgirls were needed - I'm not complaining), looking out of the open shutter, her chin resting on the bottom edge of the frame. She seems a little restless. With only an hour or so of the morning left, the pair leave the hut, carrying a couple of baskets and a fishing rod, and head down to the river, about a mile north of the hut. They stop a couple of times along the way to pick fruit; apples to eat in the afternoon, berries as bait to lure the fish.

They reach the water at the point of a fall, perhaps twenty feet high. The river is quite shallow and about a dozen yards across, except for the pool at the base of the waterfall which is slightly wider and of a reasonable depth. The pair move to the lower level and stop a minute's walk downstream from the fall, on the south bank of the river. While AzieƖ goes about trying to catch something, Tomoko's attention is focused on trying to find a path across the river using rocks protruding from the water's surface. She returns about a short while later, a little wetter, to eat some of the fruit and nap in the shade of the trees lining the river.

By mid-afternoon, the air, warmed by the scorching sun, uninhibited by the cloudless sky, is at its hottest. Tomoko goes to swim in the pool at the base of the waterfall while AzieƖ, by this time having already caught several large fish, rests with her back to the trunk of a large oak, her eyes closed, enjoying the sounds of the flowing water and the leaves rustling in the gentle breeze.

As evening draws in and the sun sinks lower in the sky, AzieƖ begins to pack up. Tomoko, having returned and dried off in no time in the warm air, helps to wrap the fish in salted rags. Taking two fish each, the pair head back the way they came. On reaching the hut, AzieƖ puts three of the fish into a sturdy, lidded curing box, two of which she will try to sell at the market in Payon the following morning. The remaining fish she prepares for supper.

Darkness sets in and the air outside has a slight chill to it. The hut, shutters closed and fire burning nicely, remains comfortably warm. The fish, eaten with a soft green vegetable native to the forest, a little like a zucchini, was most satisfying. The pair, content yet tired, retreat to a cushioned chair positioned in front of the fire. Tomoko, lying across AzieƖ, falls asleep almost immediately. AzieƖ wraps the large blanket draped across the chair around the both of them and it is not long before she also succumbs to sleep.

... And that's pretty much it. Sorry if it wasn't quite as eventful/strange as you were expecting. In the dream, I tend to either see the world from the point of view of AzieƖ (which makes sense since AzieƖ is part of myself), or from a third-person perspective - it switches between the two, but I don't really notice. It all just seems to cut together seamlessly, like a well-directed movie.

So what does it "mean", if anything? Probably nothing, since as I am in a semi conscious state, my subconscious is unable to strut around unchecked. I'm pretty sure you can only derive meaning from dreams that are dominated by subconscious control. It appears to just be a reflection in my imagination of a yearning for a simpler life. And possibly cute catgirls.

Okay, back to the less worrying stuff. I have stuck section headings in the text below to try and break things up and make each topic easier to locate.

 
Ragnarok Online

Continuing the RO theme, my subscription to RO expired recently (annoyingly while I was in the middle of the game). The last subscription I took out was the newly introduced "30 Hour Prepay Plan". Since iRO went P2P, I had been playing on the 3-month subscription plan, which I renewed each time the 3 month period was up. However, due to finances being a little tight and the fact that I don't play quite as often as I used to, I decided to try out the pay-as-you-go plan. The 30 hour subscription lasted exactly two and a half months, meaning that I played for, on average, 12 hours per month. Costing only $7.99 for 30 hours (which my credit card company works out to be exactly £4.50 at current rates), my total monthly subscription cost came to a mere £1.80. Quite reasonable, I think. :) Oh, and in case any iRO players haven't noticed yet, more client changes are on the way, starting with the upgrade to 5 characters per account (from the current 3). The changes are due to go live on Sakray on July 20th. There are no dates yet on when the main servers will receive the update.

The Ragnarok Online animation continues to be really quite dire, yet I can't stop watching it out of a strange, twisted loyalty towards the RO brand. Character-wise, it is pretty bad. Story-wise, it is far, far worse. I can't help but think any characters or stories in the RO universe would have been more appealing than the ones created for the anime. Perhaps it could have been an animated adaptation of Lee Myoungjin's original manga. The DL Action RO cast would certainly have been more likable, although I'm not sure the story could really be used. Even a cast made up of the in-game NPCs would have had more appeal, with their random insults and barely interpretable speech at least adding some kind of warped humour to the show.

 
Tears to Tiara

As I promised last week, now that I have the time, I will ramble a little more about Leaf's new game, Tears to Tiara. I guess I should start with the background story. The following is taken from the official site:

The main character in the game is Arawn, the aforementioned Demon Lord, awakened from his eternal slumber. I have to say there have been a lot of pretty hot demons around lately, and while Arawn may not have quite the looks (nor the seiyuu) of some, his silver hair and red eyes are quite fetching. Normally, I would avoid most adult PC games with a demon as the protagonist since demons in adult PC games often have a tendency to go about perverted demonic activities, such as demonic molestations, impregnations, and so on. But this is a Leaf game. I'm sure it won't be all bad. >_>

Riannon and Arthur are likely to be Arawn's main companions for most of the game. Riannon was raised by her brother after the death of their parents. "Hot blooded and impulsive, he doesn't like to lose", reads Arthur's character profile. I can just tell he's going to become annoying. I think Morgan is my favourite character at the moment, although her character profile suggests that she too may be somewhat irritating.

I think I mentioned last time that the character art style was very similar to that of Routes - bright and bold. I have a feeling this could be echoed in the game itself and don't expect it to be quite as "soft" (story-wise) as, for example, Utawarerumono. Still, it looks good and will undoubtedly be purchased on my next visit to Japan, if not sooner.

 
Summon Night Craft Sword Monogatari 2

Summon Night Craft Sword Monogatari 2 hits the Gameboy Advance on the 20th of August. As far as gameplay is concerned, it appears to be very similar to the first Craft Sword, with just a few changes here and there - the PowerUp (excuse for a naked transformation sequence) feature, for example. I have my doubts about the apparent introduction of mech battles though. This time around, the two playable characters have reasonably sensible names - Air and Edge. ... Well, at least they're more sensible than "Pratty". Although if you listen to Edge actually say his name, it sounds a lot worse. >_>

 
White Breath

F&C are continuing to churn out titles with White Breath due for release on the 23rd of this month. The game initially drew my attention because of the character designs. Takashi Hashimoto is the illustrator for the game and has a style which reminds me of that used by Takamichi in his more recent works (Kakera series, etc.), with perhaps a hint of Goto-P. While the game is adult in nature, it does appear to be heavily story-driven and may not have too many adult scenes. Indeed, F&C have gone to great lengths to promote White Breath as a pure ren'ai adventure game, even commissioning a series of romantic short stories. I shall add it to my provisional "to get" list while I await reviews.

 
Dragon Age

This month's Dragon Age is interesting. After the conclusion of Chrno Crusade last month, this issue sees the start of several new series. I have picked three of note. The first is Seal Online Wandering Party, the official manga of the cute MMORPG. (KR JP TW) Drawn by Mattaku Mo-suke, the manga is easily as cute as the game. The story isn't particularly deep, but then this is only the first chapter, so things could change.

The second series I'll point out is Mahou Shoujo Neko X by Mimana Orimoto. Althought a series with cute, magical catgirls has to make quite an effort to be bad in my book, this one certainly tries its best. (A brief look at the artist's gallery should give you an indication that this manga could have some wrongness.) Ignoring the dubious title, pages of gratuitous pant-shots, juice and "rope tricks", what worried me most about the manga was the tendency of the mangaka to have his main cute catgirl character beaten, punched and physically abused by the main male protagonist, her master. And then, after the choking and beating, they hug and profess their love for one another. The extent to which Mimana does appear to enjoy his "happy" portrayal of domestic violence does concern me somewhat. Perhaps his plan is for the cat-people to rebel, crush human kind and live happily ever after, in which case I will be happy. But looking at his website, I fear that is not his intention.

Finally, and on a slightly more promising note, there is Variante by Ikura Sugimoto. The series actually started last month, but I hadn't got around to mentioning it before. The premise - a girl coming-to in a strange facility, her left arm disfigured and with faint memories of her parents being murdered by a strange mutant monster "thing" - is probably not the kind of tale I would normally go for, but the story is told and paced in such a way that I found myself drawn into it quite easily. The art is also rather nice, expressive and well laid out, complementing the story perfectly. For a first manga, it really is most impressive, and I strongly doubt it will be his last.

 
In closing

Before I go, a quick note on BBI changes. You may have noticed the addition of the "Print this page" entry in the menu which displays a more printer-friendly version of the page you are currently viewing. Possibly the most useless addition to the site to date, but there it is. I have also updated AzieƖ's and Tammui's pages with their latest levels. I will probably update AzieƖ's screenshot diary at the end of this month. Tammui will never get a screenshot diary since, as nobody ever responded to my request at the end of the June 25th log entry, there seems not to be any demand for one. Which suits me just fine as they are somewhat tiresome to create.

Until next time~

Game news follows the SoZ ramble. Scroll down until you hit Mii, who is in this post for no reason other than it's been a while since I posted a picture of her.

Men and cars. In western society, there is often presumed to be some mysterious connection between the two. Like dogs and bones. Despite being male, I have never really seen or fully understood the attraction some people have to 4-wheeled automotive transport. Beyond the obvious "mmm, shiny" value, of course. When I was growing up, my walls were never plastered with posters or magazine cutouts depicting sports cars, nor the scantily clad women who seem to enjoy draping themselves over them. Despite having a father and a next-door neighbour who were both hardened motorsport enthusiasts, the passion they possessed never seemed to wear off on me - much to their disappointment, I believe.

However, from an early age, I have had a fascination with another area often regarded, in an unjustly sexist social perception, as a domain for young human males - that is air and space craft, and, in fact, air and space travel in general. I have never been too sure of the reason why though. Perhaps because, unlike the high octane "bigger, badder, faster" world of the motor car (or at least that was the world of the enthusiasts I encountered), flight has always seemed to be about "freedom". The exhilaration of soaring above the earth is a feeling that appears to be shared by many people and was something sought after by humans for centuries.

Over the years, I have flown in a number of different craft, both large and small, winged and rotored, and was lucky enough to be able to witness, in person, the launch of Atlantis on NASA mission STS-43. (Random news: NASA is still on target to resume flights in spring/summer 2005 with STS-114.) Every time I go to an airport, I never tire of marvelling at the sight of vehicles comprised of a hundred tons of steel and aluminium lumbering along the runway and hauling themselves into the sky. It remains a personal aim of mine to gain a pilot qualification (PPL or similar) at some point during my life.

So why, you may wonder, am I telling you all this? Well, hopefully to make what is about to follow a little less random.

Like many people around the world, I have been following the progress made by Scaled Composites and their privately funded space program, top contender for the X prize. However, when watching the events of the latest mission, my attention was drawn not to SS1, but to the high chase aircraft which accompanies and monitors SS1 during its flight. I was struck by its unique, futuristic appearance, having never seen anything quite like it before, and immediately fell in love with it. Determined to find out more about this aircraft, I consulted Google, which is how I uncovered its sad story. (...which I may be about to share with you. You should have scrolled down to Mii like I told you to at the start. You still can, you know - she's waiting just below. Go on. Scroll down and end the pain now.)

The aircraft, NC-51, is a Beech Starship, owned by Robert Scherer. The Starship began life in 1979 when planning started at the Beech Aircraft Company on its new business/executive aircraft. The sleek design proposed by the company was innovative in more than just appearance. The airframe was to be contructed entirely from moulded composite materials. The twin turboprops powering the craft were positioned at the rear in order to reduce noise in the cabin. The design also did away with a rudder, using control surfaces on the two wing stabilisers to control yaw instead. Additionally, it was the first aircraft intended for large-scale production to be designed almost entirely on computer. In 1982, once planning was complete, Scaled Composites were contracted to build an 85% scale model of the aircraft, which was introduced to the world a year later to much acclaim.

The first signs of trouble surfaced in 1984. Having no production facilities for composite materials, Beech had contracted out a number of companies to produce the various parts for the aircraft. However, it became clear that many contractors were not going to be able to produce the parts in time for the Starship's promised 1985 launch date, if at all. With no other options available to it, Beech expanded its factory by a quarter of a million square feet in order to incorporate a composite materials production division so that it could manufacture the required parts itself. Many months were lost as equipment was installed and a new workforce was hired and trained.

In 1986, the first Starship rolled off the production line and began a lengthy testing program to gain Federal Aviation Administration certification. Being the first production composite aircraft, the FAA had to devise a new testing program more or less as it went along. Eventually, in July of 1987, the Starship was certified as airworthy by the FAA and was ready to be released to the public. Unfortunately, the economic climate in the late '80s was not what it had been at the start of the decade. The previously booming business aircraft market had all but collapsed as a result of the recession, and those who still had money to buy aircraft had long since gone elsewhere after the Starship's production delays.

Beech, now owned by Raytheon after a merger, spent more than $300m during the five and a half year development program, much of which went on the new production facilities and employees at its factory. A total of 53 Starships were built before production was halted, a small handful of which were sold. The majority of the craft sit rotting in Raytheon's Starship graveyard, occasionally being dismantled for parts. Raytheon is quietly encouraging the owners of the few Starships that did make it out of the company to sell them back, offering free upgrades to newer models as an incentive.

To the Starship, one of the world's most loved aircraft that sadly never really took off.

Starship links: The Starship Diaries, Robert Scherer's Starship Pages, Robert Scherer's Starship Tracking

Aaaaaand back to the usual stuff. My apologies to anyone who just read the above ramble. m(_  _)m

Ren'ai game news. I have quite a bit I could say, but as it's very late and I can hardly read the screen any more, I shall stick with the most important topic - NEW LEAF GAME! Tears to Tiara, an "Adventure Simulation RPG", will be released on the 24th of September. From the screenshots provided so far, it appears that this game will revolve around the RPG element and as such will be much more user-driven than other Leaf titles. The character design feels quite Routes-like, although I detect a mixture of Leaf styles in some of the character styles. I might put a translation of the story outline up here at some point, perhaps when it is not 5am.

The next FFXI expansion pack, Chains of Promathia (Promathia no Jubaku), now has a final release date for both the US and Japanese releases. The Japanese version will be out first on September 16th, followed by the US release the following week on September 21st. The European launch of FFXI is also scheduled for September. Although a definite date doesn't appear to be in place quite yet, it will most likely follow a few days after the release of Promathia in the US. The FFXI EU website is also now online, although it is currently just a selection of pages taken from the US site.

I'm exhausted, it's late, and I must be awake for work tomorrow... today. Therefore I shall bid you farewell and continue babbling later. zzz... *thud*

Sorry for yet another long absence. Whenever I thought I would have time to post here, something else came up. At other times, I didn't really feel like posting. There are so many topics I was going to talk about, but most of them probably aren't relevant anymore anyway as they are old news and have been discussed to death elsewhere - for example, anything remotely E3 related. Therefore, I'll just ignore those for now and skip straight to more current issues.

I'll start with Puyo Puyo Fever. To be honest, I didn't even know the game was out here until I wandered into the local game store a couple of months ago, scanned the shelves, and saw its 'cute pop' box staring back at me. (This was the same trip on which I discovered Shinyaku Seiken Densetsu had also been 'blessed' with an English translation.) I've now battled through single player mode and played a few 2-Player matches, thanks to FrF and his cuboid, so I thought I would share my thoughts on the game here.

Although I was sceptical at first, I have to admit that it seems Sonic Team knew what they were doing with Fever. The old Puyo franchise, while loved by hardcore Puyo devotees, had become stale. Making a game to appeal to a small (albeit enthusiastic) fanbase is not good business. Although the game concept was sound, Puyo Puyo needed a fresh new look and feel to bring it up to date and make it able to compete in the general game market.

The updating of Puyo Puyo isn't just restricted to its look and feel. My overall impression of Fever is that it is now a "party game", much more so than previous Puyo incarnations, thanks to such additions as Fever Mode and new puyo block shapes. This could be a reflection of the trend in game playing behaviour over the last decade - away from the concept of a "bedroom nerd" and more towards the social gaming scene.

Fever Mode, one of the aspects of the game I wasn't too sure about, actually isn't as bad as I had feared. It is probably more responsible for the new "party" feel of the game than any other new feature. For casual, party gaming, it introduces a whole new way of playing. Well, perhaps not entirely new - Puyo fans will remember the introduction of offsetting in Sun. However, this time around, you don't have to be a hardcore Puyo player to get anything worthwhile out of it. Speaking of hardcore Puyo players, having seen some of the games from the recent Puyo Puyo Tournament, it's interesting to see how expert players have taken to using Fever Mode. It appears to be a common tactic to use it as an escape - to set up your game screen in such a way that should you ever find yourself in a spot of trouble, you can always "flee" to Fever Mode to hurl a few ojama at your opponent, hopefully distracting them and giving you enough time to sort out your own mess.

Fever releases are still continuing with the Mac (2) version hitting stores yesterday (Saturn USB pad!) and the GBA version due on July 24th.

Tales news now! (cue groaning noises) There are some nice new screenshots up over at the Rebirth site. It feels quite similar in many ways to Symphonia - similar art, the same character cell shader, etc. The battle system has now become the "3-Line Linear Motion Battle System", a supposed upgrade from Symphonia's "Multi-Line Linear Motion Battle System", but which appears to be almost exactly the same too. Still no release dates as of yet.

I'm not sure if I mentioned the forthcoming PS2 port of Symphonia, so I'll do that now. It's old news now, but there's the link anyway, in case anyone missed it. Meanwhile, the US Symphonia site continues to grow as the US release date nears. Apparently Genius and Refill weren't good names, having become Genis and Raine respectively in the US version. Shihna, which I thought was a rather pleasant name, becomes the somewhat more grating Sheena. She also appears to have been given a surname, which I don't recall her having in the original version. It's certainly not as bad as I was expecting. I'm sure at least one person on the localisation team must have been tempted to change Colette to Sharon. >_>

Ren'ai game news. I'll go through each company in turn, starting with Key. Lia's debut album, Prismatic, is out today. Unusually, Visual Arts appear to have created an entirely new label just for this release. The Air movie appears to have a new site, as does the Air TV series. That's a lot of Air. Finally, for anyone who doubted the success of Clannad, take a look at the Clannad review page over at myreview.jp. ^^

Next, Leaf/Aquaplus. The To Heart 2 site went live last week, giving the world a taste of the sequel to one of the most popular visual novels of all time. The character design is interesting - original To Heart meets Routes, with a bit of something else added. However, it does feel satisfyingly To Heart-like, so will hopefully prove to be a worthy sequel. An Aruru to Asobo patch has also been released.

Studio Mebius, distant cousin of Key and who, for a time, seemed to be following in its relative's footsteps by appearing to do nothing, has suddenly sprung back to life. Not content with just releasing information on its anticipated new titles, it has gone ahead with a complete site renewal. According to the site, further information on Tomodachi Ijou, Koibito Miman will be released later today. We already have a release date - September 24th, 2004 - so it would appear that everything is still go at Studio Mebius. It's also interesting to note that the development time on TomoKoi, from its initial conception to release (assuming the release date is kept), will be a little over a year. Perhaps Key could learn some lessons here. I wonder what happened to Toki no Uta though, the game Mebius supposedly had in development alongside TomoKoi. It appears to have vanished without a trace...

It's not a game and it's not cute, but it is my distro of choice. Slackware 10 was released on Wednesday, the first Slackware release in almost 9 months. Slackware. Because it works.

Finally, I've made a few changes to the site. The CSS has been modified so that an exact point size is specified for most of the text on the site. I didn't really want to do that, but browsers these days seem too stupid to be able to pick a reasonable size of type themselves. If anyone has any problems, let me know. On a related note, recent Gecko-based browsers (Mozilla, Firefox, etc.) seem to have table rendering problems. This site isn't too bad, but my other site can render horribly sometimes. Other updates to the site include a few added links (go and read Voxie's site - it's more interesting than this one) as well as a new Ragnarok Online page. I decided that since AzieƖ has been around for over a year now, it was about time she had her own page, especially since that young upstart, Tammui, has already been in on the act for a while. Incidentally, I may give Tammui a screenshot diary as well since the full playdiary idea will just take up too much time - I've written half a playdiary entry so far. >_> Take a look at AzieƖ's screenshot diary and let me know what you think of the idea.

Today marks the 2nd anniversary of the launch of Final Fantasy XI. Players will have noticed the recent appearance of Stats Moogles as part of a limited Vana'diel special event. However, Square Enix have now brought us even more stats to provide a fascinating insight into the world of Vana'diel in the form of the Fourth Vana'diel Census. If you play FFXI, be sure to take a look.

Finally, it's over. I never have to play it again. Ever.

I have finished Far Cry. In the end, I was forced to pull a "Kobayashi Maru" of sorts. Seeing no way to complete the final level properly, I cheated and removed all of the enemies from the final arena so I could stroll through to the exit point without fear of being blasted from all sides. I don't normally like to cheat, but I was beyond caring by that point. What started out as a good game soon deteriorated into... well, a chore. About half way through (for reasons I will explain in more detail below), it ceased to be fun. The only reason I carried on playing was because I desired to complete the game as soon as possible and reclaim the valuable 2.5GB of hard disk space it occupied.

Let's start by looking at what I actually liked about Far Cry. It started off as a typical stealth action game - one that was really quite fun to play. As the marketing blurb said, there are numerous ways to go about carrying out your objectives in the game. If you're told to get to a particular point on the island, it's up to you what means you use to get there. So if you're feeling resourceful, you can sneak up to a lookout point, throw a rock into the bushes to distract the guards and leap onto a conveniently located hang glider, sailing safely down the valley towards your destination as the mercs scream obscenities after you. Alternatively, for the Rambos, you can storm a mercenary base in a hail of lead and, with a little persuasion, requisition a 4x4 from a hapless merc.

The enemy AI, while not quite as amazing as the marketing people would like you to believe, is still quite impressive. The mercenaries you are fighting do work as a team and have a logical command structure. Finally, of course, the game is visually impressive. If ever you are in need of a tropical island simulator, the CryTek engine should be more than capable of meeting your needs. So, in light of this praise, where did it all go so horribly wrong? I have identified three major areas that brought this game down.

First, there is the story. When you finish the game, you begin to wonder if the script writer suffered a fatal vehicle accident towards the end of the project and the development team, unsure of how to continue, just threw up their hands and decided the story ended there and then. Of course, whether the script writer was particularly alive to begin with is somewhat doubtful. The story is about as inspired as the worst action-oriented 'B' movie you can imagine. Some of the missions, such as the one I will refer to as "Gosh, darn it! I left my PDA in the demon-infested Underground Mausoleum of The Vanquished, in the Canyon of Despair, on the Isle of No Return. Be a dear and go and fetch it for me." just defy belief and end up ruining any kind of sensible plot the game may have been developing.

Next, we have the monsters. What started out as stealth action game rapidly becomes a generic blast-em-up. At around the same time as the monsters come along, the missions start to take place more and more inside the confines of underground installations. Usually, there are only a few selected routes that you can take when travelling about these places, so the whole "do it your way" idea is discarded. I know the monsters are integral to the "plot", and I would have been happy to face them for a couple of levels just to give the game a bit of variety. But when you spend the entire second half of the game fighting them, during which time the only viable strategy you can employ is "Shoot!", it becomes dull to say the least.

Finally, we have Woman. She has a name, but it is irrelevant, for she is just Generic PC Action Game Woman™, as seen in all Generic PC Action Games™ over the last 5 years or so. Indeed, she probably appeared in the script as simply "Woman" until someone could be bothered to hold a meeting and it was decided to name her after the CEO's mother-in-law. She starts off as just annoying - she appears from time to time to give you advice and do all those things that Generic PC Action Game Woman™ does, like take nude showers in waterfalls, for example. If that were all she did, I could live with her. Just. But no. In later levels, you actually get to play alongside her! This may sound like a good thing - someone else to take your bullets and a little extra firepower. And it would be, if she had been blessed with the same legendary AI that the enemies use and for which the game has become well known. Unfortunately, as will become apparent after a few minutes of play, not all NPCs were created equal. Due to her skilled ability to avoid all cover when moving from place to place, she has a tendency to attract bullets. This wouldn't be a problem except that when she dies, you are automatically killed along with her. There are moments when I have just suicided by emptying rounds from an M4 into her back in sheer frustration. Here are some of them:

If you're playing Far Cry at the moment and are enjoying it, that's fine. But the moment you stop enjoying it, don't feel, like me, that you have to go on to the end. You can just stop, right there, and say to yourself what a fine game that was. Because the moment it starts to get bad, rest assured it's all downhill from there.

</farcryrant>

Things are going quite well in FFXI. I took part in a marathon levelling party the other day - over 3 levels gained in about 10 solid hours of play in Qufim. Hanajp got the party off to a good start, although there were one or two deaths early on. >_> Later, we were joined by Miyami, who was elected leader after Hanajp's departure and led the party for the 2nd half. Experience was reasonable (~200 per kill) and a good time was had by all. In other FF news, in case you can't tell from the picture, I am finally Chocobo-enabled! I can now venture about freely without fear of being eaten by beastmen thanks to my little feathered friend.

I have been Ragnarok Onlining more actively recently too, with the Episode V (Juno) expansion pack due to go live on the main game servers on May 4th. I think Al De Baran could be getting busier, with many higher level players getting ready to rush to Juno in order to make it their new home. I will probably pop along just after the rush, but I doubt I will be joining them for a while as I still have too much to do in the south of Rune Midgards to make it a sensible place to settle down in. For now at least. Once (if) I chose to exchange my nice blue tunic for a bird, I may move north more permanently. In related news, I notice that the RO Empire now has an euRO too (as opposed to an eRO, which would have just been made fun of). This branch, which seemingly sprang out of nowhere, is apparently being managed by Burda Holding International of Germany. I'm curious as to how many subscribers they have, or think they will be able to get. Surely anyone in Europe who wanted to play RO would already be playing iRO. I can't see many people willing to switch to another server and lose all of their characters, items and soforth.

For those who had forgotten, didn't know or don't care, I feel it is my duty to remind you that today is CLANNAD DAY! Take that, VisualArts doubters. I now have faith that Studio Mebius will follow suit and release some information on their two new games soon. They have released some cutepr0n to keep Mebius fans happy while they wait though. >_> Very thoughtful of them...

Today is also the day that Leaf's Aruru to Asobo!! ships. While not exactly a release on quite the same level as Clannad, it is still worth noting for the benefit of Leaf fans. (*waves maniacally*)

I was going to do a proper update, but it's 2:30am and I'm tired. I'll try and get something up tomorrow, in between playing with the new features offered in the version up.

My sister acquired a hamster last weekend, and struck by a sudden burst of originality, named it Boo. I am going to visit this weekend so I'll let you know if it's sporting any clip-on wings yet.

I hope some of you found last week's random link interesting (Elena - Ghost Town, for those of you who have forgotten or couldn't be bothered to look the first time). I have another one for you today. In 1999, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History hosted an exhibition entitled Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People. As you may know, I have an interest in everything Japanese, including the culture and history. Ainu culture and the history of the relationship between the Ainu and the rest of Japan is a particularly fascinating subject area. (...well, to me at least) Anyway, the organisers of the exhibition kindly thought to recreate the entire thing in the form of a virtual online tour, for those of us who weren't able to visit the Smithsonian to see it "in the flesh". The main page is here. However, if you find that clicking Enter just takes you back to the same page (I think it checks for IE), try going here for a direct link to the tour. It's multimedia heavy (requires flash) and so quite bandwidth intensive - it should be pretty nippy on a good broadband connection though. The full tour will take about half an hour, but hopefully you will feel that a few minutes broadening your mind is time well spent. You owe it to Nakoruru. ^^

It looks like a good year for game-derived anime fans. I would have just been content with RO TV and the ToP OVA. However, there is now even more to look forward to. First, there is the Wind ~A Breath of Heart~ TV series. Quite how this will fit in with everything else in the Wind universe, I'm not sure. Still, I'm sure that the vast majority of Wind/Minori fans will be happy to see Wind return to their TV screens. The OVA had the potential to be much more than it was. Hopefully the TV series won't go the same way and will instead build on the wealth of story opportunities provided by the game.

Another ren'ai sim to receive the TV treatment is August's Tsuki wa Higashi ni, Hi wa Nishi ni (hanihani). While I loved the game almost as much as Wind, I can't see quite the same potential for a deep, involving plot. However, it has Matsuri-chan which will at least partly make up for that.

Next, we have Key's Air movie, due for release this Autumn. It's being managed by Frontier Works, who, if memory serves, are also responsible for the Tales of Phantasia OVA. It's sounding good already. ^^

Another anime due for release is an adaptation of Peach-Pit's DearS, due out this July. There is also a game in the works, due on the 24th of June.

Phantom Brave gooooood.

I don't know why, but I've felt drained this week. I keep feeling as if I want to sleep, but can't actually get to sleep for some reason. At least not at the time of day I would like. I will endeavour to have a nice rest this weekend so that my sleeping patterns regain some semblance of normality.

First of all, I want to post this: Elena - Ghost Town. It has been mentioned on various message boards and blogs across the web quite a bit over the last couple of weeks, so there is a good chance you may have seen it already. However, if it has escaped your notice and you have a few minutes to spare, then I recommend you take a look at this fascinating journal.

I've been playing Tenerezza again recently, after neglecting it for quite a while. I put in about 10 hours last weekend in which I managed to obtain the first 3 maseki (fire, wind and water) and reach level 32. It really is great fun and makes a nice change from the other more serious RPGs I am playing at the moment. In stark contrast to Tenerezza, I have just acquired the depressive angstfest that is Leaf's latest offering, Tenshi no inai Juunigatsu. I want to finish Tenerezza so that I am on a happy-high before I even attempt to attack that. Also, while I'm on the topic of Leaf, the Aruru to Asobo site is now up.

The new television season is upon us once again and I have identified a few series that sound interesting. The first is Koi Kaze, a nice, angsty, incestuous love story. Based on the manga of the same name by Motoi Yoshida (Mizu to Gin), the story of a brother and sister who live apart as a result of their parents' separation meeting and finding love without knowing that they are related is not a new one. Nevertheless, the concept does appear to be well executed in this case. Takahiro Kishida, who has produced numerous pencil-and-pastel illustrations for Koi Kaze in the past, is the character designer for the series.

The Ragnarok Online anime will probably be quite unremarkable, but I shall watch it regardless since it tempts me through not one, but two of my great weaknesses - RO and anime. And it has Haruko Momoi in it so it can't be all bad.

Mahou Shoujo-tai Arusu (Alus? Alice?), which I mentioned some time ago, now has a website - of sorts anyway. There's nothing much on it, but it's there. Maybe they will put something of interest up in the future. Am I missing something with regard to the domain name, or is it just supposed to be odd? Much like the anime itself... and anything that's ever been touched by 4°C.

I've also found another OVA, to add to my list of videos (or rather DVDs) to watch out for, alongside Tristia and ToP - Cossette no Shouzou (Le Portrait de Petit Cossette), the first volume of which is due towards the end of May (although it will also be available on AT-X next weekend). Yay for angsty gothic horror. ^_^

And now, I must return to FarCry to be humiliated by monkeys. Darn those monkeys.

Sorry for not posting earlier. I've been tied up with other things this week and haven't really had time to sit down and write posts for BBI. I've got quite a bit of catching up to do as I haven't really posted anything since updating the site last month. Therefore some of the "news" I am posting won't really be news anymore, but I shall post it anyway so that I can use the post as a record of links and things.

 
BBI update info

Anyway, I'll start with the site update. Regular visitors to the site (not sure I actually have any of those...) may have noticed the changes in the site at the end of last month. Installation of the new site design went ahead without any major problems. It does admittedly look somewhat like the old one, so I will quickly run through a few of the changes.

Firstly, and most noticably, are the aesthetic changes. The colour scheme has been brightened up a bit as I felt the old one was a little grey at times. Maybe it's a bit too bright now and detracts too much from the text, but I'll see how it goes. The title thing at the top of the main page has also been removed as it served no purpose and wasted a good deal of screen real-estate. One new feature of the new design is the navigation bar at the top of each page. In addition to giving you your current location, it will also allow you to jump back to "parent" pages of the page you are currently browsing - because I'm too lazy to put "back" buttons on each page.

The second, and arguably more important change, is the shift to UTF-8 as the transfer encoding scheme for Bokeboke Island. I made do with ISO-8859-15 in the old design, but my growing desire to include Japanese text on pages, especially with the upcoming features sections, meant that the new design would have to use an encoding which could support Japanese text. UTF-8 seemed to be the best option, so that's what I went with.

The Features section is also new, incorporating the Osaka Shopping Guide (which still hasn't been uploaded -_-;) and a few other things. I intend to rearrange the gallery section at some point in the future too, to allow it to hold short stories as well as images.

 
Minamicon 10

I spent last weekend at Southampton for Minamicon 10. As always, the committee worked tirelessly to ensure a good time was had by all. There were a number of changes to the convention this year, most of which seemed to work quite well. The new-style opening ceremony which presented good Saturday evening mingling opportunities as well as a splendid buffet was, I thought, a particularly good idea. I will have to see if I can get a few photos up later.

 
The usual news stuff

As I said at the start of this post, a lot of this is now going to be out of date, but I'm posting it anyway so I can keep track of things.

I'll start with Tales news. Namco USA has announced that Tales of Symphonia will be getting a US release in July this year. I think I'm going to have to give in and buy a cube now. -_- The official US site will be in place soon. Namco have thoughtfully provided an email address - tales@namco.com - that you can use to send in any ideas you have for the site. Or to lambaste them for making stupid statements in their press releases, such as "The Tales series dates back to 1995, when Tales of Destiny was first released on the SNES."

The Tales of Phantasia OVA also seems to be on schedule. Kousuke Fujishima has been working alongside fellow Tales veteran, Tokuyuki Matsutake, to produce some excellent character designs. The 3-part OVA will be exhibited at the Tokyo International Anime Fair, opening Thursday, March 25th.

Animate.TV have a short streaming trailer available for viewing, here (ASX, 2:11). If your connection isn't up to streaming, or if you want to download the trailer, I have made a mirror available of the WMV here.

Sticking with Namco, the Soul Calibur movie appears to be back from the dead. After the previous attempt a couple of years ago which quickly fell apart, Namco are trying again, this time with Warren Zide at the helm - the guy responsible for bringing the world such teen trash as American Pie and Final Destination. We shall have to see if the soul is still burning this time next year or whether the film will be scrapped yet again.

Onto Clannad news now. Yes, Clannad news! Key fans can now laugh in the faces of the non-believers - those who said it would never happen. Clannad is finally complete and will be released to the world on the 28th of April, priced at 7,500 Yen (ex. tax). The first pressing edition will include a soundtrack arrange album. The Clannad page has now been updated with the final game specs. Key will be taking preorders until midday on April 6th via their preorder page. Softbank are also publishing a fanbook entitled Pre-Clannad, released on April 14th. This will include the usual staff interviews, character profiles, etc, as well as a bonus CD containing demo movies and a number of BGM tracks taken from the game.

Speaking of Softbank, ZDNet Japan recently went through a number of major business changes including a major rebranding, resulting in the creation of a new site - ITmedia. All of the Softbank Games content located at the former ZDNet site has now been relocated to ITmedia and can now be found here. My favourite SBG section, GA Graphic, also moved along with it.

There have been a few other site renewals recently. The Magi-Cu web site has gone through a small redesign following the name change of Magi-Cu Premium to simply Magi-Cu. Also, earlier this week, the International Ragnarok Online site underwent a major overhaul. They seem to have based their site on the current version of the KRO site.

IRO players can also look forward to the long awaited Juno patch, due on Sakray on March 23rd, and (if all goes well) the main game servers on April 13th. As well as the new areas (including, of course, the city of Juno itself), the update also incorporates the 2-2 job classes - Crusader, Sage, Bard, Dancer, Alchemist, Rogue and Monk. Gravity have also hinted at a few client updates. Expect me not to be around much for a week or two following the launch date. ^_^

Quick ren'ai adventure news now. Petitferret have teamed up with WellMADE to bring their popular adventure game, Popotan, to the PlayStation 2 The game was released on the 11th of this month and, according to the emerging reviews, is a faithful port of the PC version. So... buy it if you liked the PC version and want to play it again with lower-res graphics...

Following the accouncement last month in which LucasArts metaphorically shot themselves in the foot - with a rocket launcher, the obligatory campaign site appeared. Go to SaveSamAndMax.com and show your support for the zany duo.

Finally, I leave you with news of this, the latest game in the PS2 Simple2000 series (also known as the "THE" series). For anyone who's ever wanted to fly around in a helicopter gunship and defend the world from 48-metre-tall women...

Hello! I had intended to update this log a little more often, as I did last year. Instead, I have been selfishly enjoying myself. ^_^ It's now midday on Sunday so the con is beginning to wind down. It's been a rather good convention this year - congratulations to the committee for some superb planning. I'll say more about it when I get back.

Registration has just opened in the lobby, and already a large queue has formed stretching all the way back to the conference rooms. It looks as if Minamicon 11 will be sold out within a few weeks. Assuming, that is, there are any places left after the registration session today.

Yay! A double post. And it even doubled up the text in the double post! (*SoZ receives a double-double points bonus*) I'm not sure why I hit the back button. Nokia phones don't ask if you want to re-submit form data, apparently.

Oh well. I'll correct all of the mistakes on Sunday. There are likely to be several more before I get back. Remember that you can click on "News" in the menu to see all of these posts, rather than just the last 5 shown on the front page. In case I get carried away and fire off a new post every hour in an attempt to beat my boredom while waiting for trains.

(Update: Double post eliminated. ^^)

Well, my Minamicon weekend hasn't got off to a good start. The District and Circle line services have been suspended due to a "security alert", meaning I will miss the train I had intended to catch from Waterloo. It's cold and wet and really not the sort of day where you want to sit on a platform bench for half an hour.

Upon reaching the platform, I also remembered that I had forgotten my shaver. I suppose I could use the ones the hotel provide, but I would like some skin left to shave in the future. If you're looking for me this weekend, I'll be the ball of fuzz.

Well, I had hoped to get a new update done before I headed off to Minamicon. Unfortunately, I have been very busy this week, and now on the night before I head off to the con, although I at last have time, I am very tired. I had lots to talk about too - the Clannad news, the ToP OVA... still, it will wait I suppose, although I've been meaning to talk about both of those things for over a month now and they don't seem too relevant anymore.

The new site design is up now, as you may have noticed, and seems to be working reasonably well. If you encounter any errors, please let me know so I can fix them.

Anyway, I'll be away at Minamicon for the weekend. I may update the site while I'm there or I may not - it depends what I'm doing and whether I find myself at a loose end at 6 O'clock in the morning again.

BBI is one year old today! Thanks for your support over the last 12 months. The site will be taken offline shortly to allow the scheduled upgrade to take place. See you again soon!

Quick update: Before I go, if anyone is into orchestral game soundtracks, I suggest you go here. Right now. Jeremy Soule has just produced (and made available for download via OC ReMix) the most amazing interpretation I've ever heard of my all-time favourite game theme.

Somehow, I must have deeply offended the Will of the Universe, because I am now in no doubt that it hates me. This week has been interesting as my body is going through another one of its "let's make SoZ's life a misery" phases, something it does so well these days given the amount of practice its had. As a result, I have been more-or-less a zombie for most of the week and haven't got half of the things done I wanted to.

I took a week away from Final Fantasy XI a little while ago, which resulted in me dropping too far behind everyone else to be able to party with them. I spent a while seeking out new parties in the game, but I haven't found many that I would want to play with yet. I would like to thank Xylia for her assistance in helping me catch up through some extra levelling this week, but I have more or less resigned myself to sitting out and waiting until everyone else catches up with me with their second jobs

Since my allocated MMORPG time is no longer taken up with FFXI for the moment, I have found myself playing a lot more Ragnarok Online. I generally split my time between levelling (the addition of the Greatest Generals to one of the Payon field maps makes this a much easier task for archers now ^^) and guarding the clearing just beyond the zoning point inside the entrance of the Payon caves - to keep the zombies away from the novices and merchants that gather there. I have said before that RO can often seem like an online chat system with a built-in minigame and the latter activity really reinforces that view. When I was on duty in the clearing the other day, there were no less than 3 discussions on relationships, one on films and another on veterinary care. There was one more, but it was in Dutch and I didn't really follow it. People ask me from time to time why I still play Ragnarok Online, even after having concluded that it isn't a great game. I think my experience in the dungeon is a typical example of the reason I still play. Ragnarok Online isn't serious role playing, as many critics and ex-gamers have pointed out time and time again. It is relaxed role playing, and I play games to relax. I enjoy playing RPGs with the complexity of FFXI when I am in the mood, but when I just want to unwind, a casual chat punctuated by skewering things with arrows seems to do the job nicely.

Oh, I'm also in the middle of the Arrow Repel quest. If anyone is playing iRO on the Loki server and has two Emeralds they would be interested in selling, feel free to get in touch with me. ^_^;

Things have been quiet on the game news front. The VisualArts crew all seem to have some kind of cute-hangover as a result of Comiket (in the case of Key, we're talking C63), and as a result don't appear to have started doing much work. Thankfully Leaf can always be counted on to have something interesting in the works. I haven't been able to find any information on their current game project - no doubt more things will leak out shortly - but they have now announced a new Leaf Amusement CD (fan disc). Entitled "Aruru to Asobo!!" (as in Aruru from Utawarerumono), the disc will be the 4th in the Amusement CD series and the first for over 4 years. The disc should include three Utawarerumono minigames (one action game, one that looks somewhat like an RTS and another that I can't make out but which seems to revolve around removing Aruru's clothes), Routes omake scenario files, desktop accessories and more.

Before I go, I want to thank everyone for helping the Bokeboke Island visitorometer to hit 3000 visitors in less than a year. As I type this, the stats currently read at:

You're all strange. Go and visit sites that actually have worthwhile content instead.

Isn't it cute? ^^ Well, as cute as any depiction of SoZ can be. Go to the South Park Create-A-Character page and have a go at making a South Park version of yourself. Thanks to Yuriko for directing me at that, although I think it may have been FrF who started the South Park characterisation initiative.

I apologise for the rather unrefined nature of the rant I posted a couple of days ago. I don't normally sink to such levels of crudeness or make references to bestiality on Bokeboke Island (or anywhere else for that matter), but to say I was rather peeved on hearing the news would be putting it mildly. I am calmer now though so will continue with the rant (oh yes, there's more) in a more rational manner.

What annoys me about the name change is that it is completely unnecessary. As Mr Kahn stated himself, the change is to remove any traces of Japan and localise the series for the domestic market. He attempts to rationalise this action by claiming the name change will lead to the series being more popular than it might otherwise have been. I really cannot believe this justification though. Does he have any MR evidence to back up his claims? Obviously, I haven't carried out research myself, but from previous experience I would have said that leaving the series title as Tokyo Mew Mew would actually be better from a marketing point of view. Consumers (in this case, the TV-viewing youngsters) are generally stimulated by anything vaguely exotic. It plays on natural human curiosity - that need to discover the unknown. While Tokyo may have all of the exotic flair of a brick, it does spark the imagination for many people, and so should have theoretically proven an asset to the series. I certainly can't see the inclusion of "Tokyo" in the name doing it any harm.

I dislike, but will accept things such as changes to character names (they're not going to keep "Ichigo", that's for sure) since they would probably increase the number of young girls (presumably still the main target audience, unless they are going to hack the show up completely) able to associate with the characters. Personally, I don't see a problem with Strawberry or Lettuce, but possibly some people wouldn't be able to take the series seriously. I won't even object to cuts made for story/content reasons - what is acceptable in one culture might not always be acceptable in others. But I can see no reason for the name/location change from Tokyo to Hollywood apart from it being the result of the suggestions of one highly Xenophobic CEO. I find it alarming that at this period in time, when we are thinking more and more in terms of the global community (and need to if we are ever going to understand and become tolerant of each other's cultural differences), someone would go to such lengths to "cleanse" a series in order to protect others from anything vaguely "foreign". I have noticed that there seems to exist a belief in many so-called developed nations, particularly in the case of the USA and the UK, that making people more aware and accepting of other cultures somehow dilutes their sense of national pride. Maybe it does, but in my opinion their national pride could do with some denting. Perhaps if children were not brought up to believe that their country was at the centre of the world, they might grow up to become more understanding of others.

Okay. Rant over. For now. While I'm still in campaign mood though...

Right, enough of that.

Puyo Puyo Fever, the 5th game in the Puyo Puyo series (the main series that is, ignoring spinoffs such as DA, Wars and the RPG), was released for the PS2 on the 4th of February. There will also be releases for the Dreamcast (Feb 24th), GameCube (Mar 24th) and Xbox (Apr 24th). A Mac release is also on the cards but I have no dates for that yet. Further release info, TV CMs and more can be found at Sega's PS2 Puyo Puyo Fever page (click the links at the bottom for other ports).

In a way, "fever" almost sounds like "five"... sort of. >_> So Compile's original version number/naming system still seems to be alive and well. ("Rock Puyos" in 6 then? ^^) Note that the PS2 release date, 2004/02/04, can be read as "Pu" (2) "Yo" (004) "Pu" (02) "Yo" (04). ^_^; Indeed, Sega's marketing department has made much of this fact by calling 2004 the "Year of the Puyo" and even proclaiming Feb 4th "Puyo no Hi". I'm not sure it will ever become adopted as an official national holiday, but it's an interesting way of making a release date memorable.

The game itself will come as a bit of a shock to traditional Puyo players and fans. Sonic Team have ditched the look and feel of the original games in favour of a shiny new "cute pop" appearance. First to go were the original characters. Poor Arle has been relegated to a minor sub-character role while the lead has been taken over by a young upstart named Amitie. What of Draco, Skeleton-T, or the rest of the old cast? Are we destined never again to hear another bad Satan-sama/Santa gag? Even Carbuncle doesn't seem to have been able to escape the cull.

As with previous versions, incrementing the version number means adding another twist to the classic Puyo Puyo gameplay. Puyo Puyo Fever brings us Fever Mode, a game mode which a player enters when their Fever Gauge reaches its maximum level. Fever Mode is a mini puzzle game that takes place within your current Puyo Puyo game. Your puzzle screen is replaced with a new puzzle, but with one Puyo-block missing. Fit the falling Puyo-block into the correct place and the whole thing will rensa spectacularly, allowing you to reap a useful point bonus. Another change to the classic gameplay is that falling Puyo-blocks no longer consist of just two Puyos - blocks of 3 and even 4 Puyos may drop, adding a little extra interest to the game.

Overall, Puyo Puyo Fever looks like a good game, bringing the classic puzzle series bang up to date. However, while its attempt to modernise will no doubt make the series a success with regular casual gamers, the reaction among fans of the classic Puyo Puyo games will probably be mixed. On the one hand, it is pleasing to see that the series is alive and well and will be entertaining new gamers for many years to come. But it is still a great shame to see the characters, stories and jokes that we have loved for so long, and which led to the creation of the subculture that made Puyo Puyo one most successful puzzle games ever created, being discarded to make way for the new hip-and-trendy Puyo Puyo. Even overlooking the new design, 3D swirlyness and flashy special effects, the game itself seems designed more for new players, with Fever Mode allowing even novices to construct a huge rensa and making the battlefield a little more even between players of differing skill.

I for one will enjoy the fresh new look and feel to the game, but it just won't be quite the same without Harpy's vocal talents or Skeleton-T's "1337 Puyo-stacking skillz".

For those bored at work, here are a couple of bad Puyo Puyo-like games available online:

When passing through Lik-Sang the other day, in addition to noticing that they no longer sell flash carts or flash linker hardware, I spotted this. It looks like a wonderful little gadget and would be great when stuck in 2 hour train delays. The price is also remarkably low for something boasting so many features and with such obvious "cool thing" status. As a result of all of this, it is now somewhere near the top of my list of things to buy when I have more money. The only real problem is that the resolution and size of the GBA screen makes reading subtitles a little hard.

I see the US Yukikaze site is now up with details on the release of the US DVDs. Yukikaze is one of those series that surprised me by being far better than I expected it to be. Should I ever get my Japanese up to a reasonable level, I wouldn't mind reading the original novels to see how the story compares.

One last thing before I go. I noticed in this article [BBC] that DDR is being officially registered as a sport in Norway due to the popularity of competitions there. I might have to stop playing it then. >_>

Hi there. Anyone planning a trip to Hollywood any time soon? It just so happens I was there recently, so let me show you a few of the sights.
 

Do you hate me, world?

"Yes SoZ, I hate you."

Oh well. Such is life, I suppose. Maybe Mr. Al Kahn will be molested by a savage, S&M-crazed, ninja goat army on his way home from work. And then dragged away to the secret ninja goat army lair, where he will spend several weeks at the mercy of the evil goat-tachi, before suffering a long and painful death involving dildos and razor blades. After which the goats will hold a ceremonial ritual in which they defecate on his corpse. Yes, that could lead me to once again believe that the world isn't all bad.

Quote of the day: "By the time we localize the programs kids don't even know they're from Japan any more." -- Mr. Al Kahn

I feel the need to kill.

It's been a fairly quiet month so far. Which is nice as it's giving me a chance to recover from the last few. I've been working on the website a little and now think the new design is almost ready to be uploaded to the server. As well as the cosmetic changes and a few functional alterations (maybe even improvements ^^), the update will also include content! Yes, the Osaka shopping guide thing is nearly ready. I just have to finish checking/entering the details for the last couple of stores and then it will be good to go. There will also be, if I can get enough of it finished in time, a short guide on using manga as a tool to aid in the learning of the Japanese language. Hopefully all this will go up sometime in the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out for it.

The website isn't the only thing for which an upgrade is long overdue. Navi is the oldest PC I have which is still in daily use. Being a P100 with 16MB of RAM and running a trial version of SuSE Linux 7.0 that I obtained from a magazine cover CD years ago, Navi is far from cutting edge. This box has always served me well and has done all that I have asked of it. However, to run the services I increasingly need, it is becoming a little too underpowered, although that's not to say it doesn't try. I won't retire Navi just yet though as I love it too much. There are few PCs that can compare to Navi's robustness. The case is an old AT desktop one constructed from steel sheeting several times as thick as most of today's PC cases - which could go some way to explaining why Navi weighs the same as Kotoko and Mint combined. It's probably bulletproof, although I have no means to test that theory. The cover can be easily removed and replaced without the "which bit of metal slides into which other bit of metal" game you get to play with most modern cases (fun for all the family and a great thanksgiving or Christmas activity, by the way). When I look at Kotoko, whose components have all the build quality of a Microsoft software product, I realise it's true when they say "they don't make things like they used to".

>_>    <_<    Is anyone left or did everyone get bored to tears with my rambling about desktop cases and silently close their browser windows? ... Well, either way, I will carry on with the usual news roundup interspersed with random SoZrants.

There's still no word from Studio Mebius regarding what will be in the two new titles they have in development. It's still early days yet though so hopefully they are not in danger of following in the footsteps of their sleeping sibling. Strangely enough, Key did awaken the other week, for the first time in forever, to wish everyone a happy new year and to replace the graphic on the front page of their website. With luck, that won't be their only update this year.

This Thursday (Jan 29th), KID will be releasing their Nurse Witch Komugi-chan game for the PS2. At first, I thought it was just going to be based on the adventure part (i.e. not the obscure, over-hyped network messaging part) of Keijiban Daikessen in the grand tradition of KID console game conversions. However, this does appear to be an entirely new game from the ground up. Describing itself as a "comical adventure", the game features both the art of Poyoyon Rokku and the vocal talents of Haruko Momoi, making this yet another highly desirable property in the Komugi Nakahara empire. Perhaps a game aimed mainly at the fans, but then where Komugi is concerned, there are a lot of them.

Another game due out on Thursday is the DC version of Tama-cue, courtesy of another company well known for releasing PC-to-console ports, NEC Interchannel. I was very tempted to grab the PC version last year after hearing some good things about it. However, after looking into it more closely, it seemed a bit too ecchi for my tastes so I decided to pass. Upon discovering the news of a DC port, I was hopeful that it might actually be a non-adult (condensed cute ^^) release. The big "18" sticker on the front of the box makes that seem a little unlikely though. Not a lot seems to have changed. It has a couple of new scenes unique to the dreamcast version, but otherwise it's the same Tama-cue. Every time I see it, the cute calls out to me, so I am sure I will end up giving in and buying one version or another before too long, ecchi or not. Before moving on, I will also take this opportunity to point you at the website of another NEC-released game, the new Black Matrix title, Black Matrix 00 (that's "Black Matrix double-oh"), purely because Ootsuka-sensei is the character designer and his character designs are cute. ^_^

Kogado Studio (Kougadou if you refuse to accept lossy romanisation), best known for game series such as Angel Rabbie and Angelic Serenade, has been quite active as of late. Following the successful release of the Angel Rabbie TV series, Kogado have decided to give another of their popular game series, Aoi Umi no Tristia (and sequel), the anime treatment in the form of a Tristia OVA to be released this spring. Admittedly, my main reason for liking the Tristia series is down to CO2A being the character designer/main illustrator (if you haven't worked it out yet, my whole life is controlled by cute), but even without his touch the anime still looks good, in a pointless-yet-cute way. Kogado also have a new PC game in the works which is starting to look quite interesting. Symphonic Rain, with character designs and illustrations by Shiro (his first major game project), will be released this spring. A preview book was released at C65, but Kogado don't seem to have released much information through other chanels. Nevertheless, it looks good, which is why I am keeping my eye on it.

Onto anime news now. Makoto Shinkai fans will probably have noticed the shiny new CoMix Wave Films website devoted to all that is Shinkai related. All of Shinkai's previous works get their own section on the new site, as well as the upcoming Kumo no Mukou, now slated for an Autumn 2004 release. For those of us who have been waiting eagerly to watch the film since the teaser trailer was released over a year ago, the appearence of a reasonably firm-looking release date is exciting news. Particularly after the fears late last year that the project may be cancelled. Browsing around the CWFilms site, you may also notice that from the April issue (released Feb 25th), Kodansha's Afternoon magazine will be carrying a Hoshi no Koe manga by Mizu Sahara. Certainly sounds interesting.

Another anime, a TV series this time, coming out slightly nearer the present is Satoshi Kon's latest pet project, Mousou Dairinin. I first became a Satoshi Kon fan when I saw Perfect Blue. After seeing Memories Episode 1 - Kanojo no Omoide (Magnetic Rose), and later Sennen Joyuu (Millenium Actress), I promoted him to demigod status. The new 13 episode TV series starts on Wowow on the 2nd of February. Looking at the promotional videos, the mood of the series seems quite dark and reminds me a lot of Perfect Blue. This is perhaps a step backwards from the direction in which Kon seemed to be heading after Millenium Actress. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to this series more than any other so far announced this year. Oh, and Susumu Hirasawa is doing the music. You couldn't ask for a better staff roll than this.

I have never really been all that keen on Studio 4°C or the weird, twisted things that they produce. However, it seems that they may, at last, be working on a project just below my threshold of maximum twistedness. Mahou Shoujo-tai Little Witch is a new TV series due to air in April this year, following the adventures of 11-year-old Arusu in the World of Magic, a land populated by creatures so bizarre that they could only have come from the minds of 4°C artists. Whether I watch the series or not will depend on how much story they decide to put in there. It's looking promising on the story front though so I may at least give the first couple of episodes a go.

And now, because I am running late and need to get into town this morning, a quick roundup of various other things that aren't of great importance but upon which I will comment because I feel like it: Gunslinger Girl PS2 action-adventure game - it looks reasonable but I have a feeling the gameplay will be bad. Innocence - the basset hound is so cute. *_* Chrno Crusade - good anime adaptation of the manga. Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo - because a little insanity in ones diet is a good thing. Misaki Chronicles - avoidable, and that chest will surely give her problems later in life. Yumeria - the anime was a bit of a disappointment after the cute game and excellent manga.

Okay, I'm done. I hope I didn't bore anyone to death with that lot. I wonder if boring someone to death would actually be a criminal offence? Anyway, until next time~ ^_^

As has been the case every New Year that I can remember, this year feels very much like the one that came before it. I suppose it's a bit like birthdays. Once you've been around long enough, annual 'milestones in time' such as these begin to loose their uniqueness - the thing that once made them seem 'special'. Nevertheless, I do see this New Year as a boundary more than any other. 2003 was not a good year for me. In fact, I don't believe I have ever before experienced a year worse than the one just past; it is one that I will be glad to see the back of. That's not to say there weren't a great many good things that happened throughout the year - the Japan trip was a great success for example (no one died at least, and I returned home broke which makes it a success in my book ^^) - but I have not been in the frame of mind to enjoy them as much as I would have liked to.

I see 2004 as a clean slate. I can forget about the past and concentrate on working towards a happier future. For the first time in years, I have forced myself to make a New Year's resolution. In 2004, I will try my utmost to be cheerful and genki, like the SoZ of old. If you spot me slipping at any point throughout the year, feel free to give me a swift boot via email. I'd also like to take this opportunity to apologise to those friends who were subjected to far too much SoZ-angsting than can have been good for them. I just want to let them know that their support was very much appreciated, even if I was a stubborn fool who refused to heed their advice.

Anyway, enough dwelling on the past. Time for an update on current events. I'm still recovering from the surgery I had done the other week but I am now a lot better. I can't lift anything of significant weight and I have to watch what I eat but otherwise I'm almost back to being normal. (...normal for me anyway) There are a few other things I have to deal with on the health front but I really don't think anyone would benefit from me going into detail on those. Incidentally, as a result of being unwell for the last couple of months, I've lost around one and a half stone in weight. I don't weigh myself often - in fact I have a habit of avoiding scales as I'm worried what they might tell me - but yesterday curiosity got the better of me. Effective, but a slightly more drastic approach to weight loss than a conventional diet - I can't really recommend it unless weeks of agony appeal to you.

Another effect of my recent spell of illness is that it has delayed various things I had planned - moving house and starting a new job to name just a couple. I also haven't got around to finishing the long-promised BBI update. (Heck, for the past month, I've hardly had time to do these regular news posts much less revamp the whole site.) I'm not even going to attempt to give an estimate on when it will be ready anymore, as whenever I do, something completely unexpected always seems to come along and get in the way.

Right. I seriously doubt you came here to hear about me, so lets move on to more conventional BBI subject matter. ^^

It seems to be a kind of tradition for websites to have some sort of annual award thingy to highlight things of note over the last year. For me, it's an excuse to spend more time ranting about things I've ranted about before. So, without further ado...

 
SoZ's Favourite Anime of 2003

Haibane Renmei - Okay, so it was broadcast in 2002, but the DVD release dates ran into 2003 so I feel no guilt in naming it as my favourite anime of the year. Yoshitoshi Abe somehow succeeded, yet again, in convincing an animation studio to take another of his slightly unusual creations and turn it into another great series. Haibane Renmei introduced us to the bizarre and mysterious, yet curiously believable world of Guri and the ashen winged Haibane. The story is just strong enough to keep the viewer involved while at the same time allowing the viewer space to think for herself, lending a sense of wonder to the series. Speaking to others who have seen the anime, I have come to notice that, because of the freedom the viewer is given to 'explore' the series, different people have interpreted it in vastly different ways. If you haven't seen Haibane Renmei yet and are looking for a show you can ponder over, why not pick up the DVDs.

 
SoZ's Favourite Game of 2003

Ragnarok Online - I'm probably alone in calling this my favourite game of 2003. Gravity didn't earn themselves much support from their existing fan base in 2003. Of course, the conversion of International Ragnarok Online from free beta to pay-to-play annoyed a lot of people, but they were mainly the sort of people no one else wanted to play with anyway - everyone knew it was coming so I really don't see what all of the fuss was about. What dedicated fans were not expecting were the hacks, security breaches, rollbacks and a complete lack of support from Gravity for what was supposed to now be a stable game. Things came to a head when Gravity lost theirs - the ban-a-thon and removal of support for some of the main community fan sites caused many of the remaining fan sites to close down in protest and mount anti-Gravity campaigns. Players left the game in droves and things were looking bleak. If you're not a RO player, you may well be wondering at this point how I can call this game my favourite of 2003. I won't deny that RO had its fair share of problems (some of which should really have been solved in beta...), but the state of the game today is a far cry from the mess that it was in at the height of the troubles. As promised, the Comodo and Turtle Beach expansions have been implemented, the job and skill changes went ahead as planned and the client has seen numerous improvements in recent months. That's not to say there isn't still a lot to be done, but the game is starting to look in much better shape than it used to be.

Once again, you may be asking why I've picked this as my favourite game when I haven't exactly been singing its praises. In truth, perhaps I should call it my "most played game of 2003", but I can't think of an alternative for the title of favourite at the moment and favourite sounds like a more suitable title for an award anyway. I admit that Ragnarok Online is not the greatest game I've ever played, but it is quite addictive. It is also a game I can play when I don't really feel like doing anything else. I can log on, kill a few random creatures to rack up a little more experience and spend half an hour sitting and chatting about trivial issues with other players. With Final Fantasy XI, there is a feeling of commitment when I play the game - I become much more involved and am typically online for 3 or more hours at a time. After a play of FFXI, a kind of mental exhaustion sets in. Ragnarok Online allows me to relax while keeping my mind just active enough to forget about all those annoying real-world problems. This is what I like about it - not its story or battle system but its ability to absorb me without requiring me to devote myself to it. Sometimes, I think of it more as an internet chat client with an RPG minigame built in.

That's not to say the game is bad. A lot of past-players don't like the point-and-click battle interface, but I haven't found it to be an annoyance. The characters are cute and the combined 3D background/2D sprite visuals work quite well. The world is ever-growing so there are always new things to explore and keep the players interested. RO isn't for everybody, but I have enjoyed nearly every moment I have spent playing it and I am happy to continue paying my subscription for many months to come.

 
SoZ's Favourite Manga of 2003

This was more of an afterthought award. Since I have already mentioned my favourite anime and game of 2003, it would make sense for me also to mention my favourite manga. I will keep this brief as I think I rambled on for a little too long about Ragnarok Online and don't wish to bore you any more than necessary.

I was actually torn between two series for this award - Kiyohiko Azuma's Yotsubato and the recently completed .hack//Tasogare no Udewa Densetsu. I eventually decided on Udeden, possibly swayed by a full-page Balmung as I flicked through volume 1 of each series trying to decide which to give the award to. Even overlooking the numerous appearances of Balmung, Udeden is great fun to read. Whereas the anime was a little limp in places, the manga remained strong throughout. For anyone new to Udeden, it's .hack with less of the evil/dark elements and bucketloads of added cuteness, making it pretty much perfect. Except for Balmung who remains unchanged because he was perfect anyway. As I said above, I'll cut this section short since I don't want to bore you. I'd only get carried away and end up turning this into the "Characters That Make You Want To Say 'Mmmm, Balmung'" award.

 
Cutest Character of 2003

Mii-tan! Another award I can get away with presenting on a technicality. True, Popotan was released in December 2002, but the anime came out in 2003. So, why have I picked Mii-tan? No, it's not because I'm some strange, lolicon-obsessed freak (although looking through last month's search logs, it would seem some of you could be mistaken for thinking so). She is obviously cute and has nice, long purple-blue hair. Her ambition is to become a magical girl and help people. And she's voiced (in the anime) by Haruko Momoi. There aren't many ways in which she could be much cuter. True, she is also a nymphomaniac, but the anime seemed to mainly ignore that aspect of her personality so I will do the same. My phantom lolicon searchers could view it as an extra bonus though.

 
Least Cute Character of 2003

Majokko A La Mode. Perhaps not the sort of game I would normally buy - the story is a little more in-your-face and less waffy than I would like. Nevertheless, the staff credits read like a Who's Who of the best of the cuteartists, so I was expecting great things from this game in the cute department. I wasn't disappointed. However, in the middle of this sea of cute stands Yuuki, the most unattractive character I have ever seen in a game. Maybe the character designers just had a bad day, or perhaps they were behind on some other tasks and delegated the project to the guy who pops in once a month to do the accounts. I don't know what it is about him but I just can't stand him. It's not just his looks - I don't like his personality either, so I feel less guilty about disliking him so much than I would have if I had just thought him ugly.

 
Special Award: Characters That Make You Want To Say 'Mmmm, Balmung'

Balmung! Balmung Balmung Balmung!!! A clear winner!

Really, this award wasn't just an excuse to put up a Balmung picture. >_>

There isn't too much news to report at the moment. Pretty much everything stopped for Comiket and won't get going again until the New Year festivities are over. I was hoping Studio Mebius would give a little more information on their two new titles before they went off on holiday, but it would appear they didn't have the time. They do have a few photos up showing their nice Comiket booth though.

Hopefully 2004 will prove an exciting year for anime/manga/game enthusiasts. Things may be a little slow at the moment but I'm sure they'll pick up. Three things I would like to see over the coming year are a Yotsubato anime, a Kami-chama Karin anime and the release, at long last, of Clannad. The first two, although I haven't heard anything about, I am quite optimistic will happen given the fan support for those two series and particularly their creators (Kiyohiko Azuma and Koge Donbo respectively). Clannad, on the other hand, I am a little more worried about. I am puzzled, along with the rest of the world, as to how it can possibly take Key so long to release a game that was "virtually complete" a year ago.

Before I go, I wonder if I could ask a favour of you? I am currently seeking images of Minto from Samurai Spirits Shinshou (or Samurai Showdown Warriors Rage 2, as I think it was called in English). The image on the left is the only one I have managed to find so far. If you know of any websites, books, CD booklets or any other items of merchandise that contain an image of Minto, could you please let me know? I would be very grateful for any assistance you can render.

That just about wraps up this update. Things should be more or less back to normal around here now so hopefully there won't be any more long periods of inactivity for a little while. I hope I haven't bored you too much. See you next time!