Square Enix just released a promotional video of the DQV remake for the DS. I must say, the battle graphics are amazing. The movement of the enemies is sooo beautiful. You can see the video on NicoNico here or watch the youtube video below. The DQ overture gets me soo riled up.

And I’m not talking about ecchi fanservice either. I’m sure this is evident to anyone watching the series. And, of course, I’m sure that no one minds either. The most obvious piece of fanservice in the show was probably in the first couple of episodes when they explained the history of mankind (which included a picture of some of the original cast from Macross.) I should say, that made me a bit giddy.

The most memorable piece of fanservice was probably the whole episode dealing with the movie based on Macross 7 (and by 7, I really mean Zero,) which wasn’t subtle at all. They even thanked the Macross 7 team in the credits of that one.

The most recent piece of fanservice was the ending song for the latest episode. For those of you who watched (or never watched but watched a couple of scenes from it like me,) Macross: Do You Remember Love?, you would notice that the ending theme was from Minmei’s song from the last battle of the movie. For those who haven’t seen it, I’ve included a video at the bottom of the post. It’s very well animated, I might add. It wasn’t the same version as the one in the movie. They actually used it for the Deculture edition of the first episode of Macross Frontier. It’s good to hear it again, though.

Usually, I make sorta long posts about the games I complete. You know, usually stating what I like about the game and what I thought could be improved further; that kind of thing. I’m not doing that for this game, though. I pretty much distaste it. I would say it’s one of the worse RPGs I’ve played in the last year (still better than Brave Story or Growlanswer V, though.)

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Apparently, it was, according to ANN at least.

The Executive Committee of the Harvey Awards and Baltimore Comic-Con have announced the nominees for the 2008 Harvey Awards. Yasuko Kobayashi and Kazasa Sumita’s Witchblade Takeru manga (Top Cow/Image) earned a nomination in the Best American Edition of Foreign Material category.

I’m not really familiar with this award. Perhaps its more of a remark about how good the localization is, regardless of the original material? I doubt it, though, since awards are judged by comic artists. Of all the manga to get nominated, I don’t see why Witchblade was one of them… I read the first volume (kinda quickly, though) and didn’t find it particularly special or interesting, tough the art was nice (I think?)

Anyway, since I actually have more time on my hands, I might as well re-read it. I don’t remember a single thing from the manga XD

After playing 30+ hours in the last couple of days, I’ve finally finished Front Mission 4. If there’s one thing I can say about the game, it does provide the hardest strategic challenge I’ve felt from an SRPG for a long time. I don’t think anything I’ve played recently even comes close to FM4’s difficulty. The fact that there is a lot of customization that goes into the wanzers, and the fact that each part has it’s own HP, gives the game soo much depth.

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You’ve probably figured out that I watch a lot of wuxia dramas by now. I’ll admit that most of them are really cheesy. You usually don’t get very deep stories away from them, either, a lot of them ultimately being about defending China from some outside force.

Quite frankly, I kinda get tired with all of the nationalism. I mean, it’s kinda unrealistic for people of most time periods to care about who is ruling them. Nationalism is actually kind of a recent “invention,” after all. Furthermore, sometimes it just becomes absurdly silly, like Return of the Condor Heroes. Thankfully, the Duke of Mount Deer, based on the novel, The Deer and the Cauldron, is nothing like that.

The story takes place during the Qin Dynasty, so it’s fairly modern for the dramas I’ve watched. At this period of time, China is have troubles with internal rebellions and outside pressure from Russia.

Actually, upon watching you the drama, you’ll find that it’s very different from other wuxia dramas. The first thing that you’ll notice is that the Wei Xiaobao, the main character, is pretty odd. He’s the son of a woman who works in the kitchen of a brothel, for one thing. He is uneducated and illiterate. He doesn’t know any martial arts and just doesn’t have any good traits in general, save for his wit and his loyalty to friends.

It’s his loyalty to his friends that makes the drama really interesting. Through a series of coincidences, he happens to become a member of the Heaven and Earth Society, a secret society serving the royal family of Taiwan that was created to restore sovereignty of China back to te Hans (the Manchus having invaded and taken over several decades ago.) Ironically, Xiaobao also becomes the best friend of Kangxi, the second Qin Emperor. Obviously, Xiaobao has a bit of a problem on his hands dealing with both sides.

One of my favorite things about this series is the soundtrack. It has one of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard for a wuxia drama. It stomps all over my previous favorite soundtrack, Tiān Lóng Bā Bù. It’s hard to describe how good the music is, though, so you’ll just have to take my word for it or watch the drama for yourselves. Overall, I think everything makes this drama my overall favorite drama I’ve ever watched.

Well, I finally finished Mana Khemia this morning… at 6 AM… I think I clocked in about 47 hours when I finally got to the last boss. I must say, it almost feels like the characters did nothing of severe importance. I was initially going to complain about that, but then I realized that the game didn’t really need that. I mean, the characters are schoolkids, what do you really expect them to do?

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It seems a lot of people have been talking about Aya’s new haircut. I really have to agree with those (I don’t know who you are) that don’t really like it. Sure, some people may attribute it to me, in general, preferring longer hair to shorter hair, but that’s not the case here. Even I can admit that short hair can be really cute when done well

I really just don’t think it’s well done with her, though. I mean, it’s the kind of haircut I would expect from a male j-rocker (which isn’t so bad, seeing as they look kinda feminine…) I think blondish hair on Asian girls always looks wrong, anyway… You can see a good comparison of her old haircut and new one on Jappy Dolls.

The Onion recently wrote an amusing article about Liberty City, featured in the recent Rockstar game GTA IV. For those unfamiliar with The Onion, it’s a fake news site filled with humour and satire. You can read the “news” article here.

One of my favorite lines:

“The police just let them go, and 20 minutes later they’re shooting at the very same criminals from helicopters,” veteran crime reporter Mike Whiteley said. “That is not proper law enforcement. We may be seeing a return to the bad old days of 2002, when the police, the FIB, and even Army tank battalions would leave countless bodies on the streets while attempting to capture just one man on some sort of joyful mass-destruction spree.”