Title: GATE(ゲート) 自衛隊 彼の地にて、斯く戦えり (Jieitai Kanochi nite, Kaku Tatakaeri), Thus the JSDF fought there.

The Summer Season is upon us! Kicking off a long a storied tradition here on the blog is Gakkou Gurashi!


Title: がっこうぐらし！(Gakkou Gurashi!), Living at School!
Production: Lerche (script by Nitroplus)
Airs: 09/07/15 (July 9th)
Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life, Horror

Spoilers ahead in my discussion of the series. I know a bit about it, and I really think it can be a really good series, so long as there's a balance in all of this series' parts.

He was the boy who loved the Earth below
She, the girl who loved the skies above
He is the man searching the heavens
And she is the woman gazing down upon the Earth.

A heart breaking tale of those left behind, left clinging to fading memories. A heart breaking tale of those who have passed on, left watching over their loved ones from afar. This is the Gift of the Magi, and it's a one way ticket to Feels Town, so all aboard the Tears Express.

I really recommend this, even though it's only started a few months ago. Really, really strong first few chapters.

Etrian Odyssey has generally been a "hardcore" franchise in that, in addition to it's difficulty, has a list of throwbacks to the old table top RPGs, like Dungeons and Dragons. You make your own parties of all custom characters, you make your own map of each dungeon, and there's lots of little things within the dungeons that feel like stuff a dungeon master would throw at you. There aren't any checks to be made (you don't control stat growth), but it certainly maintains an old school vibe.

What really drew me into EOIV, was actually Sword Art Online's and Log Horizon's first seasons. Watching their combat and the raid situation really made me crave a party-centric RPG. Most of the games I play didn't scratch that itch - such as in the case of Bravely Default, characters had a relatively prepared role, and it was incredibly difficult to make them go against it. With 5 custom characters that I made and set up, I had the ability to form a party that would work specifically in ways I liked. In the beginning, I ran a rounded party, similar to what you might find in a small raiding team. I had a tank, a healer, a mage, and two attackers - one support and a main damage dealer. As the game went on, and that party seemed to run it's course is effectiveness, the tank was replaced by an archer who could inflict binding statuses. That party, while fun, burned through so much TP (tech points) per battle that it wasn't sustainable. Cue a whole new set of adventurers - a new party based, again, on a traditional raid team, replacing the main attacker with a class specializing in enormous amounts of damage. That team also proved to be inefficient, as the main attacker had an accuracy of maybe 75% or slightly less. My final team, the party that cleared the game, came from a mix of the two sets of characters. It's a purely offensive build, geared for sheer DPS (damage per second), involving two high DPS attackers, a main linking attacker (more on that later), a mage and a healer. The sheer amount party builds and composition that are possible is daunting, but at the same time, exciting. It means that your play style is likely possible, if you can find the classes and skills that match it.

Ah, Cave Story. A beloved indie game from Japan, and likely, one of the first ones to become such a big success. It's probably known first for it's brutal difficulty, then for it's music, and then probably it's story. Oh, and let's not forget that the whole this was originally a one man production from Studio Pixel. The original is available for free, but also, remastered versions are available for purchase on Steam, the Nintendo eShop, and other fine places where video games are sold.

Putting it out there, I didn't finish it. I'm at the penultimate cave - an optional one required for the best ending (Bloodstained Labyrinth / Sacred Grounds, for those wondering). The Last Cave and the subsequent caves see a big jump in difficulty that cause them to raise sodium levels to boiling points. I spent maybe 4-5 hours just trying to get through The Last Cave (not actually the last cave), and can see myself spending at least that or more for the Labyrinth.

Despite not finishing it, I feel like I've played enough, seen enough and read enough to pass a fairly educated judgement on this one. Also, I am terrible at platformers.

60 hours, I've spent on this game. 60 hours. I'd say, playing extremely well, and skipping avoidable battles, you could probably finish this one in a minimum of 40 hours? You'd have to be playing really, really well, and skip a lot of the animated supers to shave off as much time as possible.

This has been one hell of a game. Crossing games from Capcom, Bandai-Namco, and Sega is no easy task. They managed to stitch together a working story (note 'working', not 'good') that ties all the different games into one. It reads like a big, ambitious fan fiction, but serves it purpose just fine. The real draw of this game is seeing all the crazy action and interactions between characters and companies. Some pairings really just work too well and lead to some funny conversations.

The guts of the game, the combat is what really differentiates it from other SRPGs. While the overview is typical, grid based movement, the combat is active, combo-based fighting game-esque. You input simple commands to get a 'move', with up to 6 moves per battle. You also get a solo unit as an assist, as well as a support pair if you're near to another pair unit, calling back to games like MvC's assists. It has all sorts of crazy mechanics in this, such as when you can score critical hits, or ways to build up meter to pull off the powerful super skills. The combat adds a welcome element of skill to the game, but as cool and interesting as it is, it eventually, and rather quickly, becomes increasingly difficult, repetitive and tedious.

After hitting a massive wall in G-Rank Monster Hunter 4U, I decided to go through my pile of unfinished games, throw caution to the wind and just go for broke with them. First on my list was Bravely Default, which earned a spot on my Top 5 of last year.

Before leaving it to collect dust, I managed to get up to the final dungeon and boss. I fell into a hole of trying to find a party combination that would have the best synergy and have the best SP efficiency. Previously I had 3 melee attackers with Agnes as the healer. I went for 2 mages, and two melee, which worked okay, but Ringabel as a second mage, while being quick enough to set up buffs, doesn't have the magic power to really be viable for magic damage. After leveling Ringabel as a mage for what felt like far too long, I went back to my original 3:1 melee:support party. It uses less SP, dishes out damage, and with the right subclasses, can also be flexible enough to exploit almost any enemy weaknesses.

The decision to finish it is partially driven to see the ending in anticipation of Bravely Default Second which hits North America sometime in 2016.