Jaded Perspectives

Liberation Army is the Gundam game for gamers on a budget. While, it's a bit dated, I don't think this game gets the attention that it deserves compared to other freeware titles like Warning Forever. It's a real-time-strategy/shooting game hybrid that plays like a 2D Dynasty Warriors clone. This game also reminds me of an old dos shareware game called Gladiator. You control a single unit while leading an entire army of humanoid mechs that look distinctly like mobile suits and engage an opposing army on a 2D battle map. The gameplay is divided into the preparation and combat phase. During the preparation phase, you are shown the map of the next battle showing your formation as opposed to the enemies. You can buy upgrades for your allies, technology, new units, ships and choose the mobile suit pilot who will participate in battle. You can also customize your pilot's mobile suit by changing/adding/upgrading his/her equipment. In the combat p

This is a repost of an old review from my previous blog which now redirects to this page. Presentation Magical Boutique looks and feels like a mini-game spin-off of the Mana series. (Legend of Mana, Secret of Mana, Seiken Densetsu 3, Sword of Mana, Dawn of Mana etc.) The colorful interface, Framboise' character design, the layout of the in-game interface, and the colorful backgrounds just remind me so much of Legend of Mana, especially. Is this a good thing? Definitely! It doesn't feel like the creator just blatantly ripped off Square/Squenix just to somehow ride-on to their success - it just feels very close to that cozy, children's story-like atmosphere of the mana titles. Of course, there are a few complaints I have. While the character art for Framboise is not very professional-looking, she's passable enough and I'd say it could have benefited quite a bit from dark outlines outside her body making her look more cartoony (Think simple cartoon network titl

Pete Robinson was pretty much your average Joe. He had a thin build, average height and he was neither particularly attractive nor unattractive. Pete was quite simply just another face in the crowd – particularly that skinny, nerdy looking kid hanging out in front of Wal Mart. At 25, Pete led a rather lackadaisical lifestyle – pretty much just getting by with his day job working a 6-hour shift five days a week as an employee at Games R' Go, which was a single-branch game shop whose name is a cheap rip-off of a nationwide chain of video game retail stores. That aside, Pete was quite content living off of his monthly wages as long as he could pay the rent on time for his modest but comfortable rent-to-own condo unit and have enough money left over to keep himself from starving as well as import questionable anime/manga paraphernalia from Japan including dakimakura, sexy anime figurines and the latest doujin games from Comiket among others. "Take care now, Dah-ling." Sai

Mystic Arts is a blend of 2D fighting and platformer by COMPILE. You control a female character who can punch, kick, execute combos and even has a short-range chi blast. The stages are on a fixed screen with multiple levels that you can jump onto, which is where the platformer part comes in. Each stage is littered with enemies which you have to finish off in order to proceed. The enemies also behave differently depending on their appearance. Some of them use a sword, knife, projectiles etc. while others will just bite or lunge at you. In the later stages, some enemies even use magic against you. Some of the more agressive enemies are just palette swapped versions of their weaker versions. That aside, there's a good assortment of enemy sprites to fight. There are bosses every few stages, which means that the background for the next stage will change once you defeat them. The controls are slightly unorthodox. There's a jump button, and two attack buttons w

Eternal Fighter Zero was a fairly popular all-female doujin fighter featuring characters from One, Kanon, AIR, and every other Japanese visual novel you've never heard of. In fact, I'd never have heard of this game if it wasn't for my obsession with the first Kanon anime which turned my attention to visual novels in general and somehow led me to this game. You can find more info on it from the wikipedia article . Now on to the review. For the average gamer, Eternal Fighter Zero is seriously the best 2D fighting game you've never heard of. It has an easy learning curve which conceals an incredible depth that you can only experience by actually playing the game. Anyone familiar with 2D fighters can easily pick up and play it right away. The specials and supers are simple and easy to pull off with only some variations for each unique character. The combo system is extremely flexible, but it takes a lot of skill to pull off more than 8 hits without using a super

    How it came to be BTW or Baka-Trio webzine was an online ezine that was established by the active chatters of #baka-trio on Freenode. All of our members were regulars of the Lemmasoft Forums with quite a few whose experiences in the EVN community dated back to the initial launch of Lemmasoft. BTW was initially my idea, which I brainstormed together with Kikered in order to create a project that would unify the members of #baka-trio in a productive but relatively stress-free endeavor that did not actually entail creating visual novels, but which was at least tangentially-related. In the end, the project turned out to be a relative success with the announcement of the new Teacup Forums along with the release of Volume #9 of the Ezine. In essence, BTW was a project that we made for ourselves. It was not meant to provide any sort of service to the community, but was merely a creative outlet whose main purpose was to unite the limited members of #baka-trio who were b

From The Author   Paragon of Justice: Crimson Ranger is a superhero/tokusatsu parody original fiction story that I'm currently writing on a semi-weekly basis. The story is heavily inspired by Zettai Hero Project for the PSP as well as Moonlight Bomber's Super Network Wars fanfic. The story is written in a traditional, 3rd-person past tense perspective and parodies the generic perceptions of otaku lifestyle and has characters that break the 4th wall on occasion as well as perform superhuman feats which are generally well-justified in the context of the story.  My intention with this piece was to create a fun outlet for my excess creative energies that I could easily mold into any type of story that fits my mood at the time of writing. Thus, each episode of Crimson Ranger may vary greatly as far as mood, amount of comedy and emotional intensity are concerned. I do however, endeavor to make the characters and the world that I have created consistent and there is a gener