Amnesia

(It has been forever since I finished playing this game but totally forgot about post it.)

So review about this problematic game. I started to play this back when I was in Japan and wasn’t quite able to get other endings from Shin’s normal ending for 5 straight times I have been playing. I was so frustrated by this. 

Basic and simple story that runs through the whole game is MC trying to get much of her memories back that she had lost in the accident (which is possibly triggered Orion to get stuck with her for while) during month of August. At first, you can choose from one of four worlds (Heart, Spade, Clubs, and Diamond in order) to go after four characters (Shin, Ikki, Kento, and Toma). Secret character’s world gets unlocked once you clear other four.

It is interesting game where the four worlds are set in parallel world with different character dynamics depending on which route you choose. For instance, Shin and Toma in world of heart is childhood friend of MC while in world of clubs, they are brothers. In world of spade, Toma is MC’s ex-stepbrother while Shin is MC’s younger but more experienced coworker. Personally speaking, it was interesting to see the change in character dynamics in different world.

Storyline changes drastically depending on which character you are going for so it is another thing to look out for while playing this game. (And see how store manager’s personality changes depending on that too.) Supposedly there is no order you need to follow, but I think playing world of hearts first might be good way to start playing this game.

Unlike majority of otome games, few of Amnesia’s bad endings actually lead to death or disability. Also contains being locked in a cage by character you are going after so if you have trouble with such factors, I won’t suggest playing.

I love the factor that it has so many endings, but at the same time that is the exact same reason why I might be getting really frustrated. This game feels like it has more choices that affects

I was bored while watching Iron Chef marathon so I wanted to try putting sword boys in orchestra. (Playing Kiniro no Corda definitely had its influence.) Went through trial and error couple of times missing swords here and there as well as feeling that certain swords don’t quite fit in orchestra setting. So here is what I ended up with. Imagining sword boys playing instruments are just bit too entertaining.

Persona Q side P3

I was finally able to see the endings for Persona Q side P3! I started the game around late June, early July but had long hiatus from this game due to having trouble in one of the dungeons. I don’t deal well with haunted house. (But I will have to go through it again when I am playing P4 side.)

Clear time : 76 hours 27 minutes.

So this game is cross over between Persona 3 and 4, allowing the player to control characters from both series. My team included protagonists from Persona 3 and 4, Sanada, Naoto, and Zen at the ending. I think I used to have Amada in place of Zen in the beginning of the game though. It doesn’t seem to matter much who player chooses to add into the team as long as they can balance the weapon types and strength/weaknesses.One of main difference between Persona Q with P3 and P4 is that everyone have ability to have second persona. (Protagonists of both series no longer have ability to change their default persona, but they can also have second set of persona.) So you can try to make second persona to work around weakness of main persona.

The game play itself is pretty simple. Go into dungeon, explore the area (and fill out the map while you are at it), beat the boss, then continue on to next dungeon. There are 5 dungeons in total, each with different theme. Players can also work on side quests (some are time sensitive) to get items and experience points that would be beneficial. Side quests vary from beating certain monsters, gathering items, talking to other characters etc.

Dungeon’s theme were Alice in Wonderland, matchmaking cafe, haunted house, matsuri, and clock tower. Each dungeon has different monsters so it was important to understand how they were moving under what circumstances and so on. F.O.Es from haunted house dungeon really scared me since they are popping out of nowhere from the dark (and I was playing in dark too). 

So now to P3 side. Since I chose to play P3 side, every events that I encounter was from P3 perspective. This game was set during stormy night that led to cancellation of school festival (well, it didn’t made much difference since protagonist was sick during that period anyway in the game) so knowing the ending of Persona 3, some of the events made me very emotional while playing it. 

But yes. Game itself was very entertaining. Some of the choices (which still makes me wonder what gets influenced by selection since I wasn’t able to see the difference. Does it make a difference in game play?) were just hilarious. I personally wanted to choose some of outrageous one just to see the reaction. I might do that next time. I still haven’t got all of persona or finished all of the quests so I guess I will aim to do both when I am playing from P4 side. 

November 17th

Today is Kenma’s (annoying) chlidhood friend, Kuroo Tetsurou, aka Kuro’s birthday!

Sadly I won’t be able to celebrate the day with salted sanma fish, but happy birthday, Kuro! Thank you for leading Kenma into world of volleyball!

Celebrating Halloween in costume! Went shopping in it too. It was so much fun.

研磨、誕生日おめでとう! Throwing Kenma's birthday party at home　(*´ω｀*)　

Cosplay

Finally got around to organize all of my cosplays I have collected until now. I have a plastic container full of cosplay (just the costumes) and I still have few that didn’t fit.

So here is the list of current cosplay costumes.

HQ!!

- Kozume Kenma (2 wigs) [School uniform / Warm up jersey / volleyball uniform]

Magi

- Ren kougyoku (unfinished) [Normal]

Kuroko no Basuke

- Aida Riko [Summer uniform / winter uniform / Seirin Warm up jersey]

Uta no Prince-Sama

- Shibuya Tomochika [Winter uniform] - Tsukimiya Ringo [Yellow sweater]

Vocaloid

- Kagamine Len [Default]

Hetalia

- Austria [Gender bent]

Prince of Tennis

- Tachibana An [Winter uniform / Tennis jersey / Fudomine Warm up jersey]

Wigs

- Black long - Blue two-tone short - Tsukiuta (Minaduki Rui)

August 19th

IT IS AUGUST 19TH! IT IS 819 DAY! IT IS HQ DAY! IT IS FREAKING HAIKYUU DAY!!

LET ME CELEBRATE THIS DATE BEFORE IT ENDS!

Hopefully I would have much more decent Kenma cosplay picture to celebrate this date.

Shinsekai yori

Or known as From the New World. I finally got around to finish the series by reading the book, not the anime. I might go back and finish the anime after 2 years since I started it aince it seems like it might be a good time to go back. Considering that I read it in Korean translation, it was much faster reading. (950+ page reading in about two and half hour is not that bad after being away from reading for while.) I am not sure if it was easier reading since some of the words didn't translate through the language in my opinion. But reading this book in Japanese would have been interesting. The story itself was something more creepy and disturbing than I thought. I was aware of the plot since I read the synopsis before however it was much more than that. I guess that is what to expect from this author though. Honestly the first thought that came to my mind after finishing the book was that human is most dangerous creature in the world in various sense. The story is centered by the main character Saki so many things remain unexplaied because she does not know about it. I want to know more about those unexplained details but I felt like it might be unnecessary as well for the story. Many of these questions are "what happened to (insert character name)?" sort of questions after all. And makes me question the concept of utopia as well.

Kiniro no Corda 3

Finally got around to finish this game. I bought it during my last week of stay in Japan so it might have taken little over month to clear all the endings. There were few events and CGs that I am missing (and after story that opens after you clear the endings) but not motivated to play it again to get that as of now.

I played this game twice, in PSP and 3DS so I ended up skipping a lot of background information and coversation since I already saw them. But it was definitely worth it to hear them all. Full voice is such a wonderful thing. Especially in otome games when they would have tons of famous male voice actors. 

Kiniro no Corda 3 have 4 schools: Seisou, Shiseikan, Jinnan and Amane with 12 (+1) characters in total to go after. That +1 is MC’s friend who you would end up with if you fail to get other character’s ending. Shiseikan and Jinnan does not appear until you go on with the stage, unlike Amane which appears pretty early in the game. I have to say that there were at least one character from each school I absolutely adored. Personally speaking, Amamiya from Amane was easiest and Kyoya from Seisou was the hardest. I think I had to replay at least 4 times in total (in PSP and 3DS) to get Kyoya’s ending because he requires more events for his endings then rest of the characters. (There is a reason why childhood friends are more or less the last boss in the game.)

Story itself is just like other Kiniro games, though scale became bigger to winning the national concour. Very first stage is team selection within Seisou, then first round with Shiseikan, second round with Jinnan, and final round with Amane. The game itself is pretty simple but with this many characters, it was difficult to tell who to go after and save and replay the game. I started going after one character only, then realize that it would take too much time. So when I had 3 (+ friend ending), ended up going after all of them at the same time. It worked because I was going after characters appearing in different stage of the game (I was going after Hoozumi, Arata from Shiseikan and Toogane from Jinnan at the same time). It somehow worked out thankfully.

I already played the spin offs where MC transfers to Shiseikan, Jinnan, and Amane instead of Seisou. Not only it was entertaining, but you can see characters from different light as well. Personally loved Serizawa from Jinnan but he was one of those characters you weren’t able to go after during the main game. 

So that moment when you know how to end the piece of writing that you have in mind, but have no idea how to get there. Writer’s block at its finest.