Jayd “Chira” Ait-Kaci is Having a Print Sale!

And now for something a little different! One of my favorite artists, Chira, is having a print sale, and for only $5 you can pick up an 8.5×11″ print of any of the great illustrations she has listed here! She has an exceptionally wide range of influences and inspirations, from Prince of Persia to Disney’s Tangled and iconic Japanese tiles such as Revolutionary Girl Utena. I’ve been following her work for a few years now, and it’s really impressive to see how she’s evolved as an artist in such a short amount of time. Right now she’s working on an upcoming comic titled The Fox Sister with Runaways colorist Christina Strain, while single-handedly illustrating and coloring the superb web comic Sfeer Theory, written by Alex Singer.
Here are some of my favorites out of the prints she is currently offering:
A humanoid interpretation of Amaterasu from the game Okami, with the Medicine Seller from the anime Mononoke
Fan art of the game Prince of Persia (2008)
Beautiful stylized Revolutionary Girl Utena fan art
You can see more of her work on DeviantArt, Livejournal, or even follow her on Twitter.

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Recipe for a Very Nerdy Weekend: StreetPassing at the Mana Bar and More!

I don’t often do weekend recaps, but this time I think it was sufficiently nerdy enough to merit this post. That, and I wanted to do write-ups on both the Mana Bar StreetPass event I attended as well as the CG animated film Resident Evil: Degeneration, so I figured why not do one big weekend review?

On Saturday, Shaun and I headed into the city for some major window shopping and general bumming around; I, of course, had my 3DS in tow so I could collect some StreetPass hits. For lunch we swung by our favorite Japanese restaurant, Kadoya, where I had their delicious mackerel bento set. We made sure to play a few rounds of Animal Kaiser while we were in the area and had high hopes of scoring a rare card for our efforts, too. Sadly, we did not (and are beginning to think we need to take a break from the whole thing, it’s quite the money sink and we haven’t gotten any good cards in a while), but Shaun did get a funny picture of me in action:

I think I was captured mid-exclamation

 We spent Saturday evening at home with a family-sized chicken (2 kilos! What can I say, it was on special) and Resident Evil: Degeneration (2008). Both Shaun and I were pleasantly surprised that the CG movie, which takes place between Resident Evil 4 and 5, was actually quite a bit better than we had anticipated. I’d say that if you’re a fan of the video game series, you should definitely check this movie out, if you haven’t already! Neither of us are huge RE fans, as we’ve only actually played Resident Evil 5, but the movie was fun and I think it’s at least worth a rental.

Expect to see the sequel, Resident Evil: Damnation, sometime in 2012!

 The graphics didn’t strike me as particularly impressive, like they did when I first saw FFVII: Advent Children back in 2005, but a couple times during the movie I did notice some pretty well-done effects, especially in the water. The plot was intriguing and pretty well-paced, though I had a hard time understanding what was going on at a couple of points during the movie (I think that’s because I’m slow on the uptake sometimes; Shaun didn’t have any problems). It definitely is a good fix for anyone waiting for the next Resident Evil game to come along.

There are plenty of shots of Leon being super-cool

Next, we have the StreetPass event at the Mana Bar, an awesome video game-themed bar located right here in Brisbane! Though the event was planned for the slightly-unfortunate time of Sunday evening, Shaun and I decided it was worth checking out, so we hopped on the train to Fortitude Valley and arrived sometime around 4:30 pm. I thought this would be a nice opportunity to spread the word about StreetPass Brisbane and check out this funky venue!

Loved their decor! The Mana Potion was a novel drink, but I’ll probably give it a skip next time

Unfortunately, I only got 5 StreetPass hits altogether during the hour and a half we were there, but that may have been due to the fact that we arrived so early. 2 of those were from members of StreetPass Brisbane that attended our event last Saturday, so it was great to see their Mii’s level up! Mana Bar also has their own 3DS for StreetPassing, so if you attend the bar regularly, that would be a great way to get a higher level Mii for StreetPass Quest.

The bar itself was smaller than I had expected, but it was pretty cool to see all the TVs with games set up and ready to go (I believe there were 5 in total). Shaun and I played some Mario Kart Wii, watched a bit of Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, and Shaun did a couple of songs on Guitar Hero. Later on we picked up this intriguing XBox 360 game called Raskulls and did a 3 player race with Natasha, who we know from StreetPass Brisbane. That game was fun for multiplayer, and I would definitely check it out again if it’s on the next time I’m at the Mana Bar. Little Big Planet was also available to play, but I’m not a huge fan of that so we didn’t bother giving it a go.

All in all, it was a great weekend! Albeit a little more eventful than usual, so things might be a little more low-key next weekend to make up for it. Though I’m chafing at the bit to see the new Pirates movie, so hopefully we’ll be able to fit that in! 

What about you all? Do anything fun over the weekend?

BlazBlue Continuum Shift II Box Art Censored in US

Since this has been nagging me for a while now, I figured I might as well post about it. Back when I heard BlazBlue Continuum Shift II was coming out for the 3DS, contrary to some skeptics (aka my husband), I was actually quite excited about it. See, we played the original BlazBlue Calamity Trigger together in the arcades when we were living in Japan, and the series brings back lots of fond memories for me, even though we never ended up purchasing Continuum Shift for the PS3 when it came out. With Continuum Shift II coming out for the 3DS, I figure it’d be killing two birds with one stone since I don’t have any particularly enjoyable games for my 3DS yet and I’m long overdue for a new BlazBlue game.

Honestly, I haven’t really been keeping track of BlazBlue. I know they added a couple of characters for Continuum Shift, and figured they’d probably add one or two more for this release. Now that I’ve seen the Japanese box art for the game, I dare say I’ve seen a little too much of the game’s new characters.

Japanese box art with a lovely sleek black logo bar and…

Hm, well, I guess that’s cute? I think she’s supposed to be a squirrel. I really am not impressed with her clothing design and whoever decided to make her breasts larger than the other characters on the cover. I’d like to see more of the old guy with the seriously pointy beard–I seem to remember he was a vampire buddy of Rachel’s in the first game. I have a feeling he’ll probably be similar to Guilty Gear’s Slayer.

It seems as though I wasn’t the only one who was a little displeased by the Japanese cover choice, as the US box art is much more covered up (hah, I can’t help it, the bad puns just make themselves).

US box art is a little more tasteful

I have to admit, though I do like the positioning of the characters so that the one girl’s barely covered breasts are no longer a focal point of the image, but I actually dislike the American cover as a whole because it seems too cluttered (and I’ve gotta say, that black 3DS logo is nice). I think I also preferred the BlazBlue logo in the center, rather than to the side. But we can’t have everything, right? Which one do you prefer?

BlazBlue Continuum Shift II is coming to the 3DS and PSP on May 31st (pushed back from the 24th) in both Japan and North America

Hooked on Animal Kaiser

One of the many neat things about living in Australia is the range of interesting things you see over here that just aren’t available in other Western nations. Even though AU isn’t in the spotlight on the news or in international affairs like the US, it has many perks due to its proximity to East Asia. Because of this, the population is quite ethnically diverse, and all sorts of interesting cuisine, clothing, and technology make their way over here (like MOS Burger, for example!). Animal Kaiser is just that–a Japanese arcade game that has seen relative popularity in many Asian countries, and is even available in New Zealand and Australia, though it is noticeably absent from arcades in the United States and Europe.
Animal Kaiser advertises itself as a card battling arcade game featuring real animals for children ages 4-10 (well, I play too, but I’m young at heart!). Kaiser means king in German, and your goal is exactly that: to become of the animals by defeating all those who should stand in your way. The mechanics of the game are pretty simple, and though you’re meant to start with at least one of each type of card (animal, miracle, and strong), if you don’t have any cards a default setting will be selected for you, making it easy for anyone to pick up. During the battle you and your opponent are given two roulettes, one to choose your attack type and the other to select a number. If the number you select is higher than your opponent’s, you get to attack that turn. It’s quite simple, yet extremely addictive! Each game, whether you win or lose, nets you exactly one new card of random selection; so even after your very first game you can start your collection of upwards to 80 cards available every generation. 
Some of the Animal Kaiser cards we’ve collected. Notice the bar code on the bottom right–that’s how the machines read them
 Each animal card has three different attacks, a strength stat and a health stat, and can be enhanced with the help of a strong card and a miracle card. A strong card will increase the attack power of each of your animal’s three different attacks (guts, technique, and power) to varying degrees depending on the card. Miracle cards influence the power of the special attack available to all animals, aptly named a “miracle attack.” They have a strength stat that will determine the power of the miracle attack, and, if its type is the same as the animal it is paired with, will result in a “perfect match,” causing your animal to be even more powerful. Finally, miracle cards have a special ability attached to them such as lucky break, which, based on its star percentage value, has a chance of aiding your animal in battle.
What really grabbed me about Animal Kaiser was its campiness–here you have two realistic-looking animals (well, apart from the purple lion and the new line of “white knight” albino animals) fighting each other with some of the goofiest-looking attacks and special moves in all sorts of random settings. Think shark vs. vampire bat in the middle of a paved city road, with things like giant hamburgers materializing out of the sky to crush your opponent. Just watching a battle play out is sure to garner a few laughs from anyone who’s never seen it in action (my husband and I are still thoroughly amused by some of the attacks, even after seeing them numerous times).
Shaun giving it a go!
 Unfortunately, Animal Kaiser is the kind of card-based game that can be easily swayed to your advantage if you’re willing to fork out the money to buy certain rare cards on eBay. Though there is an element of chance involved, and certain card combinations require a little foresight to be effective, there is virtually no way a common animal card like the orangutan will win against the ultra-rare Siegfried card (turquoise tiger–I guess special animals are on a first name basis) when playing a real opponent. I have no idea how rare “ultra-rare” cards are, but suffice it to say that my husband and I have played about 50 games so far and we haven’t seen so much as one gold rare pop out of the machine.
Nevertheless, Animal Kaiser is a fun and addicting arcade game, and is the first game I’ve found since I was living in Japan that has actually made me want to go out of my way to visit an arcade. I highly suggest anyone living in Queensland, Australia to try to get to one of the 3 arcades that has the machines! Sadly, QLD is the only state in Australia that has these machines right now. International readers, you can check the English Animal Kaiser website to see if there is one in your area. I would love to see this game gain more of an Australian following!

StreetPass Brisbane’s First Meetup

Hello all and sorry for my absence over the past week. I had a couple of posts in the works, but Blogger was down on Friday, so I’ll try to make up for it in the next few days. In the meantime, I thought I’d do a short writeup on StreetPass Brisbane‘s first meet yesterday (if you don’t know what StreetPass is, check out my post on it here).

Thanks to everyone who was able to make it to our first meetup!

The weather on Saturday was perfect for having a meetup–sunny but not too hot. Shaun and I set up camp at a bench in King George Square, and within a few minutes our first couple of attendees showed up. Everyone was super friendly and it was fun to finally meet the people behind some of the Mii’s I had collected over the past few weeks. We mostly chatted, collected puzzle pieces and battled for hats in StreetPass Quest (did you know it’s called Find Mii on my US system and StreetPass Quest on all of the AU systems? I didn’t!). There were a few Street Fighter IV battles and I loaded up Nintendogs + Cats to see what presents my corgi puppy had acquired.

It was great to see various people swing by over the course of the hour; some had heard about us at the Pokemon championship in Chermside last weekend, others found the Facebook page while searching for a StreetPass group in their area, and some had read the news article on the Aussie-Nintendo website and decided to stop by. All in all, I believe 9 people attended, but we even had a few random StreetPass hits from people walking by! Though it would’ve been nice to see a few more people, I still think it was a good start, especially since I had organized the meetup back when the Facebook page had only 10 fans (we have close to 50 now!). With the amount of support and enthusiasm we’re getting from everyone, I can only imagine that our next meetup will be even better!

The Downfall of Final Fantasy?

First of all, I’m happy to announce that I am now a member of the team of writers over at Norwich Retro Gaming! My first post was a small piece on a new Pokemon typing game for the Nintendo DS, but I’ll be doing a weekly feature about all the great games that are out there that no one’s ever heard of! (ok, I’ve heard of them, but more people should be playing them!) You can check out my Pokemon typing post  here. 
Now, this post has really been a long time coming, that’s for sure. I’ve been involved in discussions on forums debating the pros and cons of the Final Fantasy series, what defines the series, all of that. Because Final Fantasy is so dear to my heart as the series that got me into gaming, I’m going tell you all what I think about the franchise, what makes the games good, and why I can’t bring myself to finish Final Fantasy XIII.
I’ll have to begin with a disclaimer–I have only played Final Fantasy VII through XIII. Though I have seen VI played and dabbled in the DS port of IV, I feel that I don’t have the authority to really talk about the older installments in the series. This may turn some people off, claiming that I’m not a “true” Final Fantasy fan, but I don’t think how many games you’ve played or which is your favorite has any basis in whether or not you can call yourself a fan of the series (mine’s IX, if you were wondering, but that’s for another post).
Cloud from FFVII
Final Fantasy is undeniably the most popular Japanese RPG (role playing game) series worldwide. While Dragon Quest may have more notoriety back in its home country, it’s Final Fantasy (hereafter referred to as FF) that sells consoles and makes the news. Most gamers have probably played at least one Final Fantasy game, or know enough about the franchise to recognize iconic names such as “Cloud” or “chocobo.” Final Fantasy VII marked a revolution in the series and was the first game to utilize full 3D graphics in its cutscenes, and is still regarded as one of the best by many fans. It was this game, in fact, that turned me on to the series and opened my eyes to the world of gaming.
So what makes these games different from other Japanese RPGs? First, I have to talk about the graphics. From FFVII on, Final Fantasy games set the bar for high-quality game graphics, with each new installment looking prettier than the last. FFX was the first game to feature fully-rendered lip movements on its characters, and XIII went even further to introduce lifelike eye movements to the world of gaming. The environments are detailed and immersive, and both Yoshitaka Amano and Tetsuya Nomura’s art direction has created some unique and memorable characters over the years.
One of the most well-remembered cutscenes from FFVIII
Though for the most part each FF game is in separate world with new characters and story from other installments, each title can be linked to one another through familiar enemies, items, and even characters. Chocobos and moogles are perhaps the most iconic recurring creatures in the series. In practically every FF game there is a character named Cid, as well (though this doesn’t mean the Cids have anything to do with one another). The battle system may be revamped and tweaked, but generally there are core elements, such as magic and summoning, that remain very similar. I could go on and on, but for the purposes of this article I’m going to have to stop here. 
An illustration by Yoshitaka Amano of Zidane and Dagger from FFIX (source)
So, you’re probably still wondering why I haven’t played much of FFXII if I’m such a self-proclaimed Final Fantasy lover. Well, the first thing that struck me about FFXII was the lack of towns. I actually never realized how much I loved exploring and talking to NPCs until Square Enix decided to eliminate that element altogether. Sure, there are cutscenes and dialogue, but when the player is in control it is a constant hack-and-slash fest until the end of the area and the next cutscene. Then it’s just rinse and repeat until about 20 hours into the game where it finally opens up and provides you with an area to explore, complete with a few sidequests (this is what I’ve heard, I never even got this far). I’m sorry, but I just don’t have the time or interest to invest 20 hours into a game before it lets me do any exploring. I could talk about my relative distaste for the characters in XIII, or even how I’m not sold on the fast-paced “can’t-believe-it’s-not-real-time” battles, but it’s really the lack of exploration that made me put the game down for good. 
FFXII is undeniably pretty, but does it have substance?
Where is the series going from here? I think it’s clear from Square Enix’s public statements that they’re taking hints from popular Western RPGs and trying to tweak their image into something that just doesn’t match up with the Final Fantasy so close to my heart. They’re moving away from open-ended exploration to fast-paced linearity, and while FFXIII was received with mixed reviews, it clearly garnered them enough sales to do a direct sequel–something that has only happened one other time in Final Fantasy history. With all of their various spin-offs (think FFVII: Crisis Core for the PSP, FFXII: Revenant Wings for the DS, and many others), Final Fantasy is becoming a big franchise that is trying to cater to more and more different kinds of gamers–but is it at the cost of their existing fanbase? If anyone else shares my opinion, then I’d say yes. 
But enough about me–what do you think? Loved FFXIII and think I’m full of it? Have a soft spot for FFIII? Let me know in the comments! 

Pokemon Battle Competition Brisbane

Today was the Queensland leg of the AU Pokemon Battle Competitions, so Shaun and I made the trek via public transport (a tiring endeavor, indeed) to the Chermside EB Games so we could catch a glimpse of the action! I originally had big hopes to participate myself, but though my love for Pokemon knows no bounds, I don’t think I’m cut out for competitive battling. I have too great a fondness for all of the immeasurably cute yet virtually ineffective Pokemon to stand any chance of making it past the first round. Still, I had fun watching the battles and StreetPassing with the other 3DS owners in attendance. Jamie, the friendly announcer, was even kind enough to do a shout-out about StreetPass Brisbane’s first meetup on the 14th!

The competition was fierce at EB Games Chermside

When I first heard that there was going to be an official Pokemon competition nearby, I thought for sure I would want to compete, so I began doing some research on what strategies/Pokemon were the most effective. I won’t go into much detail seeing as most of my readers aren’t big Pokemon fans (and those who are probably know more than me already, anyway), but needless to say, it’s a lot more complicated than one might think! Though we didn’t stay too long, I noticed an abundance of Jellicant, Amoonguss, Haxorus, Chandelure, Conkeldurr, Reuniclus, Gigalith, Thundurus, Tornadus, and Whimsicott. That may seem like a lot, but with the amount of people competing, you did start to see a lot of the same strategies (from what I’ve read of the coverage of other cities’ competitions, they’ve all seen many of the same Pokemon). I’m surprised I didn’t see any Excadrill, actually, and would’ve liked to have seen at least one Stunfisk.

It as fun to watch the battles up on the big screen!

One of the best things about having so many Pokemon fans together in one place was the fact that there were so many 3DS’s to StreetPass with! In the hour or so we were there over the course of the day, I got close to 25 StreetPass hits. I also had the chance to promote StreetPass Brisbane, and as I mentioned before, Jamie even made an announcement over the mic for me after I summoned up all my courage to go up and ask him. I met a few people from a forum I frequent and chatted with a guy who organizes Pokemon tournaments in Brisbane who seemed interested, so I hope to see some of them at our meet next weekend.

All in all, it was a very fun event, though it was a shame they held it in such a small store, as there was no space to move around and the room got very hot extremely quick. I hope to attend more events like these in the future, and maybe someday I’ll even compete, too!