Betcha look like this when you wake up. (0_<)

I don’t want to be biased when selecting routes for review, so I’m going accordingly like this: Emi, Hanako, Lily, Rin then Shizune.
Hell, turning off that option affects completion of scenes.

What did I just say?!

Back to the main topic… >_>

Storyline and character development for Emi’s Route: Cliché
Reminds me of a friend though…
Cute, active, enthusiastic about stuff… and certainly likes to bounce up to you.
Guys, this is what you want right? =^^=
But still, it is quite typical. While I guess almost everything must have a benchmark there. Supposedly Emi’s Route is the ‘typical’ kind of thing when other routes are different, must be.

CG: There are certainly some differences between the normal (during conversation) and special scenes…
Normal:

CG:

Result of artist collaboration?
Well, I can’t say either are bad, right? Just different styles.

Bright and cheerful, popular but does not have many close friends (only Rin), and also stubborn. In all perspective, she’s probably the fastest girl you can hook up with in real life.

“幼き頬　朱を滲ませ　疼きに足を崩される”
“My childish cheeks are flushed crimson, my legs collapse in tingly pain”
–緋色月下、狂咲ノ絶

P.S.: Were you able to escape from the Mysterious Cathedral?

Related posts:

1. Katawa Shoujo: Warming Up
2. Katawa Shoujo: It’s Free!
3. Review: Singaporean Comic Creator, Meet and Greet.

Copyright: vanGrafique (Ivan Lee)

Yesterday, Nick, our shadow contributor and I went down to take part in the Real Escape Game in Singapore Volume 1 at CHIJMEs.

The game consist of about 15 brain twisting super indirect hints and quizzes. We were join by 1 of the Winner of our Giveaway and 2 other SMU students. So in a way, our team is actually quite smart… … XD

But the reality is that, we didn’t make it out of the cathedral… Like the many who participated in Vol. 1, we were hindered by very last clue.

“>

Copyright: vanGrafique (Ivan Lee)

What is it? Well… We can’t tell~

What we can tell you though, is that we very much enjoyed our time held captive~ The MC is a bit over the top, but adds drama to the seemingly boring setting, coupled with the constant reminder of how much time we had, and that heart trotting bgm…

It’s a good game indeed! No wonder many of the sessions actually managed to get sold out.

Thus it’s also good to report that, a 2nd Volume has been decided!

It will be held at *SCAPE in May. If you didn’t take part in Volume 1, please miss volume 2. It’s really very interesting~ I had fun~

Event Details Name: Real Escape Game in Singapore Vol.1 Date: 27(Fri), 28(Sat) and 29(Sun) January 2012 Time: Varies, Please choose session during ticket purchase Location: CHIJMES Hall, Singapore Ticket Price: SG$20 *extended Earlybird* SG$25, Regular SG$30, Purchase at Gate Ticketing: Gatecrash Booth at SCAPE *Check Facebook Page* At the gate Website: Real Escape Game in Singapore Vol.1 Facebook Page

“>

PS: Did I mention that only 1 team managed to escape in my session?

Related posts:

1. SG: REAL ESCAPE GAME, Are you smart enough?
2. May’n Asia Tour 2011 「UNITE!!」Singapore!!!
3. The EOY 10: Hey, It’s just my view…

Uh well, I couldn’t help it.

I will be talking a little on game features today besides keeping it brief. As long as I keep playing, you will see an endless stream of commentary, not voiced by Danny Choo unfortunately.

• Jukebox, a.k.a BGM playback
• Gallery, a.k.a CG view
• Library, something new
• Cinema, for all your shorts and animations

I won’t be talking about everything save for the ‘Library’.
Now the VN veterans may notice that ‘Scene Recollection’ or whatever it is is missing…

Unlike most other VNs, you can playback every single snapshots of your ‘life’ you’d experience, instead of only some special scenes.

Act 1 went away pretty fast…

…in like… about at least an hour and half?

What could be better?

From First Impression to Act 1:
So far so good, I won’t comment on the art, no point. If I’m to continue on with the art all day long the reviews would resemble each other in many ways.

Everything’s from first-person perspective, nothing much to say about the style. Description-wise, detailed enough to let you imagine what’s necessary, not too informative to lose you out.
The music matches the mood fairly easily, not to mention well-timed BGM switching during turn of events etc., which is good. I have played certain VNs that weren’t capable of approaching it in such a manner.

Character personality is explored during Act 1, only getting deeper for selected few as you close in on to Act 2.

Closing the curtains on this one, I hope this has been enjoyable for all of you!
Cypher signing off. ^_^

“この愛が真実(まこと)
伝えにいくよ恋しくて”
“I missed the chance to say that my love for you is true”
–サクラ咲ク

Related posts:

1. Katawa Shoujo: It’s Free!
2. Library War: The Movie, In the works~
3. Star Driver gets PSP game

Update: The first 2 pair of tickets are now gone~ But we received 2 more pairs to give away! However can you find and solve the quiz?

Update: Last pair to go~ Good luck!

In Japan, there is a live action game created by SCRAP in Japan. To date it’s played by over 100,000 participants but the winning rate is low.

So what is it?

Real Escape Game is created by SCRAP, and first played in Kyoto.

It’s a trap room escape game, in real life. The game has gotten quite a cult following with sessions conducted in dome halls with themes like the Sengoku period for the very recent one in Tokyo.

The game so far have gone all the way to the United States. And for the first time coming to Singapore shores.

The story goes that, you are trap in a room with maybe 75 others, and you are given a clue card that will lead to your freedom. The objective is to find and solve the puzzles inside a room to gain your freedom. In short if you are a person who like answering riddles, solving complex puzzles or just general smart, and you are looking for a challenge, it’s here!

Will you give up about 1.5 hour of your freedom to challenge this difficult game?

Did I mention low winning rate?

Yes I did, on average only 5% of all participants managed to solve and clear the game within the available time based on the previous games and events.

Apparently the game is so difficult that out of 150 participants in an average round only 6 managed to clear it and within it most are returning players for the game. Hint some puzzles are just not as straight forward as it seems.

Now that it has come to Singapore, and will be setup at Chijms Hall on the 27^th, 28^th and 29^th of January 2012, with all new quiz and puzzles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiiDSC9PrsA

Will the rate of wining be higher in Singapore? I strongly doubt it… thou it will be good to try~

The tickets are now on sale at Gatecrash* at $20 or you can get it at the gate for $30.

Tickets to be won if you can really are smart enough >.<

I am happy to announce that I have 2 pair of tickets for the Sunday 1:30pm round to give-away courtesy of the local organisers Vivid Creations.

How to win? Well you will have to find it, solve it and get BACK to us on facebook~ The first 2 to get the correct answer will win a pair of tickets each.

Good luck!

PS: As you can clearly see, Chiya is very excited to attend the puzzle solving event. She even took out her detective wear~

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2. Liar Game: Reborn first trailer up and small details, and a new game?
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It has been quite some time since my previous post on Cardfight!! Vanguard English booster Vol 1.

For this post, I will be talking about the good news that Bushiroad has just shared.

For those of you who have a facebook account, you can always follow them over here.

Now for the good news. First off, we have information that Vanguard Booster Vol 6 will have a simultaneous release for both the English and Japanese versions on the same day. However, for the English version, Vol 6 will be released after Vol 2, allowing players to skip from Vol 3 to 5 and directly to vol 6 first before these other 3 other volumes are released.  As the next English booster volume (volume 2) will be releasing on March 3^rd in Singapore and March 10^th globally, you can expect quite a detailed  post on Vol 2 from me soon.

Lastly, the most anticipated Vol 5 booster for the Japanese version will be released this Saturday. With most of the effect being shown on Vanguard website, i think most players cannot wait to get their hands on it already especially the 3 new grade 3 cards for each of the clan used by Aichi, Kai and Ren.

For me, I am looking forward to the extra booster named diva festival, due to be released on march 10^th. This extra booster has now gotten my full attention. However, that is for another post to share another day. I am sure that most of you players out there are getting pumped up reading this release.

That is all i have to share, see you guys next time.

Related posts:

1. Cardfight! Vanguard English version card review
2. CARDFIGHT!! Vanguard Press Conference
3. Cardfight! Vanguard Vol1. Booster Box Review

Konichiwa~ It’s Cypher desu~! =^^=
Katawa Shoujo Full Ver. was just recently released so I’d be giving a heads-up on this one!

http://katawa-shoujo.com/

Well, don’t worry, there’s one for Windows and Linux as well! ^^

Although many things may be covered by the developers themselves, but I can give a brief summary.
It’s a Visual Novel (duh), ADV and First Person.
The story goes like this (not much of a spoiler):

Hisao suffers from a heart defect and has to transfer to a High School for the disabled children (while he isn’t really ‘disabled’). Despite that, he is able to find friends -and perhaps love, if, that is, he plays his cards right.

The main heroines ^^:



Interesting…

Here’s the Main Menu, pretty simple for now as you progress through the game.
I noticed that for every ‘Act’ (or chapter you might want to call) a ‘paper cut-out’ of a sketch of a certain character appears. My guess is that it shows how far you’ve went through.

The Options Menu, not much but… it features the ‘non-H’ option! Handy if you’re playing in everyone’s view. ^^ Or you just want the story, no pre-marital ero.
There’s no ‘Fullscreeen Mode’ for Mac OS is probably some resizing issues. The Windows version does have Fullscreen Mode though.

I can’t do much of a review (school and all) but so far, in my opinion, the story is well thought out but it may be new to some of you. The theme can be ‘Tragedy’, and the character design is unaccustomed to me. It took me quite a while to get used to the characters.
The game itself isn’t voiced though, so, make up some voices in your head as you go! ^^

This is what it might look like back in 2007. Once Japanese pen-on-paper concept art of a dating sim back in Comiket 61, December 2000, drawn by RAITA of Zettai Shoujo.
This translated and colored omake appeared in the /a/ board of 4chan on 4th January 2007, somehow sparking a wildfire among the community . Ideas and suggestions, and even requests for actually making the game flooded the page. It even became a stickie on 4chan.
Ah yes, I forgot to briefly mention its development.

• Started in 4 January 2007, ideas and suggestions flooded the /a/ board. From what I know, in November 2007 the team (later known as Four Leaf Studios) start to grow.
• December 2008, discussion on Voice Acting comes to a conclusion. The answer is, well, you guessed it: NO
• January 2009, translation translation translation.
• April 2009, Act 1 Preview released.
• December 2009, Act 1 V2 released.
• May 2010, Act 1 V3 released.
• June 2010, 5 translations completed. Also, Act 1 V4 released.
• July 2010, FLS reflects. Katawa Shoujo gets featured at Babycastle indie game arcade in New York City.
• August 2010, Katawa Shoujo panel at Manifest Anime Convention in Melbourne, Australia.
• April 2011, Act 1 V5 released.
• Late 2011, Katawa Shoujo in Comitia and Comiket.
• 4 January 2012, Katawa Shoujo Full Version released! Exactly 5 years since the /a/ board incident.

That’s all for now, I give it a 8/10 for its art and story. Of course, I do not criticize it for not being voiced because I understand how this project came about and it seems pretty low-budget, due to the fact that Four Leaf Studios is simply a group of 4chan regulars, one heck of helluva enthusiasts who love doing it for the community. My praises.

You can download Katawa Shoujo here:
http://katawa-shoujo.com/download.php (opens in new tab/window)
Other languages can be found at the bottom of the webpage.

P.S.: I’m really busy with school, perhaps I’d give a full review on Katawa Shoujo in future. Fingers crossed.

“花火して　笑ったね　夏の海
遅刻して　けんかした　駅の前
ずぶぬれで　はしゃいだね　帰り道
バンソコが　似合ってる？！　私たち”
“Setting off fireworks in the summer sea,
Running late and fighting in front of the station.
Running home soaking wet in high spirits
Do our plasters* look good on us?!”
–the first the last

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1. Mahou Shoujo Beach Queens
2. New Original Tales of Series for the PS3 – Finally!
3. Star Driver gets PSP game

As you all can tell from the picture of the booster box, this box focus more on the Royal Paladin clan. There are also some pretty good cards for Kagero clan as well. Here are tips from me on the few cards to look out for:

*The picture I will be using is the Japanese version as I cannot find the bigger image for the English version but I linked it so that when clicking on the picture, it will link you to the English description website.

Royal Paladin

First off, these are the 2 most critical cards, we feel, in this set: King of Knights, Alfred and Blaster blade. They are the core of the Royal Paladin deck for now as many card effects are built around them. But with more booster expansions to come, player will have many more various ways on what they would want to focus on as the core of the deck for Royal Paladin but for now, we will stick with this 2.

Next would have to be Gancelot. This card is vital in the deck as you are able to use his ability to pull out blaster blade into your hand.

The recommended grade 0 vanguard for Royal Paladin would be Bargal. It has the best effects of any grade 0 vanguards thus far: when you ride a Royal Paladin over it, you can shift it to a rear guard position. In addition by using its second effect you can call out another unit from your deck onto the field. This ability helps a lot when you are looking to fill up your field to maximize the ability of King of Knights, Alfred.

For guarding, you should also put in Iseult as it gives you an absolute defense by discarding another card. This is important in guarding twin drives’ multiple triggers.

Finally, it would be a good idea to add in Liew to your deck. The effect of Liew allows you to superior call/ride blaster blade which is good when you lack a grade 2 to ride on your turn.

Kagero

Firstly, something to look out for would be Dragonic Overlord. For those who own the starter deck, you would already have 2. However, just having 2 would not be enough for the deck. The counter-blast effect makes for an excellent rear-guard, with it being able to clear out the opponents rear guards as well as attack the vanguard.

Another grade 3 that you can try out for Kagero would be Embodiment of Victory, Aleph as it has the grade 2 Dragon Knight, Aleph which allow you to superior ride to gradel 3, giving you an advantage over your opponent as you would be able to get twin drive faster.

However to do the above superior ride above, you will need the unit, Tahr in your deck to make the superior ride possible. The plus point for this card is that  comes with the additional critical trigger as well.

For guarding wise, you might want to look for the card with the same effect as Isode of the Royal Paladin. For Kagero clan, it is called Barri.

That is all I have for this booster box volume. Join me next time as I go through the volume 2 booster when it gets released. Until then, lets STAND UP THE VANGUARD!

Related posts:

1. Cardfight! Vanguard English version card review
2. CARDFIGHT!! Vanguard Press Conference
3. Winter 2011: Card Fight!! Vanguard Fighter!

We have taken the time to look through the cards. There is so much stuff to share that this article has to be split into 2 posts. First up, we would start with the basics of the trial deck before moving on to the modification of deck with booster cards for the next issue. So without further delay, let’s get to it.

Deck Building

First, players must know what cards are found in their deck and this is a basic reminder for players when trying to form a deck. For Vanguard, we would advise you to have 17 level 0. The reason is that you can put up to 16 triggers in your deck and also within the 16 triggers, only a maximum of 4 can be of the heal trigger. The last 1 would be your starting vanguard card that should not be a trigger.

For level 1 to 3, players are advised to have around 13 cards for level 1, 12 cards for level 2 and 8 cards for level 3 as this is to be sure that you will be able to draw them at the start of the game or you might find it quite hard trying to ride to a higher grade during the game play.

Choosing the trial deck
Currently, there are only 2 trial decks released, which are the Royal Paladin deck and the Kagero deck. For easy-to-plan decks, players can choose the Kagero deck. The Kagero deck is already very strong but for players who are always looking for challenge, they can always go for the Royal Paladin deck.

Deck strategy

Royal Paladin

For Royal Paladin, it is all about maintaining a larger hand size than your opponent as most of your card effects depend on a larger hand size than your opponent or discarding cards to gain more power.

2 examples of units using this effect would be this (As the image is not big enough, I am using links instead >_<):
http://cf-vanguard.com/en/cardlist/?cardno=TD01/007
http://cf-vanguard.com/en/cardlist/?cardno=TD01/011

Kagero

For Kagero deck, you need to have a good cost management as most abilities require you to counter blast. My advice would be to make sure you have 3 damage ready for your Dragonic Overlord effect. The Dragonic Overlord effect is if he attacks successfully, he is able to stand and being able to attack again. Therefore, calling your Dragonic Overlord as a rearguard would be much more beneficial to you instead of a vanguard. This is because you do not lose your twin drive even if you use Dragonic Overlord effect and counter blast. In addition, with your vanguard twin drive, should you trigger any triggers, you can add all the power to Dragonic Overlord so that after you counter blast, your Dragonic Overlord will be so overpowered that your opponent will need to drop cards to guard his attacks on the rear guard.

That is all for the 2 trial decks. Look out for the next post where I will be touching on the Vol. 1 booster. Until then, stand up the Vanguard!

Related posts:

1. CARDFIGHT!! Vanguard Press Conference
2. Winter 2011: Card Fight!! Vanguard Fighter!
3. The Card Geeks Tournaments

They are anime/game song singer Kanako Ito and Game producer, musician and soon to be café owner, Chiyomaru Shikura.

Thus without much delay,

“>Ani-Culture: Kanako Ito-san, you tried singing in Chinese before right? Kokō no Tama. Even thou it’s just the first part, is Chinese difficult?

Kanako-Ito: It’s difficult, very difficult. But it sounds like French and very beautiful. I studied Chinese, during the recording of the song.

Ani-Culture: Chiyomaru Shikura- san, It’s been said that you and Tsunku are planning a Café, “AKIHABARA Back sta<–>ge pass”, that will train Idols, care to tell us more?

Chiyomaru Shikura: It’s a concept where customer can “produce” an idol.

Kanako Ito: Like Im@s!

Chiyomaru Shikura: And it’s going to open late November, but it’s most likely going to be delayed.

Ani-Culture: Kanako ito-san, You also did Hacking to the Gate for Steins;Gate, what kind of feelings do you have when singing it?

Kanako Ito: Steins;Gate’s world is full of suspense, and like a thriller. And I feel like I have to be strong in order to sing the song, not just sound strong, but Strong mentally.

Ani-Culture: To Shikura-san, why the song or why Kanako ito to sing “Hacking to the gate”? Is it because of her style of singing?

Chiyomaru Shikura: Ermmm… …

I first wrote the song, and then naturally it chose Kanako Ito to sing it. It’s like the song is inviting her to sing it, maybe it’s the style.

Ani-Culture: This is the first time, both is performing in Singapore, what are your expectations? And what can fans expect for this weekend?

Kanako Ito: I want to introduce the world of Steins;Gate to everyone in Singapore, and thru the songs is one way. If you already know Steins;Gate and its song, please sing along

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT4T8vw2Vic

Ani-Culture: Lastly, do you have a message for the fans in Singapore and South East Asia?

Kanako Ito: First I want everyone to enjoy the concert, and this time all the songs will be related to Steins;Gate, so I hope fans will find out more about it regardless whether it’s on the 360, PSP or even the IPhone.

So do enjoy the Concert!

Translator (Koga-san): Do also come down to their concert next week (18-19 Nov) Live5PB, in Japan.

– End of Interview –

And yes Live5pb is already over. It’s Chiyomaru-san’s company’s bigger event this year. Did I mention that Chiyomaru Shikura-san is also the executive director the game maker, 5pb?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5ZiEM4Wnew

Either way, I hope you love the performances Kanako Ito and Chiyomaru-san did in AFA11. Do also check out Steins;Gate. It’s very interesting 8bit version for the PC, just came out recently, so do check it out!

Read more interviews from AFA 2011,
Chiwa Saito
SEA☆A
KALAFINA

Related posts:

1. AFA11: In 5 Days, the Stages?
2. Steins;Gate Anime
3. ＡＦＡ　Ｘ：Interview with ANGELA

Update: I have downloaded Joysound Dive and to my disappointment, It’s region locked. I’m very sorry for making so many happy for nothing.

Have a PS3 at home and nothing to play on it for now (waiting for FFXIII-2 or disappointed by ACE Combat 5)? Now you can use your PS3 as a Karaoke~

Courtesy of Joysound!

You can now download the free Joysound App from the Playstation Store and enjoy its 78,000 songs. Usually it will cost you 300 Yen(~SG$6) for a day or 1000 Yen(SG$16) for 30 days.

But now till the 19^th of December, the maker XING is making all song free as a promotion campaign.

All you need is a Japanese PSN account and a USB microphone.

That is not all… The software, Joysound Dive, also includes a function that allows for music and video playback as well as a function named “Layer Mixer”. It allows for the multi-muxing of video feeds from the PS3’s hard drive.

Naturally, this application also allows you to record and replay your own singing~

Well I’ll be checking it out after work, will you?

PLAYSTATION 3, It’s only does everything~

Website: Joysound Dive Official site
Source: Andriasang

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