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MHFU Update

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

For those interested in how I’m doing in Monster Hunter…

240+ hours on the savefile now. HR6, 8-star elder quests. I’ve downed some landmark beasts, such as Shao Gaoren and Lao Shun. I’m alternating between a True Devil Slicer weapon (longsword, thunder element) and a Hellstinger (gunlance, ice element). Wearing 3 pieces of the Ceanataur U armor set and 2 pieces of Death Stench S.

In the near term, I plan to hunt the elder dragons, specifically Chameleos and Kushala Daora. In the long term, well I want to upgrade my flame longsword and my Devil Slicer again, so I need to unlock the G-star quests from the guild 🙂

And, completely, utterly unrelatedly, isn’t it weird I know all the lyrics by heart of this song?!

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Unite!

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

If you read the blog entries during the Japan trip, you would have noted the numerous references to the Monster Hunter game franchise. During our trip, the fifth in the series (and the third PSP version) was released in the US: Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (known as Monster Hunter Portable G 2nd in Japan).

The game owns my soul right now.

I imported my save from the previous version, which itself had used the save from the first PSP version. My character (named Miki) is now over 170 hours old and is only (I estimate) about 35% of the way through the game. I’ve completed most of the village Elder quests but have barely scraped the Guild quests, and am not even yet at the level required to take G rank quests (my esteem level is 3 out of 12). Even so I have downed almost a hundred monsters and have amassed a large collection of armour and weapons.

But the best is yet to come.

This is a game about killing ‘monsters’, which often resemble european dragons. It is entirely mission based, and each mission sends you into one of a half dozen zones (a mountain, swamp, desert etc.) with the task of downing one or more monsters. Each zone is filled with ‘fodder’ enemies and lots of places you can gather materials and whatnot, but the objective is to down the big beastie. If you kill it, you can then ‘carve’ pieces from the corpse which can then be used to make better armour and weapons. Even better, you can capture monsters for more rewards (but it’s much riskier).

There are well over 1000 weapons in the game (divided into 9 main types) and over 2000 pieces of armour. If you’re into games that promote character advancement through gear (cough, WoW, cough) then this may be the ultimate game.

But it’s hard. As in really hard. The controls take a lot of getting used to, and any particular fight can be quite different depending on not only the opponent, but your weapon. It’s strangely similar to a 2D fighting game (like Street Fighter) in it’s complexity. Also, the game is designed around multiplay but Capcom has never added internet play to the PSP versions, so most US players solo the game, which means it’s a lot harder. But oh so rewarding!

To give you an idea of what it’s like, watch this brief video of someone killing a Lunastra elder dragon (bad video quality since it is a PSP game).

I haven’t killed a Lunastra, but I have ‘repelled’ one (the Elder Dragons have so much health you have to fight them many times over many missions to actually kill one). There is an amazing amount of opponents in the game, as you can see from this beautiful piece of official art:

monster-hunter-freedom-unite-20090513010910924.jpg < Click on this (it’s big)

The biggest monster I have actually killed is the one whose fishy tail is visible at the extreme right of the image. It’s called a Green Plesioth, and is a amphibious beast who must be lured out of rivers and lakes via bombs. He was tough. But as you can see he’s a shrimp compared to the behemoths lurking in the back of the image. And yes, you actually do fight them one-on-one. Check out the giant octopus thing! The gargantuan tarrasque-y thing! Or the ‘mount from Dark Crystal’-like thing, visible only as legs disappearing off the top of the image.

I can’t wait to kill them! The sweet joy when they fall screaming to the ground and I extract their parts for armour! Wonderful!

I absolutely love this game. I even adore it. The satisfaction of downing a new challenging foe is unparalleled, and I really think I have the skill now to break the HR4 barrier into G-Rank play (solo, no less). Let’s see if that happens.

The series has struggled in the west in the past, mostly due to the difficulty and poor marketing on Capcom’s behalf. But apparently initial sales of MHFU are promising, and it seems western fans are finally realizing the beauty of this game. This bodes well for Monster Hunter 3 Tri, coming next for Wii (no less). Although some suggest MHFU – the version I am playing now – will forever be the highpoint of the series (the Wii version is adding some sweeping changes). Time will tell.

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Epic Loot

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

< Score!

There’s a shot of the loot we brought back with us. It completely filled our large suitcase, one of our carry ons and 75% of the other carry on. The stuff we brought with us (clothes, toiletries etc) was jammed into a duffel.

Notable purchases include:
– Neo ZX Tole Guyver figure kit (by Max Factory)
– 7 Gundam kits (including 4 Keroro Gunpla kits)
– figurines of Nagi (from Kannagi Shrine Maidens) and Nelliel (from Bleach)
– a handful of astoundingly detailed glass animals (I will blog these at a later date)
– 8 Nintendo DS games (including Shining Force Feather, Picross 3D and Lode Runner)
– 4 Sony PSP games (including Wizardry Empire III and Ikki Tousen)
– 2 anime ‘key sketches’ (visible in lower right) including one from Keroro Gunso and one of Uryu from Bleach
– 7 Pinky St figures (KLS collects these) including one of their Monster Hunter ones
– Revoltech figure of Haruhi Suzimaya in her bunny suit from the (Linda Linda Linda inspired) ‘school band’ episode
– over 30 packs of trading and TCG cards (including Monster Hunter, Queens Blade, Bleach, Hayate etc)
– over 50 gashapon items
– over 20 boxed toys
– Monster Hunter CG Illustrations artbook
– Monster Hunter Portable 2 G guidebook (at over 1100 pages, the biggest game guide I have ever seen)

…and more 🙂

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The Day Jesus, The Devil, King Arthur And The Magical Emperor Of Light, Nero Griffith, Made My Dream Come True!

Monday, June 8th, 2009

A fateful glance at a 7-11 the other day made me aware of an astounding truth – the G-Rosso theatre at the Tokyo Dome center was holding Super Sentai shows on weekends during June! Yesterday, one of my all-time Japanese dreams came true when we went and saw Samurai Sentai Shinkenger live on stage!

If you’re completely lost at this point, then think ‘Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers’. That was theAmerican localized version of just one season of the long running Japanese Super Sentai series. Shinkenger is season 33, and tells the story of the usual five protagonists battling monsters with a Japanese period theme.

The stage show was just amazing. It was about 35 minutes long, and featured amazing suits, lots of acrobatics (including some very impressive falls), great choreographed fights and some nifty special effects. Yes, yes it was cheesy. But it was also incredibly awesome. It was a show for men, and made me feel alive. Truly a highlight of this – or of any – Japanese trip.

Here’s my opinion of the show recorded right afterwards.

And then – AND THEN – I walked not fifty steps and rode the Thunder Dolphin, one of the best coasters (if not the best) I have ever ridden.

The Thunder Dolphin is the amazing coaster at the LaQua park at Tokyo Dome that is built on and around a building, and also passed directly through the Big-O spokeless ferris wheel. I rode it before in ’06 and loved it, and this time around it did not disappoint!

Here’s a video of the first drop.

Here’s a video of the entire run (recorded from on the Big-O)

And here’s my opinion of the coaster recorded immediately afterwards.

Obviously I rode Big-O as well, and while it was fun it was no Odaiba wheel… besides half-way through the ride something was starting to happen…

There is a performance stage inside the courtyard of LaQua, and they had been setting up for a show while I was on Thunder Dolphin. KLS had been waiting down there watching a crowd gather and occasionally formation-dance to a music video of a girl idol group they had been rotating on the screen. Here’s a shot of two fans she took:

< Cute fans

While I was on Big-O the show began, and what a show it was: a cute girl idol band! KLS saw the whole performance; I managed to see the second half after rushing over after riding Big-O.

The group of seven girls is called Fudan Juku (also, confusingly, Nakano Fujoshi Sisters) and their schtick is they cosplay as boys. The performance (four songs) was full of energy, great outfits, well-choreographed dances (that the girls performed very well) and very, very enthusiastic fans.

Here’s a video KLS managed to shoot on the sly.

It was a very entertaining performance, and it’s easy to see how these groups can garner such devotion in their fanbase. The music was catchy, but even more so was the energy of the girls themselves. The idol industry here in Japan truly has this stuff down to a fine art!

Now I mentioned earlier I always wanted to see a live action Sentai show? Well another dream of mine (and KLS’s, in fact a much bigger one for her) was to see an idol group perform live! Two dreams in one day! Hence the title of this entry 🙂

Of course nothing else that we did yesterday could hope to compete with such a morning, so it’s barely worth mentioning we rushed through the imperial gardens in record time due to the soul-destroying heat in Tokyo yesterday…

… or that we had truly fantastic Burgers for lunch, and KLS had a chocopan for breakfast…

…or that Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara is so mind-boggingly big and full of amazing stuff that it feels like The Pure Land. Take the toy section for instance, otherwise known as the 6th floor. It alone is bigger than most shops you’ve ever been in, and in addition to a truly mind-boggling array of Gundams, boxed toys, video games, trading cards and (every other type of toy ever made) still manages to easily accomodate over 700 gashapon machines…

AW if you entered this place your mind would stop.

At this point, with yesterday a still good memory, I’ll give a preview of today. And that would be the Magic Apple Pie I just ate. The cashier at McDonalds handed it to me using both hands, with such a genuine smile of appreciation. Japanese girls are underappreciated by the ‘herbivore men’ that don’t even look at them when they buy their fast food, so it’s no surprise I charm each and every one of them with each purchase I make. My reward, this one time, was a Magic Apple Pie. For a single, lousy, Y100 coin this blissful baked treat filled with me energy abundant and managed to help abate the cold-like symptoms I am fighting off.

The Magic Apple Pie. Yet another reason I love visiting this country 🙂

Posted in Family, Games, Miscellaneous, Music, Otaku | 1 Comment »

‘Adamski Type’ (aka. The UFO Catcher Post)

Saturday, June 6th, 2009

UFO Catcher is the japanese term for ‘claw games’. These are devices where you manipulate a claw in an attempt to pick up a prize and drop it into a hole for collection. Here’s a shot of a typical UFO Catcher:

< UFO Catcher

These things are extremely popular here in Japan. As I mentioned in an earlier post, they are the ‘hook’ that gets people into arcades. They are typically the most abundant type of machine in any arcade and are placed at the most visible positions (almost always at street level). The range of prizes available are staggering and run the absolute gamut, with a tendency toward the cute, perhaps because these machines are very popular with female players (and not just young females). Here’s a random collection of shots of various catchers and their prizes:

From top left: sausages, stuffed bears, a pillow, Haruhi figurines, Monster Hunter cats and big stuffed bear heads. (The bear mascot incidentally is called Rilakkuma and is stupid popular here these days). In parts of town popular with girls (such as Shibuya) the machines are typically more likely to have cute goods (and not always toys), whereas in places popular with dudes (ie. Akihabara) the machines have dude-ish contents such as cute girl figurines or Gundam merchandise.

However these things don’t just contain toys, as you can see here:

From left: a refridgerated machine vending ice creams; a machine (in Odaiba) with live beetle prizes, and at right a machine (in Ueno) with panties as prizes (this was in a decidedly sleazy arcade…)

If you can imagine it, I’m sure someone in Tokyo has at one time or another put it in a UFO Catcher.

The machines come in all shapes and sizes, from very small with tiny claws to large with massive claws. Here are two examples of the latter:

The one on the right is actually a slight variant because instead of a claw is has two separately controlled fingers. It looks difficult.

The machines are almost always Y100 (about $1) per go, usually with 3 tries for Y200 or 6 for Y500. If the prize is particularly good (such as an iPod or something similar) the cost per attempt can be as high as Y500. However it is more or less moot because the technology in the catchers means that they are as much about chance as they are about skill.

Consider the following case. First, look at this image:

< Rabbit Bonanza!

That was a machine we saw yesterday in Ikebukuro. I wanted to win a rabbit, and KLS (happily) recorded me trying.

Watch the video here.

Yes I won a pink one, more by luck than skill (the claw hooked between the ear and the body). But you saw in the video the first time I tried the claw easily had the strength to lift the yellow rabbit (my initial target) into the air. I had three more attempts after the end of the video (the attendant asked us to stop videoing!) and the claw was so limp it basically couldn’t grab anything. It seemed very much so that the tension of the claw decreased dramatically after my win.

If you read this entry, you can see that this is extremely likely and almost certainly what happened.

Take a look at these images as further illustration of the canny ways the arcade owners use to minimize wins on UFO Catchers:

These images show the same prize in two different machines (a Gurren Laggan sheet). Look closely at the left image – note the anti-slip material placed under the sheet? On the right you can see the sheets are placed in a manner as if to suggest they could easily be knocked down. The catch in both cases is the sheets are quite heavy, probably heavier than the claws could even lift. So they can’t be budged due to the anti-slip stuff, or lifted due to weight. It would only take one try for a player to find this out, but they’re already out their Y100…

Another clever ruse. The prize is dangling directly over the slot you have to drop it into. But the claw can only just come down to the height of the ring. But that tiny ring is supporting all the weight of the Kapibarasan stuffed animal (which is over a foot long). So even assuming your aim is dead on, the chance of actually dislodging it is minute. This setup – making a win look trivial – is quite common.

The left image shows a Rilakkuma stuffed bear that is absolutely massive – easily over 1m in height. There’s no way it’s falling through the prize slot of any machine, so the arcade has an alternate win system – you have to pick up a balloon from a dish of water and drop the balloon into the slot. I’d wager this is borderline impossible, but I had to wait to take this photo today as a couple kept trying 🙂

The thing is, even when I know victory is unlikely and these things are engineered to keep my money. Even when I know the cost of playing is almost more than the value of the prize, well I still enjoy trying these guys. For instance…

< Rilakkuma

…I spent a good 5 or more minutes analyzing the above earlier tonight. Obviously there was no chance of actually picking up the motorized walking toy, but I kept wondering maybe I can knock it to the right if I do xxxxx…

I eventually gave up and walked away, but the machine came damn close to taking some more of my cash 🙂

I’ll end with a shot of something that did not come from a UFO Catcher, but very well may have come from a UFO!

< UFO Cat

Posted in Family, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku | 2 Comments »

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