A Short Post

Here is what I just posted on the game forum re my Persona 4 the Golden playthrough #stillintoit:


 I finally customised my (four) personas that I think work very well with the rest of my team: Yukiko (fire/ heal, though I missed her bike rides so no Mind Charge); Naoto (almighty/ dark/ light/ ice spells); and Kanji (physical/ knocked down). I prefer Kanji + Naoto over Chie, Yosuke and Teddie.

Since this is my third playthru, I don't have the usual suspects: Alice, Yoshitsune, Kaguya, Black Frost etc. The personas I have are: Tam Lin (tri-auto/ debilitate/ primal force); Magatsu-Izanagi (physical + magic/ dark spell), Izanami-no-Okami (wind/ lightning/ victory cry) and, yes, Narcissus for some fun buffing. (All weaknesses covered).

This set up is mainly for fun (InO is really quite mehh) and haven't tested it out on the final two bosses yet but I think I should be fine, esp I rather use my entire team than solo-ing...

Any other alternative setups out there?
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YuGiOh/ FF VII: CC/ Dissidia/ TO/ Disgaea3/ P4G/ FF Type0/ FF IV & TAY/ One Piece2/ FF X-2/ Natural Doctrine/ SnK I & II/ Nobunaga: Souzou/ SAO/ SRWZ3

The Simple Act of Breathing

Just came back from a vinyasa (flow) class and one thing that helped carry me through the strong practice was my breathing. It's true. No breathing, no strength. No breathing with the movement, no yoga. And I used to wonder how breathing could help. The thing is, I used to have this shallow breathing (still do, but am more conscious in trying to lengthen each inhale and exhale) and that doesn't do much. However, when the breath is long and deep, it's very powerful. It becomes a source of energy that both empowers and relaxes the body and mind. It IS the source of life itself.

Headstand in front of the Sky Tower
near the Niagara Falls

In my practice, breathing is like pumping air into the body so it doesn't get deflated. That becomes quite apparent especially when I'm upside down. I was doing headstand once and after about a minute my mind began to drift and wander, and I let go of the conscious breathing ... sure enough, like a deflated float, my body started to collapse (fall down) so, snapping out of my reverie, I quickly started to consciously breathe again, pumping air and energy inside the body. And I went straight up again. And this breathing has to be present throughout. After holding the headstand for about 10 minutes, I definitely have to keep pumping air in or else the core will just give up.

Talk about the core, I will need to train it more because, while my headstand is pretty solid now, I still cannot do pincha mayurasana or handstand away from the wall. I'm hoping to take some private classes with a friend to work on building up core and arm strength. Stamina is something that I truly lack when it comes to my yoga practice, so it's something that I will continue to work on as well as learning how to do those bandha locks ... am hoping to be able to do handstand by end of 2015 ...     

An Awesome Trailer...

THIS:

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Magatsu Izanagi & Izanagi no okami

Just came back from a trip to Toronto and am glad I brought my PSVita along ... the flights there and back are quite long (around 15 hours each way) so perfect opportunity for endless hours of mindless grinding LOL. I've finally unlocked Magatsu Izanagi in Persona 4 Golden and about to unlock Izanagi no okami too. Since I'm now near the end of my third playthrough, I'll use these two versions of Izanagi to fight the final two bosses, which I look forward to. Though I don't have the "perfect" setups for my team (that's kinda arbitrary anyway), I think I will manage...

I know Yukiko can have Mind Charge (magic boosting) but I missed those bike rides so I cannot max her fire magic damages but close. My Kanji and Naoto should be close to perfect (if not perfect); Kanji's ability to confuse is great for farming those Golden Hands, and Naoto has Hamaon and Mudoon spells as well as Megidolaon. I don't use Yosuke/Chie/Teddy after first playthrough cos I really like Kanji and Naoto more. And I think Yukiko is a better offensive + healer than Teddy. 

Which leaves Yu, the protagonist. In order to clear all the persona slots to create Izanagi no okami, I have "deleted" Helel (since Magatsu Izanagi is now the Golden Hand killer); Ishtar (well, I don't need a healer with Hamaon/Mudoon spells); Black Frost (end game I can just buy items for elementary damages and to escape dungeon); Kaguya (again, no need for Hamaon/Mudoon spells); and Narcissus (for buffing/ debuffing). I might just keep the very last persona just for fun. The question is how to build the two Izanagis? At the moment, my Magatzu Izanagi deals both physical and almighty damages (have decided not to make it physical only) and I'm likely to use Izanagi no okami as magic damage dealer + healer. I'm looking forward to setting these two up...

A Lull in Games-land

Though Persona Dancing All Night (a rhythm game for P4G fans like me) was released last week, it's in Japanese and it looks like the gameplay is not much fun without understanding the story; so I'll probably have to wait until the English version, which won't be released until September/October. 

Kanji Forever!!!

In the meantime, there isn't much out there that really interests me right now. Have played Sword Art Online Lost Song a bit more but all this hacking and slashing is getting a bit tedious. Super Robot Wars Z would have been lots of fun ~ if only I could understand Japanese and all the conditions that I'd need to meet in order to win SPs ... It'd also be great to understand all the special moves, skills and abilities of the myriads of robots... that really doesn't leave me much of a choice but to ... go back to my Yu-gi-oh game on my GameBoy Advanced *LOL* Yes, have revived my old handheld (bought a new battery for it) so will pick up where I left off with this game, like, 10 years ago?!? 

Sword Art Online: Lost Song

Having played Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment, which I never quite got into (not yet), I bought Lost Song anyway because I really like the anime-style graphics this series presents. It's your classical hack & slash game (which, again, not really my thing) but the gameplay is simple enough it's quite a good time killer. The music is pretty good too. Surprisingly, I'm enjoying Lost Song a lot more (despite it being a smaller game with less content I am told) than Hollow Fragment because 1) we can fly around, over the vast map and 2) I can use magic!!! The combat/ battle system is quite complicated and not so easy to grasp at the beginning but once that is mastered, the gameplay really is a lot of fun. Here are a couple of screen caps (not sure about those elf ears...): 

Family album: Asuna, Yui and Kirito

Sinon, Kirito and Asuna

This is my fav track from Hollow Fragment:

Nobunaga's Ambition: Creation

Here is an interesting game that I've been playing for awhile lately. In fact, I downloaded it way back (2014) but wasn't able to get into it straightaway. It's one of those strategy war games in which you have to spend absolutely ages to build up your own city before you start conquering neighbouring territories; the whole process, needless to day, can be v v v time consuming. Anyway, I got my hands on a Chinese edition (previously played something called the Romance of the Three Kingdoms 12, and though I kinda got the gist of the gameplay I never advanced much with the game since it is all in Japanese) and it still took me some time just to understand the basic gameplay (even with a tutorial). But after having put it down a few months, I decided to make another crack at it and it has been quite a rewarding experience.

To begin with, there are just many, many ways to play this game. You can just pick and choose a particular (seminal) battle and play either as Nobunaga or one of his allies/enemies. I decided to go for the "canon" historical account first. So before progressing I'd need to meet certain conditions first, which can be challenging. For instance, if you fail to conquer a city by a certain year, then it's, like, game over. Well, you just cannot proceed with the (real) story. I've done pretty well and am about to conquer the northwest territories. And because I'm totally anal, I've stashed up lots of cash in the treasury, as well as food for my forever expanding armies, and horses and weapons. There is so much micro management going on, which I kinda enjoy. Which is weird. Cos in real life I totally don't micro manage but I love that in my games. But I think I've built up such an empire now that unifying Japan is probably just a few more gameplay hours away. I might just pause here. 

Then I am really running out of games to play. All those Hyperdimension titles, pretty that they look, lack substance (hmm, I think that's the whole point of the series). I LOVE Super Robot Wars but it's in Japanese so I'm going to be stuck with the game soon cos of language barrier. Actually, finding a online walkthrough might help. Will have to wait until autumn before the English version of Persona 4 Dancing All Night is released.