More (photos) on this game... just completed Chapter 3 (god, these "class trials" are SO LONG and those mini games such a chore...) and the storytelling is pretty gripping. Heard chapters 4, 5 and 6 are excellent so looking forward to advancing the game. But agree Chapter 3 is pretty weak and needs to take a break from that lengthy trial...
Finally! Persona Dancing All Night is here!!! Bought the limited edition that came with lots of goodies (including two CDs!!) so am quite pleased. However, after all that wait I won't be playing it any time soon because I am in the middle of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair.
Moment of hilarity ... Oops ***spoiler***
Now, here is a weird game. I first played a Danganronpa title many, many months ago (in Chinese) and decided I hated it. I love murder mysteries (and solving them) but this game is a little sick (I rechristened it the Sicko Game). It is about 16 students trapped on an island and the only way out is for them to kill one another. Ahem. So Japanese. Conceptually it's totally violent ... well, so is some of its presentation, really. The gameplay I found really hard to grasp as I didn't quite understand the Chinese instructions so I played it for a few hours and gave up.
However, I did find the characters memorable. So when I saw the English release, I decided to give it another go. Only to read that in order to fully enjoy/ make sense of the sequel I'd need to play Danganronpa 1: Trigger Happy Havoc first. So I got the English release for that and played the first chapter. The pace was just too slow so I decided to just watch the walkthrough on YouTube and jump to the sequel. *LOL*
So, am now in Chapter 3 of DGR2 and totally into it. I think, overall, characters from the sequel are better as they are more wacky and funny than those from the first game (which in general is much darker in tune and very claustrophobic). End of Chapter 2 was so heart-breaking it brought a tear to my eye ... something I totally did NOT expect!
Persona DAN will just have to wait.
Meanwhile, I've started to teach yoga (charging $) and it's been both fun and challenging. There was this issue of insecurity at the beginning (like, omg, the students are better than me!) but one of my instructors told me that, once I step on that mat as an instructor, it doesn't matter who's better than who doing what ... it's my duty and responsibility to lead and teach my students the best I can!!! And that's what I've been doing and it really is a rewarding experience ~ :-)
MiGod, this game is addictive!! After my first playthrough I really didn't expect to go all the way with the level grinding in the second run ... but it was actually less gruelling that it initially looked. The only part that I didn't enjoy as much was farming certain items (flamin wings and the autosave chip ... yikes!) and levelling up the Lily ranks (yikes x 2). Anyway, I think I have now got my definitive team (this is normally my favourite part of any RPG games like Persona 4 and Sen no Kiseki 1&2) and ready for the mega boss dungeons. Below is what I posted on a vid game forum:
Final leg of levelling (to lvl 999 for all) and limit break plan now activated. Here is my (almost) final pairing (everyone in the front has ignore enemy traits, shortens wait and nulls all ailments):
Noire + CC2 (Noire can fill the Exe gauge fast-ish) Vert + Nep-Nep (I swap between the two; Gardevoir, I follow your Nep-Nep setup :-) ) Rom + Broccoli (Rom is my healer + powerhouse)
Both Nep-Nep and Rom have the drill chip; Noire has gradual hp recovery lvl 5. Hopefully this is a strong enough team... I love the fact I can adjust the game's difficulty at any time :-) --- YuGiOh/ FF VII: CC/ Dissidia/ TO/ Disgaea3/ P4G/ FF Type0/ One Piece2/ FF X-2/ Natural Doctrine/ SnK I & II/ Nobunaga/ MM/ SAO/ HNR1/ SRWZ3/ DGR1&2
Have to recharge my PS Vita now before unlocking Nep-Nep's ultimate gears. Getting Rom's stuff was the hardest ... her armour just refused to drop, but had much better luck with Vert's and Noire's. Hope Neptune's also easy cos I really, really hate grinding for gears too.
Now, here is a surprise. I didn't expect to get into this game but, well, I did -- and totally addicted to it lately. The first time I came across this "Neptune" character was when I was playing the Monster Monpiece card game (released by the same game company, Compile Heart) and I thought the anime art was pretty cool (well, yes!) Then I saw some reviews of this game (turn-based JRPG) and thought I'd give it a go. This is nothing like the Sen No Kiseki I & II series (which is v dark and serious). Quite the contrary, HNRB1 is totally goofy/hilarious and doesn't take itself too seriously.
The gameplay, though, is kinda hard to get into. At first it was a little tedious to be honest... there was the usual levelling (started with just one character, then, two, then three), unlocking new skills, finding new weapons and accessories etc. There were also all sorts of monster drops that unlock new dungeons, enemies, items and special bonuses that make the game harder/easier... I, of course, made the game easier! Then I realised there were DLCs so I bought one character (Plutia), which really helped me get through some of the tougher battles.
So you can see the more things you unlock, the higher level the characters are and the more abilities unfold, things to get interesting and... addictive. By the time when I have more than half a dozen characters to play around with, there was no stopping there....
So basically the story revolves around four "game goddesses" - Neptune, Noire, Vert and Blanc - who are at loggerheads in this "console war" (well, each goddess supposed to represent a game console...) and when the other three decide to gang against Neptune, the "Purple Heart Goddess" loses and falls onto Earth as a result, losing all her memory. Here she meets Compa a young nurse and an intelligence agent (?) called IF. They soon become BFFs and their mission, of course, is to re-discover Nep-Nep's memory. Lurking in the background are some evil forces who want to destroy all the four goddesses...
To cut a long story short and fast forward to Chapter 8 (where I am at now), I have unlocked half a dozen supporting characters and one part of this game that I find most fun is to pair them up for battles. Six characters can take part in them, but only three actually do the fighting at any given time. So, logically (and being anally thematic), I have all four protagonists in the team and to leverage on the bonuses, here is my pairing: Neptune + (sister) Nepgear; Blanc + (sister) Rom; Vert + Noire. Just for fun, other pairings include Compa + IF and magic combo Plutia + MAGES.
I don't think I will finish the game -- even I'm totally over-levelled now for the final boss (a bit like my Final Fantasy X2 game, which I stopped playing in the final chapter) -- cos I don't want to do NG+ (gawd, farming items - which is such a grind - can be v tedious) so will see how far I will go with the Colosseum (which has enemies up to level 999... at the moment my team is only level 70+ so you can imagine there is still a Long way to go).
In the meantime, I really love this battle music (esp the violin part):
Phew! Having got my PS Vita back from repairs (Sim card slot no longer worked and time for a new battery); and Sony actually gave me a new replacement (wow!) though keeping my limited-edition Hatsune Miku casing; I've been busy checking out some new games.
Nobunaga Reboot edition
These include F2P Mobile Suit Gundam: Battle Fortress, which looks interesting but it's an online game; Danganronpa: Another Episode, which also looks interesting but a first-person shooter; as well as Nobunaga's Ambition: Sphere of Influence Power-up Kit, which I bought since it's an upgrade/reboot of an older game of the same title (minus the "power-up") that I enjoyed playing but have yet to fully explore. Have also dug up Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;birth 1, a colourful and fun game but gameplay a bit grind-y. But the big one that I'm waiting for, Persona 4 Dancing All Night, is not out until September, even though the Japanese "Disco" edition is out already. Since the wait is killing me I've been playing Persona 4 the Golden, grinding levels and ultimate weapons in three dungeons before taking on the final two bosses (if I'm ever gonna do that, since that'd start a fourth playthrough, which I rather not do).
Meanwhile, amid all this gaming, I took a private yoga class last week to focus on my handstand practice. It was tough. Partly because my arms are yet not strong enough to support the body as I press up, and partly because hips/ hamstrings are not flexible enough to align and stablise arms and lowerback/hips while pressing up. It really is a lot harder than thought. And I think I will have to keep practising before I take the next class. Need to learn to at least stablise the legs off ground position before lifting legs up to the full pose.
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? --- 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
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 ...
