Game

DOWNLOAD (Megaupload Links)

1. Tales of Hearts Anime Movie Edition (158)
2. Tales of Hearts CG Movie Edition (119)
3. DEEN - Eien no Ashita (ToH OP Single) (111)

Not my usual upload, but  since I love it so much, I want to share the love. If you find the game worthwhile after trying it out, do consider buying a copy for keeps. If you don’t have a DS console, I suggest you try no$gba to emulate the ROMs (use it with myZoom to adjust the screen size). If you like the game, go ahead and buy the originals as your own Christmas present ^^ The box is beautiful! You can also get the Tales of Hearts DS kit to beautify your DS. I would get one of those kits myself if I wasn’t so short on money.

I also uploaded DEEN’s single for the opening theme, Eien no Ashita. The single includes the song ‘Yume de aru youni ~ Tales of Destiny ver~ , Tooi Natsu no Yume and off vocal versions of Eien no Ashita and Tooi Natsu no Yume. I love DEEN’s songs, the lyrics especially, and I’m happy with this one too.

They were uploaded to Megaupload because I couldn’t be bothered with splitting the files to upload to Mediafire, and my FTP client restarted the transfer at 90% after 2 hours. I’ll add direct links later, maybe, when I re-install Bulletproof FTP. FileZilla is stupid.

Note that Hisui is at least 2 times hotter in the CG movie edition than he is in the anime movie edition XD Anime version Kohaku reminds me of Reala (Tales of Destiny 2), though. Not very original there, Namco.

Don’t choose show ‘all’ for the battle system option. Just show the target would be fine. I chose to show ‘all’ initially and had to squint my eyes at the screen to attack.

This review is for Junjou Romantica game for Playstation 2, Doki doki Daisakusen. I got it as a birthday present from my brother (who was in Japan for work). As you may know, PS3 is not yet backwards compatible, so you can only pay this game on PS2.

So I’ve played the game last month… It totally pains me to review this game badly, but it just needs to be done. I may be biased because I’m very selective when it comes to playing simulation-based video games. If you’ve played it and thinks otherwise, you may disregard this. I’m not saying that there aren’t good points about the game. It’s just that the bad ones exceed the good ones (for me, anyway). Keep in mind that this is just what I think, and may not be generalised to others who have also played this game.

Repititive Facial Expression + Reactions
It gets boring when the only difference you can see, aside from the dialogues depending on the course of action of your choice, is the background. Characters’ expressions and reactions are very limited.

Unlock CGs
Gameplay is fine if you’re into sim or dating-sim kind of game. This game reminds me greatly of Kyou Kara Maou game I played back then. 10 minutes into the game, I can’t help but think that the sole reason for playing the game is to unlock the CGs. How is that any different from normal CG games?

But the good thing about unlocking the CGs is that you get the storyline XD

Price-wise?
Because of the price (not that I paid on my own, but still), I expected a little bit more action from this game. I’m just glad they didn’t introduce random NPCs who would somehow try to turn our Junjou couples into love triangles of sorts. Unless you’re a real hardcore, I’d suggest you to not buy this game. True that we fans need to support it, but money matters as well. It’s not worth buying a game that would bore you to death the moment you start playing.

However, if you’re interested in the plotline, you might want to buy this. It’s crackishly adorable. Your characters can interact with each other much more than they ever did (or would ever be) in the manga and anime. Get your ukes to talk, that’s fine and cute too.

Oh, and this game is kind of worksafe. Kind of, I said. Just pay a little bit more attention to your door if you leave it unlocked when you’re in the middle of the of the game.

p.s/ I’ve already converted the game into PSP format. Works great though the screen is small. If you’re constantly on the move, you might want to do that too.

Due to some kind of depression, I took a little break from migrating and reconfiguring the site to play games. I finished Time Hollow in one night (with all the alternate endings, no path left untouched even if it meant risking my Time and running around looking for Chrons pieces). I’m now playing the DS game that I’ve been waiting for since it was announced.

TALES OF HEARTS!!

I shamelessly admit that I am a die-hard fan of Namco’s Tales series :3 The fact that their character names have the equal “=” sign to divide first and last names is interestingly interesting. Tales of Hearts come in two editions, Anime Edition and CG Movie Edition. It was recently released on December 18, 2008. I almost forgot about it, until I saw the CM for the game while watching Gundam 00 last Sunday. I squealed.

I’m currently playing the CG Movie Edition of ToH. I want to get the anime version too, but now I’ll just finish this one. It’s interesting to see high quality CG video playback on your DS (sorry PSP, I haven’t touched you for about a year). This game is officially the biggest DS one I have. Even The World Ends With You isn’t as big. When it comes to ROM size (I checked), ToH is 256mb too! Hrrr…

I started bwahaha-ing from the moment Shing said ‘kawaii.. onnanoko..dana..?’ and tried to revive Kohaku, who then woke up and shrieked like a lil girl. Shing got 3 punches and 1 uppercut.

Hisui cannot swim, but Kohaku still pulled her brother into the ocean… Priceless.  Did I also mention I like Kohaku’s voice? It’s Marina Inoue, who also did Kyoko in Skip Beat.

Kohaku and Hisui were looking for Zechs the Soma wielder. When Shing pointed out where their house is (and that Zechs is his Jii-chan), Kohaku promptly forgot having pummelled the poor guy. Before she left, though, she asked Shing again if Shing really didn’t do anything weird to her when she was out cold. When she left, Hisui smacked Shing (lol at the double meaning) once, and being the siscon that he is, told Shing straight away “Listen here, Kid. If you touch my litte sister… I’ll kill you, k?”

“BUT I’M TRULY INNOCENT!! T__T” Poor, mistaken Shing. You won’t ever win against a siscon, trust me.

K: Hey you, where’s your Gramps?
S: He went out. He’d be back around evening.
H: You bastard, you lied to get Kohaku into your house, didn’t you?! (lol)
S: I didn’t lie! Here, I’ll show you Soma as a proof! There’s something here… (went through bookshelves) Gramps wrote this book that’s got the information about Soma… (rummages some more) That Gramps, where did he hide the key? Heh, it should be around here somewhere.
H: If you’re just messing around with my lil sister, I’ll kill you (lolololol Hisui!)
S: *sweatdrop*

Shing found the key in one of the barrels and opened the chest to take out the sword Soma. Innocence proven at last.

More conversation:
S: If you believe that I didn’t do anything weird… I suppose it’s ok.
K: Yup, I believe in you! After all, weird people wouldn’t be able to wield Soma, right?

How very naive of you, Kohaku. And for players’ sake, stop saying “kanojou said this’“and “kanojou said that..“!!

I’ll probably rant more about ToH later, but not now. Lots more things to do. Here, have a short vid taken by my shaky hands. If you want to play the game, press Select for random conversation (pointers for your next destination/what you need to do to progress).

Until later.

Title: Junjou Romantica ~Koi no Dokidoki Daisakusen
Genre: Junjou Adventure (LOL! What awesome genre )
Release Date: 30th October 2008
Price:
(a) Limited Edition – 9,429 yen
(b) Regular Edition – 7,329 yen

Well, again, I am almost 5 days late, but I’ll just write this to share my excitement.

I guess many of us know about the PS2 game for Junjou Romantica – the title and what it’s about. I’m just overly excited because my brother agreed to buy it for my birthday, even if that’s after me dropping lots of hints and promoting the awesomeness of JR t him. He was like, “But don’t play it when the kids are around.” Yeah right, from someone who taught his 3-year-old daughter how to play RPG games on PSP.

Er… Back to the original topic… I’m starting to hate the term ‘limited edition’ with a passion when it comes to JR. No, seriously! The limited edition DVD will come with:

• Shungiku-sensei’s artwork on the package
• a Special Voice CD containing the voice of all 6 characters throughout the entire game,
• a Dokidoki Visual Artbook - character sketches and arts from the game (please tell me that someone would eventually sell this on eBay!)
• 3 plastic bookmarks that have the mascots (one mascot per bookmark, I guess) on them.

For those who pre-orders, they’ll also get two cases for cards/passes (originally intended for fangirls, I’m sure…)

For info, summary and discussion (and lots of giggles), check out this thread on our forum~

Listening to Mai Kuraki’s ‘Key to My Heart‘ and reading Tales of Destiny manga are proven bad for my mind and heart…

God, I want to play the game again! both Tales of Destiny and Tales of Destiny 2, though the latter doesn’t have as much effects on me. I am a big fan of Leon Magnus (or Judas in ToD2, or his real name Emilio, or Lion or however it is his name is spelled) and Rutee Katret. Really, I am. I hope so much for this two siblings to gain happiness in the end. Their past is too tainted, and I really don’t like how Leon ended up being the ‘Victim of Fate’ throughout the two games. At one time, I even wondered if the creator is some sort of a sadist or something when it comes to Leon and a few other characters, but mainly towards Leon since his misfortune just keeps building up XP Seriously, it hurt my heart.

I wished desperately for a happy end for these two characters. To cut things short, it seems like all of my favourite fictional characters have misfortune after misfortune chasing their backs, hot on their heels. It’s not fair, and it’s unexpected at first.

When Leon was still mine to control, I focused on levelling him up as soon as possible and equipping him with the best disc and accessories possible. He’s truly an asset. I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. I loved his snarky remarks and his friendly banter with Rutee too much to think of the possibility that he would leave the party at some point of the game.

I cursed when it really did happen.

If he was truly evil from the start, I could accept his betrayal. I just couldn’t accept the fact that he was forced to betray them. Since I predicted him and Rutee to be long-lost relatives from the start judging by their appearances (judging by their eyes and hair colour, even the style!), I wasn’t surprised at the revelation. You could say that I’m devastated when Leon stated that he’d kill his father and sister to protect what’s most important to him.

And I was like “Curse you, Marian!”

When it comes to Leon, I just can’t see him in any kind of romantic relationship be it straight or shounen-ai – period. Maybe it’s my selfish side talking, but I see him as someone who needs family love more than romantic love. He has been denied a family from the earliest stage of his life. Marian’s resemblance to his mother might be one reason why he’s so close to her, but later on it seems that his feelings towards her aren’t completely… platonic.

And that was just sick.

Why do I have to read the manga at times like this?

Why must the manga follows the plot of the game religiously?

They could at least give us Leon fans the satisfaction and fiddle a little bit with the twisted storyline… or maybe not. I hope the manga will not follow Tales of Destiny II. No offense to ToD2 fans, but I don’t really like the storyline. I have no qualms with it’s gameplay, graphics, etc. It’s just the time travelling that puts me off (but I have to admit that Dymlos’ human form makes my heart skip a beat XD).

Somehow, I have to admit that there are some differences in the manga. Bruiser Khang and Karyl don’t exist. Maybe the mangaka (Kuon-sensei) doesn’t feel it’s necessary to include them (and I shudder to think about Karyl’s appearance. That bard…)

And Hugo never get the party to wear the tiara that could electrocute them if they ever try to run away.

The part that I like most about the manga is the part with Mary and Dalis. I’m glad Kuon-sensei chose the alternate ending for them in which Dalis lives. (I only got to that part on my second time of playing ToD).

And then, of course, there’s Rutee.

I was more than happy to know that she’s Leon’s sister and Hugo’s daughter. Out of all the characters, I like her background the most. I don’t particularly like girls in RPGs, unless they’re really good. RPG girls like Philia… I don’t like her type.I just love how Rutee could be spunky and affectionate at the same time XD

It’s 4.17am now… I’ll continue later with this long rant.