Remembering the Classics: Yu Yu Hakusho Part 1

For the last little bit, I've been desperately wanting to watch a bunch of anime from the 90's and the millennium. The one anime that has been really tickling my fancy for some reason is Yu Yu Hakusho. I originally avoided this anime like the plague because I had an acquaintance in college who claimed that the show was based on real events, that she was a reincarnated angel and that her friend was dating Edward from Twilight. She was also convinced that there was a gang of Vampires invading Moscow.

Vampires EVERYWHERE!

Honestly, the only reason I even knew her was because she was roommates with one of my friends. At least she was fun to hang out with during Halloween.

Anyway, I found out that the DVD's for the anime are pretty cheap so my boyfriend and I decided to pick up season 1. We watched all of disk 1. So I decided to share my thoughts on the first two story arcs.

Arc I: Our Main Character Dies!

Our story starts off with the death of our main character, Yusuke Urameshi. Normally, Yusuke is a cranky, school skipping, self identified miscreant. However at the last minute, he jumps in the way of a car, seen above, in order to save the life of a child. The crash proves fatal and Yusuke soon finds himself looking down at the scene. The only one able to see him is a mysterious woman named Botan. 

She rides a boat ore like a witch rides a broomstick. It makes sense in a weird way. She is meant to guide lost souls across the river Styx after all. Anyway, Botan tells Yusuke that he wasn't supposed to jump in the way of the car and since they weren't exactly expecting him to die so soon, they don't have a spot set up for him in the after world. Because of this and his selfless act, he is given the option to go through a trial in order for him to possibly get his life back. Originally Yusuke refuses, thinking that there is no one way anyone in his life would miss him. He soon finds out that he in fact has 4 people who miss him.

His alcoholic mother....

I couldn't find a picture of her crying. 

His love interest, Keiko....

I'm not sure why though.

His wannabe rival, Kazuma....

DON'T DO DRUGS!

and finally the school principle.

Anyway, after seeing so many people mourn his death, he decided to go along with the trial. Yusuke is then wisked away to the spirit world where he then meets Koenma, son of King Enma and currently in charge while his father is away. 

He's a little short. 

That Egg he's holding there is a part of Yusuke's trial, he has to raise the spirit egg to birth where it will either become some sort of spirit guide or an evil head biting creature depending on what type of emotions he feeds it. Anyway, episodes 3-5 are pretty much just character development while Yusuke tries to be a good parent for the spirit egg. I won't spoil the end of the arc here but basically Yusuke has to decide whether to save his kind of sort of but not really girlfriend or be reincarnated. Despite his choice for the first, he still comes back to life though.

This arc is very weird in that it doesn't really have ANYTHING to do with the feel of the show later on, when Yusuke becomes a spirit detective. It still gives us an interesting introduction into our characters though with even more on the way in the next arc. It definitely had a few funny moments and kept me entertained but I feel like it could have been compressed a bit more. The real reason we watch shows like Yu Yu Hakusho is for the action. Luckily the next arc goes a long way in giving us more of that. More on that next time. 

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to leave your comments and criticisms in the comments and remember to share with your friends. 

Random Netflix Review: Dark Secrets.

The opening to Dark Secrets

I often find my mind wandering when I play MMOs. (Massively Multiplayer Online) It eventually gets to the point that I can't grind anymore and need a break. I can often bypass this limitation and play for a much longer time by also watching something on Netflix on my Wii U gamepad. Mostly I try to watch shows that I wouldn't watch otherwise but still look interesting to me. Usually I watch Deadly Women but had to stop after I started comparing the killers in the program to my own mother. I decided to spread out a bit and started watching documentaries. This eventually lead me to UFO documentary which then led me to a new show just added to Netflix, Dark Secrets.

The series is presented like a crime reenactment series, however all of the "stories" are from a recently found stash of documents, pictures and documentaries put together by a mysterious investigator simply known as "The Teller." Each episode focuses on a different case that The Teller had investigated. These range from a Frankenstein style bio weapon invented by scientists during the Vietnam war to a house that hungers for flesh. Obviously these stories are all fictional. 

But at the same time, I found myself charmed by the show. The voice of the Teller narrates the entire series and you often find yourself guessing as to what is really going on. Some of the stories are incredibly well thought out, you can tell the writers are having a tone of fun. In many ways, they remind me of the best Creepy Pasta. 

Just like all crime reenactments though, the acting is TERRIBLE. I've always thought of this as a part of the fun that is this genre but many other Netflix viewers disagree. The user reviews are all over the place, many people saying the acting is what turned them off to it. If you don't mind some crappy acting and enjoy a creative, creepy story, give it a shot. It's only 8 episodes long.

One thing I do want to also add, I had a lot of trouble finding any info about this show. The only info that seems to be posted about it is on the 3net website, the studio that made the show, and the history channel website. They did have an email address to contact in case you have any questions. I'll update this post if I get a response back.

As always, please comment and share if you enjoyed and if you see any spelling errors, feel free to let me know. I try to correct my spelling but I'm kind of terrible at it. 

My life in the Pokemon world.

I've often wondered what my life would be like if I lived in the world of Pokemon. Let's face it, we all can't be 10 year old prodigies who become Pokemon masters. In fact, I'm down right positive that I would be terrible at Pokemon battles. The moment anyone used Tail Whip against my Charmander, I would be like, "NO MY BABY! LEAVE HIM ALONG YOU FUCKING RATATA!"

NO! GET AWAY FROM ME! LEAVE MY POKEMON ALONE!

So yeah, my Pokemon wouldn't get past level 1 unless you can get experience by playing with a chew toy. This would also get rid of my ability to be a gym leader or a gym rat. Plus I avoid going to gym like the plague in this universe so why not everywhere else. Well that leads to the side games. I could be a gambling man and spend all day at the slots.

Doesn't seem to actually have much to do with Pokemon though....

Yeah, I don't gamble. I'm terrible at it and the chances of winning are so low, I just don't see the point. Also my boyfriend works at a security guard for an Indian casino so I've heard plenty of horror stories that make me want to stay away. Maybe I could make Pokeballs. That would be kind of cool. People bring me acorns and I use my practiced hands to craft the perfect little home for future Pokemon. Let's forget the fact thatI find the idea of stuffing small creatures into balls MORTIFYING!

God, this is hard. In the end, I don't think I would be anybody super obsessed with Pokemon, knowing me, I would only really want a companion Pokemon. Or two. In fact, I already know which  pokemon it would be based on the type of animals I obsess over in real life. 

PUPPIES!

MUST CUDDLE!

So tough looking but still must hug!

THOSE EARS! MUST PET THEM!

My heart BLEEDS for cute things. I love puppies and dogs. I love playing with them and hugging them and cuddling with them and talking to them and.......OH GOD I WANT TO HUG ONE NOW!

I would probably go out of my way to get a big barn in the country and have a collection of cute Pokemon who run around and play. I would host a YouTube channel dedicated to cute Pokemon. They would probably sleep at the foot of my bed, if not under the covers with me. I get the feeling that boyfriend would probably get jealous though. 

What type of Poke person would you be? Please share and comment your thoughts, I would love to hear what type of person you would be in the world of Pokemon. 

Does Phil Fish deserve the hate?

Phil Fish-The man behind Fez

Recently, Phil Fish has come into media attention today when he tweeted to the effect that if you make money off of playing the game, Fez, you then owe him money. He later deleted his Twitter account completely and hasn't responded further. This isn't the first time that Fish has been in the media spotlight for his attitude and opinions. Fish left the gaming industry last year, quoting his reason being, "This is isn't the result of any one thing, but the end of a long, bloody campaign. You win."

After the resent Twitter drama, I decided to finally break down and watch Indie Game: The Movie, remembering that Marcus Beer from GameTrailers had said Fish appeared whiny in the movie. In fact, Marcus has gone on record multiple times to denounce Fish's attitude and actions. When I saw the movie though, I wouldn't say he's whiny. I would say he's an extreme perfectionist. If things don't go his way, he begins to break down, kind of like a diva on a movie set. Only, instead of going back to his trailer, he quits development of a game or deletes his Twitter account.

Mr. Fish has the type of personality that if things don't go his way, then the world is going to end. That type of personality is not conductive to a design job, because things will NEVER go 100% your way. With an attitude like that, you will quickly drive yourself insane in a design job. As a student of design, I can attest to that better than most. I remember one time, I was tasked with making a virtual space in Torque only to be constantly defeated by the damn import tool. I didn't end up finishing the project and was forced to admit my failure. In doing so, I grew as a designer and realized what I could and could't do. I don't feel like Mr. Fish is capable of that yet. At least not at the capacity that he needs to,

Maybe some day we'll see Mr. Fish return to the game industry, but before he can do that, he's going to need to learn to accept failure and to accept that things aren't black and white. I would be happy to see that growth  in him and see him return as a successful and happy designer. However, I don't think we'll be seeing that any time soon.

As for whether he deserves the hate or not, I don't believe to the extend that he has suffered. However, he will need to take responsibility for his actions if he ever does intend to return to the game industry. Some of his actions were fundamentally wrong. If you're going to expressive and opinionated, you need to back it up and fight for it. Not doing so is childish and makes you look like a fool. You also need to be able to take criticism in any job, not just game design. If somebody calls you out on something, you don't just throw up your hands and say "I quit." You have to either defend your actions or you need to incorporate that criticism.

What do you think? Does Mr. Fish deserve the hate. Comment and shares are always appreciated.

Would you be okay with a gender swapped Link?

E3 has come and gone again and although there wasn't much to celebrate this year, that was last year, there was one thing that got me mega excited.



OMFG LEGEND OF ZELDA!!!!!!!!!

As most of you have already heard, there was a lot of talk amongst fans though about this trailer. Link was looking awfully feminine. A member of Nintendo quickly shot the idea of Link being female, confirming that he was in fact male. But that got me thinking, what if Link was a girl this time. A lot of people used to think Samus was a boy, why couldn't we see a gender swapped Link.

Honestly, Nintendo will probably never do this. Nintendo doesn't like to bring about controversy. However The Legend of Zelda series is filled with kick ass women. In fact, out of the 4 confirmed characters for Hyrule Warrior, the Zelda game being made by the people behind Dynasty Warriors,  three of them are women.

Zelda, Midna and Impa.

I think a lot of people have thought about the possibility of a Zelda game staring Zelda, we don't count the CDI games though. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw Zelda games featuring multiple playable protagonists. What do you think though? Would you be interested to see a gender swapped Link? What other game characters would you be interested in seeing gender swapped. Leave a comment in the section and make sure to share with your friend!


Video provided by IGN's Youtube channel. 

When did E3 become a pre-order show?

I decided to take a look at the PlayStation store today after watching a very entertaining video by Pro Jared, I wanted to see if Legend of Legaia was available for digital download. I was quickly greeted by this!

Now I can understand that E3 just ended and a few people might be a little excited about some games that will be coming out, but dedicating your money to products that aren't even finished? Calm your pants people. Sony won't even let you cancel or change that pre-order. If the game gets canceled or pushed back, you're out of luck. Trust me, it's in the user agreement. I used to tell rightfully angry customers this on a regular basis when I was working as a PlayStation phone support agent. At least at GameStop, you can cancel that pre-order and put it towards something else.

Speaking of Gamestop...

My point is that we as consumers really need to wait to here all the facts before making snap judgments like buying a game. $60 is not cheap, especially in this economy. I would even go so far as to say that laying down your cash this early in a games life span is down right stupid. There are all sorts of things that can go wrong in a games development cycle. Games get pushed back or cancelled all the time.
Not only that, but many titles come out buggy to the point of being unplayable and won't get fixed tell weeks later. You know, after they are done rolling around in all the money they got from pre-orders.

Is Tales of Symphonia the Final Fantasy 7 of the Tales series.

VS.

Recently, I've started playing two JRPGs, Tales of the Abyss for the 3DS and Tales of Xilia for the PS3. I'm quite a bit further in Abyss due to the fact I can play it while waiting for my Dungeon queue to pop up in Final Fantasy 14 and so far I'm very much enjoying it. Thank God for auto battle by the way. It makes grinding on the go much easier.

For those of you who haven't heard of these games, they are both part of a long running series of games made by Namco. They are similar to Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest in that each one is its own individual game and each has very little to do with the other. They aren't quite as popular here in America but in Japan, they have a very big following. By far the most popular game in the series was Tales of Symphonia released for the Nintendo GameCube.

Tales of Symphonia was the first in the series to use the now standard free moving battle system. It definitely put the series on the map here in America. At least that's how it was for me. A lot of my none gamer friends back in high school simply adored the game. But I haven't seen nearly that much love given to any of the other Tales games. While playing through Abyss, I was reminded of another game from another series. A game that has equal parts love and hate for the fans. Final Fantasy VII.

Now I'm going to state right here, both Tales of Symphonia and Final Fantasy VII have a very special place in my heart. Both introduced me to excellent series and both have excellent game play. But do they deserve the recognition as the best in the series?

When I started doing my research, I found that a lot of the number crushing had already been done for me, at least for Japanese sales. Apparently Namco hasn't released the numbers for other countries. The most useful article I found was the following Kotaku article. Unfortunately the sales numbers were only really for the Japanese market. Based on what I saw though, Tales of Symphonia wasn't quite the power house I originally thought. At least sales wise. If I compare that to the sales numbers for Final Fantasy VII, it seems that my original idea about just how popular Tales of Symphonia was in comparison was a little off. Final Fantasy VII had outsold every other Final Fantasy game by leaps and bounds. At least according to the info here. Perhaps maybe my hypothesis was unfounded.

However when I looked at game forums such as Neogaf and GameFAQs, I noticed a few threads dedicated to disusing weather ToS was over rated. Through some more digging, I was able to find the sales for ToS for the first few weeks in America to be close to 10,000. That's pretty good for a GameCube title. It also had enough recognition to warrant an HD remake of both the original and sequel originally released on the Wii. Unfortunately it looks like the HD re release has seen very poor sales. Compare those to the sales numbers for Tales of Xillia, which sold a little shy of 100,000 copies in its first week in the US alone and you'll see that the popularity of the Tales series has only gone up.

So then why do so many people still regard Tales of Symphonia with such high regard. A lot of it has to do with the overall quality. While Tales of the Abyss is a great game, it's story pales in comparison to Symphonia. I saw the the big plot twist about Luke the second I saw the back of Ashe's head. If you look over at Tales of Xillia, you will see plenty of complaints about the world feeling closed off and repetitive, something that I don't feel about Symphonia. In fact, Symphonia seems to almost have a cult following since it has become difficult to find a copy of the original GameCube release, although the demand for them has gone down thanks to the HD remake available. All in all, I feel that Symphonia deserves every once of love that is given to it. In fact, I might be better off comparing it to Super Mario 64, another game that moved the series from 2D to 3D in such a seamless way. Meanwhile Final Fantasy VII, while still great hasn't aged well at all. There is a reason why fans are so interested in a remake.

I guess what I'm saying is, if you haven't played any of the Tales games, you can't go wrong with most of the games. Just don't tell that to any die hard Tales fans. Those crackers be crazy!

Does God hate me for being gay?

A lot of people assume that if your Gay, you have to be atheist. Since many religious congregations claim homosexuality is the ultimate sin, I must be turning my back to God. The thing about God is that we can't seem to come to an agreement about what God thinks. It's kind of hard to get the opinion of someone when you can't talk directly to them. Some people would add to that last statement, if he even exists. So in order for me to answer this question, I believe that we need to define a few truths.

1. There are many different beliefs about God.

I feel this is pretty self explanatory. Even among Christians and Muslims, there are many different sects of those churches that have different beliefs. Many even go so far as to claim that the other versions are outright wrong. 

2. We cannot use scientific means to determine if God is real. Our belief in God is based completely on our faith and trust in him/her/it.

God, by definition, is the creator of the universe. If that is so, then he doesn't necessarily have to follow the rules of that world unlike you or me. As we are only able to perceive through what science can explain, we must believe in God simply because we want to.

3. Faith can be used as a tool of charity or a tool of destruction.

I'm not going to sit here and say that the Westboro Baptist Church is inherently evil or not. I believe that just like any person who lives in the U.S., you are guaranteed your freedom of speech. While good and evil are inherently imbued to your personal opinion, we can define charity and destruction. Using your faith as an act of charity would be defined as going with your church group to feed the homeless or giving a $5 to a homeless person on the street. Faith used for destruction is the using of your belief as justification for causing physical harm on another entity, whether it be living or non living. A very clear example of causing both harm to living and non living entities would be the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. The attackers used their faith in God to justify attacking and causing harm to other entities. Whether those are inherently wrong is an entirely different discussion. Less extreme examples would be along the lines of defacing an abortion clinic or that part in "Saved" where the very religious girl scratched off the bumper sticker of the Jewish girl’s car. If you don't know what I'm talking about, Saved is on Netflix so you can watch it there.

4. Church views have changed in the past.

In this one, I'm going to use an example closer to home for me. I grew up in a very LDS town. It used to be common for LDS men to take multiple wives. The church has since changed its views to that polygamy is wrong and that a man can only have one wife and vice verse. In fact a lot of church organizations have made this switch.

With these rules set, I believe one can make a few assumptions. The first would be that if you don't believe in God, then this entire conversation is a moot point. You don't care what God thinks because you don't believe he even exists in the first place. For the sake of this article actually having a point, I'm going to assume that you believe in God. Second is that our views on what God believes are different and the only way we're going to find out who is right and wrong is when we die and go to the afterlife. Unless you plan on enacting the whole "using faith for destruction" thing from above, hopefully neither of us will be finding out any time soon if we're right or wrong. I don't know about you, but I kind of like not having my skull bashed in. The third one doesn't apply to the individual but to a congregation. We accept the fact that our views may change over time. Most people will stick to the same beliefs there whole life while a congregation, we'll use the LDS church again as an example, has changed their viewpoint as a whole, if just a little. If you were to ask the now deceased members of the church, they might be a little angry about the changes.

What this is to say is that it's not COMPLETELY out of the question, especially since a lot of the LDS children don't seem to have that much of a problem with gay people. With that said, I could suddenly go crazy and decide that I hate myself for being gay and go on a gay killing rampage. Opinions change over time.

Because we can't ask what God thinks until we are dead, we aren't going to come to a consensus about weather God hates homosexuality. Our beliefs on what he think are going to be 100% based on our own personal faith. I am under the belief that God, as the creator of the human race, loves us unconditionally, just like many parents do. He probably wasn't too happy about a few of the bumps we had growing up, but he loves us, flaws and all. Considering humanity has done some pretty stupid and crazy things, I highly doubt God cares about sexual orientation, just as long as we don't bomb each other into kingdom come. That said, I do recognize your right to have your own opinions about the matter. While I do wish you would get a chance to know me before condemning me, as long as you’re not taking a knife to my throat, you can believe whatever you want. After all, we'll never know until we're dead.

Oh Sweet Grinding

No you perverts, not that kind of grinding.

Recently, I've found myself playing Diablo III again. I originally got Diablo III for free when Blizzard was offering it as part of subscribing for a year of World of Warcraft, something I never recommend doing ever again. I have never played Diablo or Diablo II so I really had no previous conceptions about Diablo should be. When I originally played it, I liked it enough but one thing bothered me. From a gameplay stand point, it was repetitive as hell. Your only option to play at the beginning was to beat the main game over and over and over and over and over and over......

Once I beat the campaign on Normal, I uninstalled it and forgot all about it. In fact for a while, I refused to play any Blizzard games. I felt that Blizzard had become lazy and was okay with us doing the same thing in there games forever.

I generally forgot about the game until I decided to try Hearthstone, which in the end, I decided wasn't for me. May give more information on that later. While I was playing though, I noticed a friend of mind was playing a hell of a lot of Diablo III. I asked him how he kept playing it and he convinced me the game had become a lot better. They had even released the expansion, which I had heard about but never looked into. I decided to use some of my funds after getting laid off from PlayStation support to upgrade to the expansion. I began my adventures through sanctuary anew as a Crusader. Overall the game was the same, you still went through the main campaign, however a lot was added. If you play Diablo III, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Eventually though, I found myself enjoying the grind. Playing with my friends was fun and I looked forward to my daily Diablo Adventure Mode Grind. Grinding gave me something to do during my unemployment. The additional Act as well as additional content has made the game much better, even though all of these should have been available at launch.

 Regardless though, the game still has a long way to go. We still need some additional options of play and Adventure Mode is still just going through the same maps and events you find in the Campaign. The Horardrim Rifts go a long way in breaking this tedious but I feel they need to be expanded upon. They also finally added PvP to the game but I myself have not had a chance to duke it out with my friends, look out Charlie, I'm gunning for you. Finally there is the addition of loot 2.0 which goes a long way to making gearing up a lot easier. I hope to see Blizzard to continue working on the game and hopefully this game will be the gem it truly deserves.