Message Update:  Sunday, April 8, 2011

I'm not going to lie. I've been suffering from "Writer's Block" for awhile here. I'm having trouble finding the inspiration to keep going. This has happened to me twice earlier, and both times, I recovered. I should recover again in time, but for now, I'm trying to get back that inspiration I had back then for this comic.

There's also other matters. First off, I got several new games, which have added to my list of distractions. First game I got was "Tales of Graces f". It's been a long time since a new "Tales of" game came over here, so I'm playing the heck out of it! Also, Tales of Xilla is now being rumored to be coming over as well. Two "Tales of" games in one year? What a nice gift for us "Tales of" fans.

Next, I got Kid Icarus: Uprising for the 3DS. I've been having loads of fun on this game, though I haven't gotten very far yet. I did however get far enough to battle against Dark Pit. ... ... Yes... Remember that black/dark skin Pit had in Super Smash Bros Brawl? It's now a separate character. Adding to Dark Link, Dark Samus, and Dark Meta Knight, we now have Dark Pit. Nintendo seems to be a fan of making dark halfs to our favorite Nintendo heroes. Dark Pit is like Dark Link, in which he fights just like you. (Including dodging around your shots and shooting counter shots at you) What's really interesting about Dark Pit though is that compared to the earlier Dark character incarnations, Dark Pit actually... no what... That would be dropping spoilers. Game is still pretty new, so I won't do that.

Next, I got DC Universe Online. Since it has been "Free to play" for quite some time, I downloaded the game and tried it out. You start off under "Free" membership though, so you're rather limited in what you can do. (Including only having two character slots) But upon upgrading to Premium Membership (Spend $5 or more on the game), those character slots shoot up to 6, and you get a few other goodies. The game however is at it's best when you sign up for Legendary Membership, which requires a monthly fee. (Or yearly, depending on how you want to spend it) I don't know about you, but I've been fine with just a Premium Membership. Don't really see any reason to upgrade to Legendary... yet. Anyway, just to deliver some pics...

TruebladeNuke in Gotham
TruebladeNuke in Metropolis

The Metropolis pic was taken when I like... was only starting out in the game. Just look up the name "TruebladeNuke", and you'll find me in the game. (If you're playing the US servers)

Finally, I got a Wii exclusive game called "Xenoblade Chronicles". I heard that this game was getting a very limited release over here in the USA. (Gamestop exclusive I might add) When I learned of this, I decided to quick get it before the game vanishes. And true enough, I can't find the game anywhere else. Not even on Amazon. (Except by other people who bought the game) People at Capcom Unity informed me that if you really like RPG's, you should get this game before it vanishes. I'm usually not much for branching out to games/series I've never heard of before these days, but I'm REALLY GLAD I got this game. It's... REALLY... GOOD! The only thing that sucks is that the Wii can't make this game look REALLY beautiful, but meh.

... and there you have it. It'll probably be a long time before the next episode update, FYI.

Message Update:  Sunday, March 4, 2011

New comic update. Yep. Also, who here is excited for Borderlands 2!? Let me hear it!

... ahem... anyway, speaking of new games, Tales of Graces F is now just a little over a week off from being released now. Come next Tuesday, it finally arrives! That said, Japan already had it since 2009, and they now already have Tales of Xilla out over there as well. There's a lot of talk going around that the sales of Tales of Graces F will highly impact the chances of Tales of Xilla being transported over here as well. So BUY TALES OF GRACES F! Let them know that, YES, we want Tales of games over here! Bring Tales of Xilla please!

Message Update:  Sunday, Febuary 26, 2011

Whoa! Three weeks without an update! I say three because there was actually another new comic update 3 weeks ago, in case you guys didn't notice. I didn't update the main news section that day because I really didn't have much to talk about. But boy, I've got A LOT to talk about today. So lets get started. First off, new comic update. But don't go reading it yet! Here's the rest of the news.

March is now just around the corner. I'm really looking forward to Kid Icarus: Uprising and Tales of Graces F now. They're so close! I'm also hoping that the sales of Tales of Graces F will affect the chances of Tales of Xilla coming over here. I really want that game too. It's been... quite some time since we got a new Tales of game to work with.

Secondly, there's a lot of buzz going on about Darkstalkers now. Understandable, since Darkstalkers 3, which is considered the best title of the series and is also the last one to be made before they started appearing in cross overs, is now getting re-released on the PSN. People are hoping that this means something for the series, including myself. Street Fighter was practically brought back by re-releases and fan demand. The same somewhat holds true for Marvel VS Capcom, with the release of MvC3 after 10 years. Are they now possibly making a push to actually resurrect Darkstalkers with a NEW title after this re-release? Lets hope so. It's been a LONG time since these guys got a new title update.

Next up is Rusty Hearts. Oh man... I've stuck playing this game for quite some time, AND I'M still not done! The main story is practically taking forever to finish. I've mentioned the game in an earlier news post, even linking to the game itself. If you ARE going to pick up and play the game, I have a strong recommendation for you:

Get a game controller for your PC, like a wired X-Box 360 controller.

Even the game developers themselves mentioned that with the way the game is designed, Rusty Hearts is at its best if you have a game controller to work with. Easier access to your combos and all. You CAN play the game with a keyboard, but that isn't recommended. Also, if you do get the game, I've got some character pictures you can look at for if you're really interested in finding me:

SkySword: West Server

TruebladeNuke (Sword Focus): West Server

Actually, you can find all of my characters on the west server. On a side note, I think I may be the only Frantz who's running around in White Magician clothes on the west server. All the other Frantzs I see are in dark colors.

Finally, HAVE SOME TALES OF GRACES MUSIC.

... now you may go enjoy the latest episode. :P

NEWS EDIT: I forgot to mention that Super Smash Bros 4 has been announced to now officially be in development. The moment this got announced, the internet pretty much exploded, and character speculations begin anew. What characters do YOU want to see in Super Smash Bros 4? Personally, I still think Lyn (Fire Emblem) deserves to be a playable character.

Message Update:  Sunday, January 15, 2011

Whoops! Been awhile since we had a new update. Anyway, I've got nothing special to say today except one thing. How many of you here play Rusty Hearts? If any of you are on the west server, I'll totally be there!

Look up the name "TruebladeNuke", and you'll find me.

Message Update:  Saturday, December 31, 2011

New episode update for today for New Years Eve. Also, stick around for the 12:00 AM release of the New Year episode itself. Yep, I'm going to be pulling that off. Cause I just want to celebrate the New Year the moment it arrives tonight m'kay?

Also, I feel the need to point out Mario's Castle Collab 2. It got release not all that long ago. WATCH IT! NOW! You'll LOVE the final scene.

Bah, I've still got a bit of a wait on me for Tales of Graces F though. Won't be out until March 2012.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope
A "Semi Effective" way of Checking AR

Anyone who's played Star Ocean knows there's no true way to actually check your relationship status with your crew, but there IS one way to make a semi accurate assumption to how well Edge is getting along with his teammates, along with how they're getting along with each other.

First off, enter a battle where you know there's no way the enemy can beat you, period. (In other words, they can't even beat if you just stand there and take hits) Auto Healing is a good battle skill to equip for this case to make sure your party can never fall by the enemy's hands. Be sure that you brought 20x Self Destructor 3000's with you. Now that you've entered battle, have the enemies focus on attacking one particular party member, and let that party member focus on blocking all the attacks by just standing still. Don't forget to make sure that all of your party members are set to "manual" control. That way, none of them will move unless they're under your command. Once the enemies are focused on a particular member, have that party member go to a corner of the map, making sure the enemies follow that party member. (The battle skill "Taunt" will help with this) Now, choose which particular party member you wish to blow up with a Self Destructor 3000. I'll even give you guys an example here and go through this step by step.

Lets go with Edge, seeing as how he's highly involved in many of the "support conversations" of the game. Take command of Edge and have him throw a Self Destructor 3000 on himself. Assuming he doesn't survive via "Fury", (Retain 1 HP instead of being KO'd) Edge will instantly go down. The moment Edge falls, look closely at how the Rush Gauges of your surviving party members go up. Pausing the game via opening the battle menu the very moment Edge goes down will help with this. Lets say you have Reimi, Meracle, and Myuria out at this time. Did you see the way the ladies Rush Gauges filled the moment Edge got KO'd? How much those Rush Gauges fill all depend on the "AR Points" the two particular members have with one another. I'm assuming that the number of Rush Points the surviving party members get equals the number of AR they have with said particular party member here. For my own example, Reimi's Rush Gauge went up by 41 points, Meracle's went up by 40, (lol, wow. My Meracle almost likes Edge as much as Reimi) and Myuria went up by 30 points. You can repeat this process with the other party members too. As just another quick example, after resurrecting Edge with Myuria, I had Meracle toss a Self Destructor 3000 on herself. Edge's Rush Gauge went up by 33 points. (Huh. I guess Edge doesn't think of Meracle as much as she thinks of him. I expected that though really)

Bear in mind that the characters have a change of becoming "enraged" over a party member being KO'd, which will result in their rush gauge topping off at 100% instantly. If that happens, you'll just have to wait until their rush gauge drops back to 0 (or whatever number you think is low enough) before you have that same particular member who blew himself/herself up... blow himself/herself up again. Twice IN A ROW, the cat girl Meracle became enraged over Edge being KO'd, in which both times she said "EDGE! WHY!?" She has other lines for when Edge or another party member falls, but I don't remember them word for word... especially since my party doesn't get KO'd very often. (Except when I tried taking on some of those optional bosses. Good lord, some of those optional bosses are absolute beasts at my current party's level)

Gears of War 2
How to Easily Survive the Hoard

Eh?  Tips on how to survive the hoard?  I bet many of the hardcore players looking at this will be disgusted and ignore my tips.  But I’m going to do this anyway.  :P

First off, choose your stage to be Jacinto.  That’s right, Jacinto.  Next, go to one of the farthest corners of the map, where the only way you can leave is in one direction, up a flight of stairs.  You’re probably wondering why you want to trap yourself in a corner.  The reason?  So that the hoard CAN’T surround you.  The Locust can only spawn in areas AWAY from where your general squad is.  Which means if you hide in one of the 2 corners, the Locust can only come at you in one way, and your entire squad has guns pointed in that direction.  Can you say… concentrated fire?  This makes clearing out the hoard easier, but longer.  Why longer?  Because you have to let the hoard come to you, not the other way around.  Come to think of it, why would you CHARGE a HOARD of dangerous enemies anyway?  You know you’re going to get shot down right?  Let the hoard come to you in small portions.  They won’t know what hit them.

If you ever REALLY need to re-stock on ammo, and you aren’t getting enough ammo from the dead Locust you kill, then… once you’ve thinned down the Locust to about at LEAST 5 left, go ahead and get to the middle.  Just be sure to charge back to one of the 2 corners if you kill the Locust while you’re over there.  Otherwise, you’ll have Locust spawning in your hiding location, and that’s bad, because that means you’re now surrounded.  Speaking of which, NEVER LEAVE THE CORNER AND GO PAST THE FLIGHT OF STAIRS!  If you do, Locust could spawn behind you, and that would cause you and your team a bit of a headache.

Fire Emblem:  Radiant Dawn
Selective Leveling up

More tips around leveling up.  Why?  Because it works a bit differently in this game.  When you level up your units back at base with bonus EXP in this game, they ALWAYS get a 3 point level up.  No more, no less.  (As I’ve discovered thus far) In order for true random level ups to occur, you must level up through battle.  So what do you do with the bonus EXP?  Still hand it out that’s what, but not enough to level up the unit.  Give them enough bonus EXP so that they have 99 EXP before entering battle.  Now I just want to be clear on this before you move on, THIS TRICK WORKS BEST ONLY ON EASY AND NORMAL DIFFICULTY SETTINGS.  Why?  Because you have access to the battle save feature on these 2 modes.  You DON’T have access to it on hard mode.

Ok, so you’ve started the mission with a bunch of units who have 99 EXP.  This means that no matter what action they take (save for using an item or just moving around), they’ll level up.  Quickly make a Battle Save before you charge in to an enemy.  Watch the battle and level up.  It’ll be complete random unlike back at base.  Don’t like the level up?  Reset, restart with the Battle Save you made, try again.  Still no luck?  Rinse and repeat.  But don’t get too picky in the level ups, or you’ll take forever.  Just look for the increase in stats the character needs most.  (Like how sages need defense and strength) Also, try to go for 4 point level ups or higher with this trick, but again, don’t be too picky.

What if the character has capped near most of his/her stats?  That means you can’t be as picky anymore, as less points will be rewarded per level up.  But here’s a neat trick for you.  What if the character has only 3 stats left that he/she can level up?  Instead of leveling up via battle, use the bonus EXP back at base to score a 3 point level up every time, with those particular stats!  Nifty no?

Fire Emblem:  Path of Radiance
Selective Leveling up

While in your base, it’s possible to have limited choice on how your units level up when they’re set to level up random stats.  Simply give your units their bonus EXP that you get from completing your missions and level them up with that bonus EXP.  When that happens, watch carefully on what they level up.  If they level up a way you don’t like, simply reset the game.  (Save your game before you level up anyone with bonus EXP) If they do level up they way you want them to level up, save your game, then return to the bonus EXP menu.  By doing this, it’s possible to get units with crazy stats that they aren’t really supposed to be good at like a Swordmaster with 22 defense points or a General with 25 speed.