Not dead yet!

Just thought I'd make this filler post to let you all know I haven't abandoned this yet. Perhaps like many other of you, I've been dragged to many family outings for kurisumasu, letting them remind me of how ronery and disappoint I am, so yeah. Our immediate family decided to boycott x-mas this year though, so no one got presents for each other, although I did get some money as a present to NEET that much longer which is nice. Overall these get-togethers make me appreciate my room, vidya, and japanese cartoons all the more when I get back so in that sense they are good, as well as all the free food and getting fat as well. Hope you all survived your holiday outings too!

999 General

So I finally got around to getting to clearing the True End, and all I have to say is what. Really loved this game though and I feel silly for not have played Ever17 yet (writer is the same as this game). Not sure how much I could talk about the game without spoiling it, so all I have to say is if its on your backlog, put it on highest priority! Also, that elevator dialog between June and Junpei made me wet.

つまんな～

So as of December 10th, I've officially withdrew from all my classes at Uni. The way things were going there's no way I was going to pass any of them, so might as well have them appear as nice big "W's" instead of big fat "E's" (F's are too offensive nowadays). I've talked with my advisor about my cool story and such, and recommends if I don't like what I'm doing now, and not what to do exactly, a liberal arts degree might be ideal. She also went through my old community college transcript and also recommended since I took first year Chinese and Japanese there with good grades, that linguistics in asian languages would be a good choice too. I'm not really sure what to think of all this. I feel like if I'm going to go to college, it should be purposeful and a libtard degree seems like a waste of time to me, but at least it'd get that precious piece of paper that is a minimum requirement of doing any non-menial work. Then again I have no desire to work so whats the point. And maybe a linguistics/Japanese major might be cool but I see that as equally worthless as a lib/arts degree for some reason. I do have a strong interest in learning this language to read my VN's, idolm@ster and watch raw animu, and the classes would certainly help, but I also want to learn this on my own and not waste money on tuition. Plus there are other bullshit classes necessary as well. Thinking about this stuff is too stressful, I need to make a portal to Gensokyo and take it easy for eternity. Talking with my adviser though made me feel less like shit for failing though, I was seriously depressed about it the last few weeks

On the bright side, with no current plans for the future and no job, I'm officially a NEET for the unforeseeable, I guess I can finally take it easy, at least while the funds last. I can get quite a bit backlog done now, and further embark on my quest of getting the moonrunes to tell me their secrets. By not going out except only when necessary is nice, even though Christmas is around the corner it hardly feels like it. I'm OK with this, and hope to at least have a lovely dinner with my waifu on that night.

Take it easy guys, and stay dry this winter.

Ketsui and dodonpachi daioujou Now working in Mame

Perhaps if you've been browsing /jp/ in the last hour or so, or keep up with this shit like I do, two famous and arguably the last "manly" bullet hell Cave shmups are now playable in Mame. The sound emulation isn't perfect, so some songs are playing slower/faster than they should be, which is unintentionally awesome sometimes. But other than that they play beautifully. Espgaluda should be following shortly as well.

Enjoy
http://www.mediafire.com/?juh0m233e8ehdmc
Just extract and run the mame.exe, and you're set.

MuchiMuchi Pork/Pink Sweets confirmed for region free

Pretty soon after my previous post, explaining that Mushifutari and EspgaludaII were the only RF shmups for the xbox360, Cave has just announced, in a somewhat unexpected move, that the upcoming MMP/PS port will be region free as well! Cave has explicitly stated before they wouldn't be doing any RF ports after galuda2, but they appear to be appealing more to overseas fans like us as their Official facebook group might indicate. It all started when they posted this up there:

Some of our fans may be familiar with our upcoming Muchi Muchi Pork/Pink Sweets Japan release. We currently have talks over some of our other Japan-only titles ongoing with overseas publishers, but our producer Asada-san is currently thinking about making the MMP/PS double pack region free. Feel free to send him some feedback here: blog360@mail.cave.co.jp

And has since been confirmed since this article on slowtaku

To which all western shmup fans (myself included, even if I already have a j360) bombarded him with emails pleading to go through with the decision. But basically, although great news, if you read between the lines of their intent, I believe the reason they're doing this is because no western publisher like Aksys (who have brought Deathsmiles here, among other niche titles you guys know of) wants to pick this one up, as its a vertical scrolling game with no redone HD graphics, which is a bit of a turn off to casual western gamers apparently. So in general, with no chance of increased profit of licensing the game for a western release, they'll increase sales by making it more import friendly.

For those unfamiliar with these two titles, check out the PV below

Another, very "interesting" older PV for MMP's arcade release

One last quick note about these game: Both of these titles are not exactly your typical Cave danmaku fare. They are programmed by Yagawa, whom Cave hired when Raizing (Battle Garegga, Armed Police Batrider) went bust, and play very differently from other bullet hells, the biggest is in that they employ a rank system, where basically if you go around shooting everything and collecting every powerup, the game difficulty gets jacked up to a point where its impossible. MMP is not that bad in this regard but Pink Sweets sure is, so it may not be for everyone (personally not too fond of it myself) but they're still fun titles regardless.

Cool Stories and region free

Thought I'd make a cool blog post, but making a really long-winded posts aren't very enjoyable to me. Probably later down the line this week when I get even more depressed. For now, lets just say I'm coming to terms with my life and what I want to do, and its not very good (and will certainly make my parents very disappoint). Its pretty much school related and I'm not enjoying what I'm doing at all, and feel its a waste of time/money/effort to stay in, yet also at the same time if I quit now I'll feel even more like a failure. I can't take it easy at all like this.

Anyways I think some people expressed interest in knowing which shmups for the Xbox360 are region free, so you can know if pirating buying a copy will work on your NTSC-U or PAL console. There is a very handy guide on the shmups forum about owning a Japanese 360, and in there is the list of most every shmups released on the 360 so far. Also, on play-asia they list which regions a certain game will work on if you happen to buy from them, or even if not a good resource on looking up a specific game, STG's or otherwise.

Pretty much in general, all XBLA releases work on any console, and the only two region-free retail disc games are Mushihime-sama futari, and EspgaludaII Black Label (normal edition only), both of which are very excellent games. If there's just one you must get, I'd recommend mushi futari for its slew of many modes that both novices and experts of the genre can enjoy, and overall represents quite possibly Cave's finest work, and a very good modern bullet hell shmup in general. The music is fantastic, the scoring systems in all the modes are fun, and it also features Palm the shota, as well as the delicious no panties wearing Reco. There is a platinum edition that recently came out for it, so its pretty cheap to import it now (~$35). For you fortunate NEETs out there getting SSI money and whatnot, add this game to your list of figures!

DDPDFK 360

Just got this game, its amazing. Will do some impressions of all the modes and such later when I have more time. And also, /jp/ still has some remnants of normalfags from their "puddi raid xD" so I think I'm just going to take it easy and sleep.