Mega Pokemon, and some Pokemon Digimon comparisons

So yesterday (for me), they just unveiled some leaks from the Coro-coro magazine for some news regarding Pokemon X & Y (these leaks are almost always true by the way).

They announced three new Pokemon. One is a rather adorable pre-evolution to the Pokemon Gogoat which has already been revealed earlier, one is a rabbit that looks really dumb/derpy looking, and one being a cross between the hamster Hamtaro and Raichu, and is most likely gonna be the Pikachu knockoff variant of the new game.

But that's not the most interesting news from there.

The big news (and I mean really big news) is the unveiling of 6 Pokemons that are considered to be Mega-evolutions to already existing Pokemons. The 6 Mega forms revealed were Blaziken, Lucario, Mawile, Absol, Ampharos and Mewtwo (whose form we've already seen before).

So, what do I think about this? I'm actually excited for this. It remind me (and a lot of others) of Digimon, and I don't really mind that since I'm a fan of Digimon too. Though I think this will create a lot of balance issues and raises a lot of questions. Like why did Blaziken and Ampharos - being Stage 2 Evolutions - get a Mega Evolution, and why Blaziken - being a starter - have one to begin with. However, it is stated that there will be more Pokemon having Mega forms, but not all Pokemon will have it, so hopefully (for the sake of balance), each starter has a Mega Evolution.

Also, another thing revealed about the Megas are that they are an in-battle form only, and have to use a held item to make them stay that way, which I think is fair enough, since being a Mega, I would expect that to have better stats than their normal counterparts, and it is confirmed that some of the Megas have some absurdly ridiculous skills (Adaptability MegaLucario and Speed Boost MegaBlaziken). Plus, there are rumours that some of the Mega forms with give the Pokemon brand new typing (Steel/Fairy for MegaMawile perhaps?). Overall, I hope the balance that they're about to give these Pokemons are enough to make other Pokemons viable when fighting them.

Another thing announced was a new Gym Leader who's specialty is currently unknown, and will show the player how Mega Evolution works. Honestly, I wouldn't expect someone who looks like a roller derby girl to be that one person who will explain Mega Pokemons.

I mean, really?

Also, while I am a fan of both Pokemon and Digimon, I enjoy seeing all the butthurt going on in the Pokemon fandom on the new Mega Pokemon. I don't mean to be mean but, some of the fans can be pretty ignorant about Digimon and just dismiss it as a Pokemon ripoff without actually trying to watch it without the mindset that it is similar to Pokemon (which is not by the way, aside from the -mon suffix, and that their monsters evolve).

To me, I think that Gen V has made some changes into the Pokemon world in some of their design and evolutions/form changes that it reminds me of Digimon. For example, I really like Haxorus a lot because it's design really reminds me of a Digimon (but still retaining that Pokemon feel to it as it is not an overly complicated design), and has been one of my favourite Pokemon of Gen V. Also, the Kyurem forms strongly reminds me of DNA Digivolution/Jogress Evolution in Digimon Adventures Season 2 (which came out in the year 2000), and I honestly don't mind these changes made to Pokemon (but I think that Black/White Kyurem is one ugly legendary). 

All in all, I can't wait to see what more stuff will be revealed until October arrives. I haven't decide which starter I'll use (that is usually determined by how cool the Stage 2 evolution looks). 

That's all, I guess for now. Pokemon and Digimon are equally awesome!!

Beaten Ocarina of Time 3D

No wonder it was considered a revolutionary game for its time. The game is really good.

Even though the music is the only thing that wasn't remade I personally think it's fine. At least you know that aside from graphics, this is a game that's almost 15 years old from listening to the music, which I think was pretty catchy and nice to listen to.

Completed the game in 33 hours in my blind run of the game. The only times where I needed an online guide was when I was wondering why I'm stuck at the water temple (turns out I wasn't, lol), and during the thieves' hideout, because I didn't know you could talk to the carpenters who were stuck in the prison to trigger a mini-boss battle.

Overall, the game is alright, not too challenging (even though I did get stuck for a long time a few times in some of the temples), I would attempt their Master Quest some day next time, and probably to all the sidequest in the MQ run since I didn't do it in this run. The only thing I got from sidequests were the fire and ice arrows, and all the great fairy spells and skills.

Anyways, that's all I guess, since I have assignments piling up that I need to finish by next week.

Got my Kingdom Hearts 3D and Ocarina of Time 3D

Didn't play much of Dream Drop Distance. Played a whole lot of Ocarina of Time.

Ocarina of time is really fun. I mean, I can understand why some people say the game is overrated since it's being regarded so highly by many despite some of the faults it have, but it's still an incredible game.

Since getting the game on Tuesday, I've already completed several of the dungeons, including the dreaded Water Temple. The Water Temple gave me some trouble for like 3 hours or so mostly because of the keys and the doors. The fact that changing water levels are quite tedious, and the fact that you need to methodically check every piece of secret you can find makes it kinda tedious, and that is probably the reason why I got stuck for 3 hours because I thought a certain door was locked and needed a key (when I didn't have any), but in reality it may not have been locked (or a timed lock, I dunno) or I might have mistaken it for another room that was locked.

Right now, I've completed the Shadow Temple and the Thieve's Hideout, should be heading to the desert soon, or completing the challenges in the Thieve's Hideout first. The Shadow Temple was somewhat annoying in a sense that if you lose to the boss, you need to travel really really far just to get back and face him (not really fond of that).

Anyways, I should be completing the game some time next week.

Quick little update

So a few days ago I had a thought.

Of all the 3DS games that I currently own (only 6), the only game that I have not beaten (except for Animal Crossing, since you can't beat it) is Resident Evil: Revelations. Worst still, I felt that I have lost interest in the game for quite a while when compared to the other game that I bought along with this game (which is Metal Gear Solid).

At that moment, I have decided that I don't plan to keep Resident Evil: Revelations in my collection of games and plan to sell it. But I had one thing to do before I sell the game, and that is to beat it first.

And I did.

Not as scary as I expected (except for the eerie sound that plays when you first fight Rachel). Or maybe it was just me laughing or smiling whenever a zombie shows up, I dunno, it's a natural reaction I have when seeing something that I genuinely believe is not real but is considered scary to some. Or maybe the tone wasn't as scary as previous RE games (of which I have not tried yet).

Anyways, I've completed it, so I plan to sell it, or trade it with another game. Feel like trading it with another good game that I missed out that I may plan to try one day, but not on my top priority list. Something like Luigi's Mansion or Kid Icarus: Uprising.

Oh, and plan to buy a second hand copy of Kingdom Hears: Dream Drop Distance and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D from a guy. Hopefully Ocarina of Time will pique my interest in getting that new Legend of Zelda game for the 3DS (Link Between Worlds).

A retrospect and thoughts over the events of my previous semester in university.

I have noticed that while this blog started as a side project that I plan on doing while beginning my life in Monash University Sunway Campus, I have noticed that there is a severe lack of posts relating on my life in university.

Well, I thought that my life in university is usually pretty boring, to be honest, I am a Science student after all, and I spent most of my time studying or doing assignments if I'm not playing my 3DS. But I think a retrospective post of the events of my previous semester sounds like a great way to summarise everything that has happened in the past 4 months.

Anyways, I'll keep it really short and as simple as possible.

So to me, the whole semester was all about finding the balance between playing my 3DS and studying (since I got my 3DS about a month before the commencement of the semester). I've been playing my 3DS a lot since I got it and I was wondering how will I be able to balance out my studying and playing time when I start studying again.

Unfortunately, what I felt was an extremely rough start that only started to get better during the last few weeks of studying. Really. I think the fact that I was playing my 3DS a lot, combined with the 4 month summer break spent on not studying made me extremely rusty (or that's what I thought).

Towards the middle of the semester, I bought two new games - RE:Revelations, and MGS3D. The good news was those games weren't as addictive as Fire Emblem, so I didn't spent additional time playing the two games (by then, I had already cut my gaming time by a lot).

By the end of the studying week (and the weeks before exams), my thoughts on the subjects were:
Chemistry - Shit (Horrid lab report marks, and tutorial classes that sucked for me)
Psychology - Great (While it has super annoying assignments, I did pretty well overall)
Biology - Normal (Had some ups and downs, but it was pretty balanced)
Food Science - Between Normal and Shit (Assignment marks were just okay, and lab marks were below average in my opinion).

So, it pre-exams, I felt everything was just average for me. So I try my best to read up on as much as I can. And then it was exams. And after going through all the papers, my thoughts were:
Chemistry - Shit (No time to finish everything, some answers left blank)
Psychology - Between Normal and Shit (It was a tough multiple choice paper)
Biology - Between Normal and Shit (Also, a tough multiple choice paper)
Food Science - Between Normal and Good (Easier than I anticipated)

By the end of the exams, while I was glad everything was over, I was also a bit disappointed by my overall performance so far for the semester.  I mean, I kinda anticipated that my studies might be affected by me having a 3DS, but I didn't thought it would be this bad. Still, I had my hopes up that I would not fail anything for this semester.

And then last Monday came along. To my relief, I passed everything, having 3 Distinctions and 1 Credit. Not too bad at first, since I got 1 HD, 2 Ds and 1 C last semester, but when I look at the marks I got for the grades it was kinda bad for me.  The marks for the grades were 0-3 marks away from the borderline (as in 70 is the borderline for Distinction, and the marks for my Distinctions range between 70-73 if I remember correctly).

In short, the good news is that I didn't fail anything, and that my grades were better than I thought it was. The bad is that I'm not extremely satisfied with the marks I got from those grades.

Anyways, I hope that the last semester has taught me how to balance my gaming and studying time. As my holiday comes to an end next week, I have to plan how to make sure I get the most out of gaming and studying, hoping to get through to the next semester without any problems.

Streetpass gathering / Animal Crossing post.

So, last Saturday, I attended my 2nd Streetpass meeting with the Nintendo Streetpass Community of Malaysia, which was probably the reason why I didn't watch the Super Street Fighter IV pools, Quarters and Semi finals of EVO.

During the whole time when both my Animal Crossing and Project X Zone arrived, I was very heavily focused on completing PxZ, and I completed it last Wednesday, so I could continue my AC. It was then when I learnt how to effectively hunt for beetles.

I calculated that assuming I make 8,000 Bells on average per beetle, I will be able to net 384,000 Bells at Re-Tail with a full box of beetles since I have Bell Bloom Ordinance. I was only doing so so that I could upgrade my house as fast as I can to show my fellow Streetpassers my progress (since I was already quite slow to begin with).

So I went for the gathering, and had an enjoyable time. Got some Fire Emblem Streetpass tags, but I guess no one is as hardcore at FE as me over there since I just wreck their teams. Played some Mario Kart 7 too. Did pretty average on the game. I never really enjoyed playing the Mario Kart game compared to my favourite kart-racer of all time which is Crash Team Racing. It's just something about the feel of racing in MK that doesn't feel right to me compared to CTR.

There was a whole group of people playing Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, and one of them even brought his WiiU over, playing MH3U using the WiiU's Gamepad screen. I have to say, while many of the WiiU Gamepad's functionality is considered by many gamers as gimmicks, I felt that it is an awesome one, it makes the WiiU feel like it's a semi-portable console, being able to play the WiiU anywhere as long as the location has a plug point.

A while later, the Animal Crossing group arrived. I was able to get some other fruits from the other towns, and also some new clothes and items from their Super T&T (while mine is still a T&T Mart). I also got a really horrific haircut at Shampoodle the ended up not being so bad after all (which I'll get to that later).

Last Friday (which is a day before the gathering), I spent an hour trying out on the Pro-Design feature that the Able Sisters have, and I was able to make a long sleeved shirt based on the upper torso of Zero's design of the Mega Man X series (more specifically, his Mega Man X 4 design). I was pretty satisfied with the design. Only thing that could make the design perfect is if my character had long, blonde hair, which was the reason why I went and tried Shampoodle.

I didn't know the way you answered the questions has an effect on the hairstyle, and that the hairstyle that you get will be permanent until you decide to change it again. So my hairstyle is now white and as puffy as a cloud. It sucks. But in the end, I was just fine, as I went and wear another custom designed outfit I got online, which was Miles Edgeworth's outfit from the Ace Attorney series. Then I got some decent pants and shoes from their town, coupled with a Top Hat I found in another town, and I looked like some old gentleman of sorts. Not too bad, but it gets better.

 One of the person in charge of the Streetpass meeting (and also the admins of the Streetpass Facebook page) is really wealthy in Animal Crossing, and he decided that we have an Animal Crossing competition to win 1 million Bells, and the Royal Crown hat, which I found out later when I got back home to be worth 1.2 million Bells.

Many of us who were still playing AC competed together in this competition, with most of them wanting the Royal Crown hat. There were eight of us competing. We went to the Island to play a game of Cicada catching (don't remember the difficulty). Since there were eight players two separate groups played the game, with the two best scoring players moving on to the final round. I was lucky enough to get 2nd place, so I went on with 3 others to the last round.

The last round was a tough one. It was the Pro-Diving contest. All the animals swam really quickly underwater that I had failed to catch some animals in my diving attempt. I even got stung by a jellyfish once, costing a lot of time. But in the end, everyone else were also having a hard time in the diving contest, and I came up on top.

Got the 1 million Bells and the Royal Crown. I was pretty happy with the results since I wasn't expecting to win. I dunno about you, but sometimes if you don't think about the competition at all, you tend to do better due to the lack of stress you'll feel when you realise that you're not doing so well.

On next day, I spent that 1 million bells buying turnips in the morning, which was sold at 97 Bells per turnip in my town. Not the best buying price, but its alright to me, since I've never bought turnips at that price before since I got the game. They were either too expensive, or I was playing PxZ.

Then today, I had some free time in the morning, and I was able to find, on the GameFAQs AC trading boards, someone's town buying turnips at 578 Bells. The post was made rather recent, so I swooped in and asked to enter their town. Sure enough, I was able to enter the town in the 3rd batch.

The only condition the town owner gave was that we had to tip him 99,000 bells whenever we go back to the train station's locker to refill our inventory with turnips. After selling all my turnips, I've made about 6 million bells. Minus the amount of tip I gave the town owner (about 500,000 bells), and the cost of buying the turnips (1 million bells), I've made a net profit of 4.5 million Bells. Not bad, in my opinion. I can fully pay off any upgrade to my house now.

Anyways, that's all for today. I'm still rather busy with my Animal Crossing at the moment.

Oh, and I passed all my units for the previous semester, meaning I could continue studying in the next semester without having to retake a unit for not meeting the requirements of the higher level units.

EVO 2013 thoughts.

So.... EVO just ended, and boy was this year's EVO so satisfying to watch.

First up was KOF XIII. While I didn't see the whole finals (due to time difference between US time and here), I was able to watch a bit of the Grand Finals cuz I was waiting for Smash Bros. Melee to start.

It was pretty awesome. The moment the bracket reset, Woo kinda lost the confidence he had, and the winner went to the American AS Reynald.

In the end I didn't watch Melee, sadly...

Then around 7 something AM there was Injustice. It was also the Grand Finals when I was watching it. Kinda funny to see the winner of Injustice getting booed by the audience for his lame play with Superman.

Then there was the two big games I was waiting for.

First up, was Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3.

Man, it was intense. Last year's EVO champ eliminated. And the 'villain' of UMVC3, Chris G, got eliminated by Justin Wong, who was trailing Chris G. Indeed, the 'Wong Factor' still exists. The best part of the match was that Justin Wong was now considered the 'hero'. Back then in MVC2, he won so much that people got tired of him winning, and so he was the 'villain' then. But here, it was very amazing to see how people are now cheering for him a lot.

The 'Wong Factor' was also in effect during the Grand Finals, when Justin Wong reset the bracket against Flocker. In the end, Flocker won. While it was pretty upsetting that Justin didn't win, the results were pretty satisfying in that:
1. Chris G and Filipino Champ didn't win (both are sort of the 'bad guys' in UMVC3).
2. Both players in the Grand Finals were pretty nice to watch, and that the it was pretty exciting itself
3. Finally a team with Zero that has won a major tournament (EVO to boot). Zero is my favourite video game character ever. While he was regarded as top tier in UMVC3, no one has won a major tournament with Zero before, until today.

And finally, Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition Ver.2012.

This year's SSFIV finals was very exciting. We had Makoto, Ibuki, and Gen in Top 8, and they aren't regarded has high tier characters.

Daigo lost to Infiltration again, which is sad.

Haitani's Makoto and PR Balrog's Balrog is one interesting match. Fast paced, and so fun to watch. In the end Balrog won.

Then we have Xian, a Singaporean player (and one of my favourites to win EVO this year), using the difficult to use Gen and defeating two of Japan's fighting game gods to move on to Grand Finals, Sako and his Ibuki, and Tokido with his Akuma.

Then we had a PR Balrog and Infiltration rematch. PR Balrog sent Infiltration to Losers earlier, and Infiltration decide to counter-pick Balrog using.... Hakan! Despite counter-picking, it was still an entertaining match, showing the world how Hakan can handle the pressure of high level play. In the end, Infiltration's Hakan took out Balrog.

Tokido faces off with Infiltration in an Akuma mirror match. Tokido proved that he was the better Akuma in the mirror match and move on to Grand Finals for a rematch with Xian and eliminating last year's EVO champion Infiltration.

Xian dominated Tokido in the Grand Finals, winning 3-0, being the new EVO champion.

I was really happy with the results of SSFIV this EVO, while Daigo did not win, Xian did, and it was really happy to see Xian win EVO, representing Singapore and South East Asia, and this marks the first time a Gen player win EVO. Remember how saying something like 'Gen will win EVO' is something that seems impossible and would be laugh at by many? Not anymore.


This year's EVO was pretty nice to watch overall, the results were pretty satisfying.