We can't stop here!

I DON'T EVEN KNOW BUT IT IS AWESOME

Lately, i haven't been as creative about writing. I don't know why, but words just aren't coming out. Instead, it seems my visual artistic sense has been a bit more prevalent. over the past week or two, i've developed a small itch to vector things in my spare time. I'm still learning so a lot of it looks like crap, but i'm pleased with my work so far. Here's what i've done up to this point:

Hisukohavector template

My first vector, based off of a joke based off of a joke from a comic. this one i'm always using to make jokes about melty blood on forums and shit. It's not a great trace, but it's grown on me. I still like opening it up and removing their eyes or recoloring their hair and stuff.

Kohaku9 Complete

My second one, taken from...someplace. I don't know honestly. It's a fusion of meltan and touhou, so it made me laugh, and i had to do something to try to get better. the hands and the shading for them kind of tripped me out.

Like gambling with my life!

#3. Kaiji was an interesting show and i wanted to do something else, something un-toohoo and un-melty. this one kind of flew together compared to the time spent on others, and the first where i just said "screw it, i'll redraw parts as i see fit-ish"

Keine Complete

#4. Someone had taken a bunch of pictures that were of t-shirts and wanted them vectored. I really liked this one and wanted to try to get better at it, so i went for it. i think it came out awesome compared to my skill level, though i would have liked to have a different pattern for the dress. i'm not at the point where i can redraw a pic freely obviously.

Tewitemplate

#5, same deal, done within an hour of the keine one. just something simple and fun. people are wanting to use these to make their own t-shirts now -- I hope someone sends me one.

Aokocolor

#6 and the most recent. This one took me like 8 hours(with breaks for boredom and doing other more important things, more like 5-6) A lot of messing around with the draw tool and getting just the right shapes i was hoping for. I'm not the biggest aoko fan, but i saw the original and wanted to draw, so there you go.

and this is just something badass from when i was starting to color the last pic:

Aokosloppy

Hadn't drawn the eyes, only did the most basic of coloring, purposefully making it sloppy. It just looked awesome. MABEY I SHOELD BECOME AN ARTISTé AND SELL THIS FOR TENS OF DOLLARS y/n yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

please poke around at these for all the other transitional phases and other stuff:

童貞

Vectoring or Edited

The pressure of the courtroom. A nervous witness, rattled by your expert questioning. Suddenly, it all becomes clear! You see through the witness and his lies! As if by instinct, your hands slam down on your desk, as you scream "Objection!" and present the key piece of evidence to the case.

Then your boss calls you into his office for playing games during work.

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All

If ever there was a game to scream at(or about), Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All for the Nintendo DS is certainly one of the best. If you are completely new to the series, I suggest picking up the first in the series. While you can play the second without knowing anything about the series, this one builds off of the first in both storyline and difficulty. To quickly fill you in, you play as Phoenix Wright, an attorney in a fictitious court system, defending people in what seems to be an impossible court case. You basically break down the prosecution's case until you eventually can prove who actually committed the crime, thus exonerating your client. This is done through an evidence gathering phase where you collect items and testimonies that are helpful to your case, and the trial phase where you pressure witnesses and present the collected evidence to counter claims against your client.

Psyche Lock

There are a few new aspects to the game that make it a bit more difficult to pick the correct course of action. First and most importantly is the addition of a life bar. In the first game, you had 5 mistakes you could make during the court phase. Make 5 wrong assumptions or show the wrong evidence, and your client is off to jail. Under the new life bar system, it allows for more mistakes at some points, but some crucial pieces of evidence can take anywhere from a fraction to 3/4 of the life bar. In addition, the bar transfers over to the investigation phase where it is used by the "Psyche-lock" puzzles These are sections where a person is hiding a very closely guarded secret, and refuses to give it up by just asking. You have to pry it out of them by presenting evidence and making educated guesses about what they are hiding. Usually when you discover a psyche-lock, you don't have enough evidence to pry it out of them, so you have to leave it and come back later. However, if you attempt to solve it anyway, or make the wrong assumption, your life bar takes a hit. Fortunately, when solving a psyche-lock, you gain a portion of your life bar back, usually topping you back up. Among other changes are the use of people's profiles as evidence, which means you have 2 screens of information you need to look at. All of this new information is worked in so that by the second case, your head should be swimming with possibilities.

Things you won't be seeing from the first are stuff like luminol testing or fingerprinting. All four of these cases are the GBA ports of the game, so no made-for-ds cases here. The game still has its touch-screen port, which gives you many options on how you choose to play, whether you touch to examine and move through text or simply use the +pad and buttons. Microphone support is also back, so you can scream "Hold It!" and "Objection!" just like phoenix.

The cases are humorous and in no way transparant. Maybe you can figure out who the killer is right away, but trying to get there is a very difficult task. Besides the first case, which is easing you back into the game, the other three are a good length(think case 4 for wright vets) and require a suitable time investment to read and process all of the information. All of the new characters are well designed both in depth and placement. Overall, the story is what drives the game, and for you to want to play it all the way through, it HAS to be as good as people say, and then some.

205_examination_~_moderate_2002

(You can find an example of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney's music in my audio section for reference. Thanks to Galbadia Hotel for hosting such a wide array of game music)

Overall, this game is a keeper. It stands on its own right as a good game to buy. In addition, it stands up to most expectations about this growing series. I can't wait to see what Ace Attorney 3 will bring us. For now, these four cases are what stand between total failure and a complete victory. and i NEVER get tired of screaming Objection... except when i'm on the train, and people look at me funny for being so loud.

Hello there, and thank you for reading my vox. Allow me to take this time to explain what this is all about. Being someone who always wants to bring meaning out of life, I have chosen to share certain opinions on various topics to anyone who's willing to read. Basically, I intend to use my life and experience as a roadmap to failure. Critiques on shows, movies, games, music, and anything else that happens to pass through my brain. I do warn you, these revelations will be in stereo: They will be both objective and biased, scrutinized and glossed over, spiteful and merciful, humble and arrogant, brazen and shy, powerful yet uneventful. It is in this way that I hope to give you all the relevant facts on any subject, yet still have my unique spin on the matter. (Protip: It won't work.)

I'll try to put out one every week on sunday, though there might be more that aren't so... respectable. So, I hope you enjoy.

Let me start my first post by saying I am a huge nerd. I enjoy fighting games. I like playing them, playing against people, learning the strats, trying to outthink my opponent, and generally throwing down and owning someone's face. Guilty Gear is my all-time favorite, due to the extremely fast pace and crazy depth of gameplay. In addition, all of the characters have their strong and weak points while not being so grossly over/underbalanced that they are scrub bait or joke characters. All in all, it's a wonderful game.

Now, why have I bored you with all this background? Enter the evolution of the Combo Video. Basically, players take their best combos that are possible yet difficult in normal gameplay, set them to music, and edit them to play to your sense of amazement. Basically, a good video will make you go "WOW, THAT RIPS, I am going to go play that character RIGHT NOW to do that crazy stuff." It is very entertaining in that way. Also, it is educational as it shows you how if the right conditions are met, you can lay down a whole lot of hurt, or at least a decent chunk, with the style and grace of the pros. The right character and combos make for a lot of any combo video's success, however the music is what sends it over the top. A soundtrack to brutality, it can really accentuate the sequence's flashier elements when edited properly. And when it's all over, you want to watch it again. and again.

Testament Combo Video

Exhibit A: Stratovarius - Father Time - Testament.

Testament is the rocker type, and he'd totally be down with this song. Comparing Testament to Death is pretty accurate, and makes the video even more interesting to watch as it starts out with the clock ticking, showing the title of the video against a black screen, then BAM, it starts in with the METALMETALMETAL. Each guitar riff and drum fill issues in one of the two victory screens - Slash or Destroyed. Quieter screens are shown as they play into the first verse....then, as Timo Kotipelto begins to sing, the action picks back up, starting small with some easy combos into special variants, as well as some flashy yet impractical showboating with Warrant. During the verses, small and interesting things are shown, building up to the chorus, where a longer and more in-depth combo is shown, almost to the point where you can't help but sing along with the song because it makes it THAT DAMN COOLER, eventually leading to the very last chorus, with a black and white video showing an insanely long juggling combo that takes exact precision and forethought. All that you can say is "Epic." and the music accentuates that perfectly, in every way.

Hakanai Diamond

Exhibit B: B'z - Hakanai Diamond - Zappa
Now, this one is even cooler. First off, some background: Zappa is one of the hardest characters to play, let alone master. In actual battles, he's like fighting with(or against) four different people, because his attacks change by whatever ghost is posessing him(or if he's being posessed at all.) he also makes all these creepily awesome noises and sounds, as well as a really unorthodox fighting style. Now, I had never heard this song until i saw this video, so I thought it was edited to fit zappa and his storyline, but then when I actually heard the cd version, i was like HOLY SHIT THAT SO FITS I SEE WHY THEY USED IT. It has these weird noises while it's playing, and it sounds like it's from the game, similar to the noises zappa makes. Anyway, i'm getting off topic. This is another excellent example of editing a video to music to enhance the perceived greatness of something. And let me tell you, it's pretty damn great. The last video, the highest combo was something like 32. This one is more like 432. So in and of itself, this is crazy. Add in that this is a very underused character, extremely hard to master, and all of the moves are both flashy and practical. I can't even walk you through how awesome the editing is, how well the song fits, and how they make use of the game footage to make it rock harder. It's something you just have to watch.