This And That

But in a pure and innocent sense. So C80 has officially concluded; somehow I had been looking forward to it more than the last year's, probably because of Touhou 13. According to the Mainichi Daily News, the number of attendants this year dropped by twenty thousand, most likely due to the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan a few months ago; but I reckon five hundred and six thousand is still quite a lot.

Anyways since many music, books and games are still waiting to be uploaded, it is perhaps a little too early to give my impression of this year's summer comiket. Nevertheless I'm quite pleased with some of the releases so far,

Seiga Nyan-Nyan, why you so lovely?

Of course, Touhou 13 was the main dish for me, despite the fact that the demo was a bit disappointing. So as I powered my way through the first three stages (which were in the demo anyway), I instantly fell in love with Stage 4's BGM, "Desire Drive". I wouldn't go as far as to say it's my favourite, since "Fall of Fall ~ Autumnal Waterfall" is still pretty hard to beat, but "Desire Drive" is definitely a very nice track. It really gives the game a feel of urgency which the first three stages lacked; and is just me or the chorus sounds a little bit like "Extend Ash ~ Hourai Victim"? I actually laughed a bit when I saw Seiga, I think I need more time to get used to ZUN's new art style. She was also pretty easy to defeat, even though she had Yoshika as a meat shield. My memory gets a little hazy after Stage 4; neither Soga no Tojiko or Mononobe left good impressions on me, currently waiting for good fanart to convince me otherwise. Toyosatomimi no Miko was awesome though, even if she did look a bit out of place...must be the hands. I refuse to comment on the Extra Stage boss.

Overall I think it's a nice game, but perhaps I have become too attached to older titles (especially Mountain of Faith), I find Ten Desires to be a little lackluster. So after I finished it, I moved onto RefRain ~ prism memories,

Quite fun, I'm still getting used to the controls but the game seems promising, and surreal. Tee is strangely adorable.

Acceleration of Suguri 2 was pretty good too, and it's nice to see the cast of Sora joining the fight. I remember enjoying Sora when it came out, it had been a while since I touched a horizontal shooter game. I also recall having trouble figuring out a couple of characters' gender, really is Tsih a guy or girl?! In any case, against the CPU, Sham seems overwhelmingly powerful...and I just realized Nath has no arms. Um yeah, I need more time to get a better feel of every character. It certainly didn't take long to know what each character is like in the next game though,

Not as good as I had expected. The music and stage design were mediocre at best, the boss fights weren't as complex as I had hoped it to be. Character-wise, I thought Madoka was really safe but at the same time quite boring to play as; Homura was a bit technical; Mami seemed good but was in fact fairly average; Sayaka...I don't like her so I won't comment too much but she's not that good like one of the best; proof that you can't win against a wall; and finally Kyouko who turned out to be pretty good too, with her wide and powerful attacks. I guess all those apples and pocky paid off in the end. So don't waste junk food okay kids? Right now I'm planning to get a few friends to play this together, should make the game more fun.

I wait.