Ever changing....

Ana (CLANNAD Original Soundtrack)

Lyrics: Ogiwara Yuu
Vocal: Lia

The place changes and goes. Like a wind, like clouds.
Like the traces of the heart, no halt at the places.

The place is so far away. be far apart.
people's hand does not reach,so merely has (the) worship.

The place is a lofty lord. can't meet nobody put on.
We will lose the place.so lofty which changes.

Not all were desired. However, we're never sad.
still, there is still the place.far away. far away.

(The wind) blows through the place. an endless,with all.
Like the ripple float on the water, It blows as it goes.

the place is No make at all. Nothing is shown.
Like the sand clasped by hand, It falls vainly.

The place is (a) profound lord,and wear the vain faint light.
But we will find it in the place.The hut at which it stands still.

if not concerned with all,It will maintain that No dye.
therefore there is still the hut.It's lonly, solitary.

no halt at the wind.it soars to the sky.
Like the verdure (which) meets with sunrise, It grows up as reborn.

The hut has held new one.that's different from all.
like the sand castle of the children,but realized with the mind.

The person is a vain statue.wear taciturnity calm.
still,We will know a huge flow.It is stopped by nobody.

soon,the wind wears the snow cloud. will be dyed to snow-white.
Summer grass will incline.No sunlight,feebly shade.

The place buried in deep snow.like the collapsing castle.
like the head of the shade,figure will be thrown away

The hut buried in deep snow.It sinks in to the flood.
and The "not dyeing" is dyed out,and waits for a oppose one.

Even if all are healed, be gonna no return.
there is still the place.far away. far away.

The place changes and goes. Like a wind, like clouds.
Like the traces of the heart, no halt at the places.

The place is a lofty lord. can't meet nobody put on.
still,there is still the place.far away. far away.
----------------------------------------------------------------
(Lyrics found from animelyrics.com by the way..nice site)

Don't mind the Engrish...it's still a beautiful song. When this song was played at Kouko's wedding (Ep9) and Tomoyo's meeting with Tomoya in the snow (Ep24), it was perfect for the mood...

...damn I'm feeling sad again.

On a roll~ Kira kira no Pop Star @_@

EDIT: Moved to sub-site. Click here.

Pinky Street Kira Kira Music Hour review

Cute ain't it? The title screen I mean :p

No, I didn't pick this up. My good friend picked it up over the weekend when on holiday in Japan so I figured I'd review it. Even if it isn't technically mine >_> but I put quite a few hours into this (Sorry Ouendan 2 :( )

Pinky Street Kira Kira Music Hour, is as is name says, a music game. However, it's no Ouendan with no real life people singing in this, rather you are playing to the instrumentals. Not that it's a bad thing of course.

Once the game started I entered a name (has input for Japanese and English letters, but I did not test how many characters), the blood type (huh?), the type of music I like to hear (there's a selection, and surprisingly "Anime" and "Para-Para" were among them), and finally your horoscope (the words are in Japanese, but the symbol is obvious enough). I'd have reason to believe that this game was targeted more towards the female audience when.....

You are apparently given a "house" of your own in Kira2 Music Hour.

.....the character model looks so much more female. And by the way, I had NO opportunity to select gender.

From what I understand, the game is free roam, somewhat like Ouendan 2, with several locations with different types of music.

Your world map. Small is it not?

So far I've played several of the world locations and the one I liked was the classical music area (the real name escapes me at the moment). In every area you will be able to go into shops to purchase things. Of course, the main attraction of every area is the "music room".

Stages are laid out in a way that you will most of the time end up taking on a CPU.

"You" chatting with the person you are going up against.

The game is slightly more text heavy unlike Ouendan, so you might (or might not) miss out on a few things. Still, it isn't too difficult to play. Gameplay however, you will have to place your DS sideways ala Brain Age.....

The game allows you time to tilt the DS apparently. Btw, the Hori Play Stand proved useful here.

Let the battle begin!

The gameplay is pretty simple. Your objective is to simply outperform the other CPU (who will randomly screw up). As shown in the picture, there are 3 panels. When lit up, they are:

Top being yellow
Middle being green
Bottom being blue.

As the music plays, the upper part of the touch screen (when flipped of course - I'm referring to the black "box" with the green music note) will show the three colours. You are supposed to tap the correct colour panel when the music note (which bounces) synchs with the panel on the box (ala Ouendan's timer circles). The timing is rather strict, and it will be the difference between getting Rainbow (spot on), Kira2 (close) or Good (off but still hit). As long as your lifebar (blue) overpower your opponent's (green), you win! But be careful. A string of mistakes will sink your bar to the wrong end pretty quickly (my full bar sunk completely to the other end after missing two beats in a row. TWO!!!!), especially painful if you are at the end of a song.

On Normal mode, you may also have to slide on the panels if needed. If the panel lits up AND also has a >>>>>> or a <<<<<<<, you will need to slide on the panel according to the direction as well (tapping won't count). You will also sometimes have to slide down on all three panels.

Overall, I say this game is pretty nice. It's no Ouendan, but it's still a pretty solid DS game. The gameplay is a bit too simple, but nevertheless it's still pretty addictive. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to play somemore before I return this :(

You can pick up the game from Play-Asia here.

Speaking of which....Ouendan 2's EBA mode.

Woot Chieftain's gonna cheer on a kid! Woot woot!

'Case anyone doesn't know yet, between 28 June to 11 July, there will be an event for Ouendan 2. (page in Japanese - Announced here) Apparently, if you go to a DS Download Station in Japan (YES JAPAN ONLY stop asking whether will it be in your local game store in the US/Malaysia/wherever) you can download the Agents and the Cat to your DS.

"HOLD IT! Then how the hell did you get it so fast?"
Here's the deal. I don't like getting screwed out of things that could have easily been an unlockable. And it's not like Japan is right next door or anything like that. No, I do not have wads of cash that I can fly to Japan within the next few days. Anyway, it is probably understandable that importers like me do not get such luck with Japan only specials and Nintendo of Japan doesn't recognise imports, but for something like this that they practically KNOW will have loads of people importing (EBA came coz of Ouendan being mass-imported by us non Japanese) I'm not really too pleased.

Google's lousy Japanese -> English translation. Want a better one? I'll do it for you. Only available on 28 June to 11 July in JAPAN DS DOWNLOAD STATION. Not in Japan? F*** you.

So there was only one way of getting them of course - The great Action Replay DS *woohoo*

Before I proceed, I will provide a disclaimer: I will NOT be held responsible if your Ouendan 2 save gets corrupt or anything like that. Please note that the codes below are NOT created by me. I am only providing it here for you, the reader's convenience. If you do not want to take risks with your savefile, I recommend you DO NOT proceed.

Here's the codes, courtesy of someone over at 2ch.

Game ID (you need this for your AR to recognise the game)
AO2J-B9A91626

EBA Mode
220D7397 00000001

I see no need for the (m) code seeing that I got it to work on BOTH the original cartridge and the ROM on the R4 without it.

With the code on, on the difficulty select screen there should be a button of the EBA emblem - That's to activate the EBA mode. You WILL need to trigger the game to save to keep the mode. (Beat a high score or go to options, hit the top-middle button, enter and exit)

But hey, I don't want to use an AR to get them! Is there really no other way?
There has been no way so far in game to unlock them. Definitely not by points (I'm already past the last rank by some distance). So unless you happen to be Japan, and you don't want to use an AR, you're screwed out of them.

And before anyone screams of using the AR as a matter of gaining an advantage in the EBA mode, let me remind you AR-haters that this does NOT affect gameplay whatsoever. All this mode does as explained by Nintendo is to replace the skins of the Ouendan with the EBA. That's it. It is only for decoration (though it looks cool to see Chieftain do the Ouendan cheering :p).

Keep in mind - If you choose to reset your game (as in delete data), your EBA mode is gone.

In which I Ouendan 2'd the day away.

And so I played Ouendan 2 as usual, trying to secure better S ranks. Then I did Music Hour on Insane-Hidden. The try came out....

259 300s, 1 100

Oh yes, that 1 100 is sticking out like a sore thumb. So I spent the next hour trying to all 300 the thing, finally doing it at last! (after X amount of tries - I didn't count)



ALL 300 Music Hour. Take that you stupid game!

And then came Countdown. Doing it on Insane-Hidden as well...and then history repeated itself.

168 300s, 1 100

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Oh and by the way, I didn't manage to get all 300 on this one....first section is so hard to get the timing right *sob*)

[EDIT: I got Glamorous Sky in Hard-Hidden ALL 300'd right after this post. HAH! Take that you stupid game!)

Glamorous Sky ALL 300 with EBA's Chieftain! Take that!

Ouendan 2 vids (previously shown on blog)

Click here. I archived it onto a seperate site now.

Yes!

This one above is Hard + Hidden SSAY (Sekai wa Sore wo Ai to Yobunda ze). Actual score: 10636410. Did it last night.

If that Cheerleaders+Hidden SSAY took me 3 hours, this one took me at least 12 hours (on seperate days, not one sitting). Quite simply, on Cheerleader difficulty, the cue to hit them is when the markers start to disappear. On Hard, it is 1 second AFTER it disappears (I'm practically tapping on an invisible marker- aka NOTHING). I thank the white line which served as guidance(and I don't think have served me any purpose before :D). This is definitely harder than the Cheerleader one (in Hidden) even though it has less markers.

Of course, the pink Touch Pen Attachment I bought(click here to go to Host Play for review) was a major help. ALL HAIL! :D :D

Elite Beat Agents Review

Elite Beat Agents. The US counterpart to Ouendan. How does it fare?

EBA plays like Ouendan. If you've played Ouendan you will feel right at home. You tap along to the beat, slide to the phrase markers and spin (ala touch screen destroyer style) the spinners, usually towards the end of the song.

What sets EBA and Ouendan apart are the characters. Instead of the male cheerleaders you see in Ouendan, you now have MIB-ish agents dancing to the beat. One thing I noticed that unlike Ouendan (BOTH 1 and 2), this one seems to have original dance moves for each song. Yes, you get to see the agents do the YMCA during the song. A rather nice effect. One notable absentee from this game is the combo flames, but I think they were removed due to the theme of the game.

The song selection was made in line for all ages. Classic songs such as September from Earth, Wind and Fire to Jumpin' Jack Flash from the Rolling Stones to recent songs such as La La, Survivor and Sk8tr Boi are present in this game. Is the song selection justified? Yes to some, no to some. Some have great beats to tap to while others are horrendous just playing to it. It's immensely difficult to keep the beat to for certain songs because the song itself sounds weird.

Feature wise, it is a step up of Ouendan 1 with the introduction of replay saves where you can save one replay per song. It is also compatible with the Rumble Pak (although I personally don't find much use for it). You can also skip the intros at the start of the song (but not the end; a feature later implemented in Ouendan 2).]]

Is it a recommended buy? Definitely. It will and has appealed to many, and even if you do not like the song itself, the gameplay will blow you away. I myself didn't like many songs because they were a chore to play to begin with but I grew to like them soon enough.

You can purchase Elite Beat Agents from Play-Asia here.

Finally!

Three and a half hours. A lot of near misses. A lot of WTF moments. But I finally did it.

Here's a little history.

Last Friday, someone over at GameFAQs found out about the hidden timer circle mode. The thing that makes it worth playing was it multiplies your score by x1.5. The very next day, alkaliph (a really great Ouendan player) posted a 9999999 score on Sekai wa Sore o Ai to Yobunda ze Cheerleader difficulty with the hidden circles option on, proving now it is very possible to max out the score counter. (It is - you can score roughly 7 million++ in Sekai wa Sore o Ai to Yobunda ze in the regular Cheerleader difficulty provided you never missed, multiply that and you have roughly...10.5 million?)

So having S ranked this song on the regular Cheerleaders, I thought of trying the hidden circle mode. It was a bit of a chore memorizing where are the quick-double, double, quick-triple, and triple taps. There were SO many times that I could have scored better. (To clarify on this, even though the score counter caps at 9999999, the game continues to count your score; this is reflected on your total overall score/rank menu - And I found out my final score was actually 11258610) So many 100s that were 300s in the other (failed) attempts. But in the end, after the final spinner, it was worth it.

I think I just hit a high point in my rhythm gaming life. :)

(Oh by the way, the screenshot was taken with an Emulator - but I did it on my original cart. I just transferred the replay to my R4 and just so happened the emulator uses the same style of sav with the R4. I don't have my digital camera at hand now, so I had to use this)

Now to watch Lucky Star Ep. 7. Been sitting on my HDD for some time now :p

Ouendan 2 review.

Ouendan 2 is the sequel to the rhythm game Ouendan, released in 2005. It didn't fare so well locally in Japan, but it was a major hit overseas, most import sites having it at #1 at one point. Is Ouendan 2 just as good as the original? I say it's a supreme improvement.

Just like Ouendan and Elite Beat Agents, the main premise of the game has not changed. You tap the beats on screen according to the rhythm. Sometimes there will be slide (also known as phrase markers) which you need to slide to, and there is also the infamous Touch Screen Killer (spinners) which you usually have to spin away. It's a really well done style of play, using the touch screen to its maximum potential.

The songs? These are great Japanese songs from Yaida Hitomi's Go My Way to hyde's Countdown to even Monkey Magic from Orange Range. The songs are very much likeable and enjoyable to beat to. While they are mostly covers they do sound very much alike, very much compared to the original songs (well except one). The scenarios while mostly absurd and really impossible, but it's sort of stuck as a "trend" for Ouendan/EBA.

The difficulty is quite well balanced. Newer players will have no problems jumping in with the Easy and Normal modes, and the veterans of the series will find challenges in the upper dificulties. As for the features, Inis has taken all the good from Elite Beat Agents and made it better. Now replays are not limited to one per song, rather now you have the freedom of saving more than one replay of the same song if you wish. Furthermore now it displays the top 3 scores of the song you have attained.

One complaint of the players of the first Ouendan was the inability to skip intros (a problem in the final song of that game) and it was introduced in Elite Beat Agents and retained again for Ouendan 2. Now they have taken it another step and allows you to skip the endings of every song provided the player has seen it once. It is a very useful feature as it can cut down waiting time.

Is this worth a buy? Definitely. If you're into rhythm games and have a Nintendo DS, Ouendan 2 will keep you entertained for a very long time with massive replay value. Even if you are new to the series, it is very easy to get hooked into playing the game. It is easy to adapt to.

Final score: 9/10

You can purchase Ouendan 2 from Play-Asia. Click here!

(EDIT: I asked my source from Japan to verify, she said most if not all were covers. Thanks Chi-san)