Singularity provides a much needed break from the strains of tumultuous gaming to offer an experience that is just plain fun.

What I like,
Is how the story is developed throughout the game; In the early years of the Cold War, the Soviet Union discovers a rare and powerful new mineral known as E99 hidden on the small, remote island of Katorga-12 just off the eastern coast of Russia. Using this strange new element, the Soviet government begins harnessing the powers of E99 via strange and dangerous experiments and discover that E99 has the ability to alter time.

The results of these experiments lead to the creation of a mechanism known as the Time Manipulation Device (or TMD), and later, in light of Russia’s attempts to use E99 against the US, cause a catastrophic event known as the “singularity,” an disaster which the Soviet government sought desperately to cover up.

More than 50 years later, on a mission to investigate a bizarre radiation emission coming from the island, Air Force pilot Nate Renko and his crew crash land upon Katorga-12 following a strange blue flash. They soon discover the history of this place and find themselves at the mercy of the ongoing effects courtesy of the singularity.

You will assume the role of Renko, who quickly finds himself in possession of the TMD and in control of the time manipulation powers it contains. The game’s story is nothing new, nor is it anything original. It’s your fairly average Soviet-bad, United States-good cliché with time travel thrown in.

What makes it worth talking about, however, is the way the game deals with the shifts in time. Speaking strictly from a story perspective (we’ll get to the time travel’s gameplay use in a second), the story will frequently jump back and forth between 1955 (the date of the singularity) to 2010 (the date of Renko’s crash landing).

Seeing the world around you change right before your eyes on more than one occasion is an interesting approach to the time travel scenario, wherein usually the person is the one going back in time. Here, instead, the entire island itself is actually stuck in a time loop, struggling to maintain itself in each period. You’ll frequently come across Russian military troops in either time period, as well as the island’s various mutated inhabitants that still roam following their transformation from the singularity.

What I don’t Like,
The gameplay is your average First-Person Shooter with big influences from atmosphere, progression, propaganda – taken out of Bioshock, to the more mechanical things from games like Half-Life 2 and Dead Space. Don’t get me wrong, those are some awesome mixes for the game – but the mechanics for the game feels like it wasn’t finished.

There’s also the problem with little ammunition in the game with a couple of scenes I’ve bumped to with little to no ammo to defend myself against the enemies; forcing me to use my TMB, wasting all of the energy plus avoiding getting hit while it recharges in hope to use the TMB more.

The AI is pretty dumb even on the hardest difficulty; repeating the same cycle making it easy to predict for the mutant-species. Same goes for the soldiers running straight towards you making it so easy not-to-miss the shot.

If it wasn’t for the story, I wouldn’t be playing this game at all. There’s quite a few bugs you encounter in the game and a lot of moments where you really wish you could just skip through(some parts feel like repeats from a previous part of the game). Now time to finish the game and see what the three different ending show with USA blown to bits, Save USA from Russia, or Destroy Russia entirely(lol okay i made it up but it wouldn’t surprise me if it does).

Yes, I know this is the french cover.

Rather than this being something I like, I consider it legitimately amazing.

Mamoru Oshii is best known for directing Ghost in the Shell (released in 1995); four years later Jin-Roh was released, part of the “Kerberos Saga”, which was his own creation (dating back to 1987).

What is the Kerberos Saga?

The Kerberos Saga has one of the most complicated plots I’ve read about. Jin-Roh (which I finished last week) is the only actual part of the saga I’ve seen.

The general story of the saga goes as such. Japan loses a very different version of World War II (they lose to Germany). After Japan recovers it is met with internal conflict and terrorism that threatens to destabilize the nation. To combat this, the nation’s police force is restructured to separate the Self-Police (regular police) from a Capital Metropolitan Police Division which holds control over the “Special Unit” (aka Kerberos Unit).

The Kerberos Unit becomes well-known for using awesome skill, heavy technology, and brutally efficient tactics to combat terrorism. For reasons never fully explained, they become disliked by the Self-Police and are put under pressure by the government that created them. As such, the Kerberos Saga focuses on the turmoil of the Unit as it becomes increasingly hard for them to survive.

The Opening of Jin-Roh

Jin-Roh sets the mood instantly by showing us that there is no real “good” in the conflict. The Self-Police not once use brutal tactics against a riot (full of napalm filled molotov cocktails) and are instead blown half to smithereens by a satchel charge.

The Kerberos Unit, without permission from the Self-Police authority, run into the sewer and confronts the terrorists. There are maybe eight terrorist, and at least fifteen Kerberos.

Here we see the how the unit inflicts fear on the terrorists, the red eyes and gas-mask show no humanity. These are “good” guys, though they are brutal, they are just as brutal as the terrorists they fight.The Unit gives one warning. There is a long pause right before one terrorist panics and the Unit then responds by opening fire with their MG42s and killing everything.

As a young female terrorist tries to escape, she is met with one Kerberos who orders her to stop. She refuses and begins to pull the bomb on her satchel charge. The Kerberos, despite shouts from his nearby comrades, refuses to shoot her, and instead asks “Why….?” The bomb goes off, yet the Unit is unharmed.

The remainder of the film focuses on the aftermath of this incident, which is used to try and bury the Unit for “incompetence.” Our protagonist becomes the Kerberos from above, Fuse Kazuki, I’m tempted to say more, but since it’s such a great film I recommend you see it yourself.

Themes

The core theme of Jin-Roh is the question of humanity, Fuse is emotionless for most of the film, and when asked why he joined the Unit, he replies with “I just felt comfortable there.” His existence as a “wolf” remains resolute, though throughout the film he has many opportunities to just leave the military/police and become “human” once again.

What is… and yet isn’t touched upon much, is the nature of how the terrorists are treated in terms of humanity. There is clear implication that they aren’t treated as human. The warning that the Unit gives the terrorists in the opening is thrown into question when it was revealed the soldiers were given orders to eliminate the terrorists, showing that perhaps they knew the terrorists wouldn’t surrender.

I really love how the film does not take sides, of course we are intended to root for the Kerberos (I do at least), but since it is never made clear what the terrorists are fighting for, we can not judge the righteousness of their cause.

Concluding Thoughts

The atmosphere of this film is thoroughly depressing and dark, but if you can bear that, it serves as an excellent introduction to the Kerberos Saga. I’ve been trying to find anime that can be considered more artistic, and I am happy to add this to my collection.

Learn history!

Production I.G. has always been a relatively fine studio to me. They make high-quality material, most notably: Ghost in the Shell SAC, however I failed to be massively impressed. Eden of the East, however was very intriguing and I hope to watch the movie sequels soon so I can review it accordingly. They also made Blood+ which I haven’t seen, but apparently is considered one of their best.

Back in early 2009, they made an anime adaptation of the game series Sengoku BASARA which is apparently a tongue-in-cheek depiction of the Warring States era. Filled with power-levels, battle aura, mecha, GARness, and screaming people’s names. This manages to be quite entertaining.

The story has no clear main character (this is the Warring States era after-all), but of course features Oda Nobunaga as the most imposing war-leader. The story primarily focuses on the OH MY GOD, LOOK AT HIS STRENGTH-relationship between Date Masamune (a favorite of mine, because his army could crush anything in Sengoku Rance) and Sanada Yukimura (whom I hadn’t heard of until now)

Admittedly, I have only started watching this now. But when I first heard of it I was intrigued by the idea of Production I.G. doing a half-action-comedy series, and the result is quite pleasing.

Characters

Yukimura is voiced by everyone’s favorite battle-screaming seiyuu, Souichiro Hoshi. Most notable for voicing Keiichi in Higurashi and Kira in Gundam SEED. Which makes him perfect for acting out a naive but loyal character.

Masamune is voiced Kazuya Nakai, someone I haven’t heard often. But his voice is badass and makes perfect engrish (yes, they spoke engrish in feudal Japan, BASARA DOES NOT LIE) and reflects the lax and powerful traits of the character.

So from these characters we can grasp something. Whilst Sengoku BASARA may not be an amazing show, it is a show that generates it’s generic (but funny and cool) character archetypes better than other shows. Need more examples? Norio FUCKING Wakamoto voices Nobunaga!?!? You do need no other example than that.

In addition to the large male cast. There are some female characters of note: such as Kasuga (voiced by Natsuko Kuwatani whom I was 100% sure was Ayako Kawasumi at first), Oichi (voiced by Mamiko Not), and Nohime (Yurika Hino).

Then there’s Uesugi Kenshin, who is voiced by a woman and is given an ambiguous gender. Historically Kenshin is known as a man, but there is a legend (backed up by a few sources) that he was a woman. So BASARA gives him an effeminate face, soft armor that hides his gender, and the voice of Pakku Romi. His/her relationship with Kasuga has also been noted by others…. (hint read the the title of the blog).

General Hilarity

Name one anime where you can see:

1. A one-eyed man riding his horse with no hands like stunt biker and saying to a group of ragtag soldiers “HEY BOYS ARE YOU READY TO PARTY?”

2. Seeing a famous general ride his horse VERTICALLY up a wall

3. Japan getting hit by explosions nearly four-hundred years before World War II

Other Thoughts

A sequel season to this is coming soon. So I’m doing my best to finish up the first season. I’m usually not a fan of streaming shows, but for the sake of convenience I’ve been using FUnimations subbed version on Youtube.

Anyway, any fan of mindless action should check this out. It’s not too bad.

A new RPG, this time from Sega but with Tri-Ace at the steering wheel. And they have done a good job.

If you don´t need 80 hours of storytelling.

Story
The story is part basic: The world was contaminated, means were made to filter the contamination and once again clear the sky and sea.

Instead of making this happen humans started to move into the building that were made to clear the sky and sea from contamination. Then people started dividing themselves into different levels on this tower. With the people at the top being the highest and noblest.

Or if we go by the game: Some time ago two people wandered into a church, on the floor was lots of blood. In the final chamber they found a person sitting, crying. Without further ado one of the two, a guy with long hair tied up into a pony tail takes a shoot at the cryning person.

This creates a firefight between the two which the pony-tailed dude wins. When you start the game Zephyr, one of the three heroes is walking around in town when he suddenly sees someone standing atop a high tower. A cute girl indeed. But it also seems as if she is going to kill herself. Zephyr starts running and when he sees the girl fall he grabs his gun out and takes a shoot, cutting a wire which he uses to save the girl.

But then the wire breakes and they both fall down. Instead of finding something to land on or try to make their falling stop they take time to gaze at the very blue sky. While falling.

Then it´s one year and a couple months later and apparently Zephyr and the girl survived the fall since they are now together with Vashyron, Hunters, mercenaries that do tasks for a reward.

Battle system
What takes Resonance of Fate and throws it to the new JRPG type is it´s battle system. I´ve only played for like 3 hours but man, this battle system is sick. It´s so good that I just can´t describe it well.

A bad try maybe but think of it as a shooting game where you have turns, weight of equipment and being able to fire a lot of bullets into your enemies with a lot of different weapons.

This is a pretty good movie of the battle system. It show of your most often used attack, called “Hero Attacks” where your character runs from one point to another that you decide. While he runs the weapon charges and when you have done one charge you can press the X button to fire the weapon.

There are two types of damage. Scratch damage is what machine guns do, they don´t do real damage, the only soften the opponent up. Then you move in with real damage that is done by guns to finish the job.

This as you can understand take some strategy to make good runs. Me I´m still new to the game so I just run in with guns blazing and so far except for the first boss I´ve been successful. But I´ve got to learn more strategies if I want to move forward.

A bit irritating is that if you touch an opponent during your Hero Attack your turn ends. If don´t jump over a bunker or enemy the run is over and the opponent usually attacks you. Which sure doesn´t do much damage since all it does is scratch damage. Untill you have no Hero Attacks left or you are attacked enough to bring the scratch meter down to zero which costs you a hero attack.

Then it´s easy to get killed. And since it´s game over if any of your characters die the game can be pretty hard. Frustrating even.

And do keep your surroundings at heart. Attacking a barrel filled with oil with a gun and your friend next to it is not a smart thing to do. It will blow up and hurt your friends. There´s even an achievement for blowing your friends up and killing them…

The world map
Ever liked hexagons? The world map in this game is made out of them. Attached to eachother and you have to earn hexes to open the paths to the different areas of the world map. Battles occur on the world map randomly. But they give out hexes and items so all is good.

Overall
A great game, a bit frustrating though but well worth the cost of getting it. I like it and recommend it to other people who want to try out a cool battle system.

It´s also a little irritating that in dungeons you have to fight your way trough a different amount of stages before facing of a boss. All without being able to save in between. You can use a item to go back to the world map sure but I´m not much for that kind of stuff.

That and the tutorial isn´t really helping well when describing how to do the different attacks. I still haven´t managed to do one smackdown attack, which supposedly smacks the opponent down into the ground and does damage to all body parts.

But it´s all good fun when everything comes around. It´s fun to play and see the guns blazing.

The PS2 is still going strong. This title really proves it. Innovation, great fun to play and a pretty unique design.

Let´s take a look at Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love

To be or not to be, that is the question
It´s hard to pin one category to the gameplay of Sakura Wars. In fact I´d dare to say that it isn´t possible. There is dating sim elements, a show that must go on and turn-based SRPG battles. All mixed into one game. Or should I just call it a anime turned game? I don´t know but anyway.

This is done splendid and creates a lot of fun.

And it takes time. Since part of it is a pure visual novel where all you do is read text and make choices it is needed to read everything. And make choices that make sense.

LIPS
The most initiative concept here is called LIPS. Sometimes when there is a choice to be made a timer will start ticking. You have choices to make and even not answering is also a choice that you can make.

There are ordinary choices that aren´t timed but most of them are when you are dealing with the ladies. Which is great.

In other dialouges it´s important to really shout or talk with a low voice. This is where you as the player decides on how loud, hard or low, weak the main hero talks. Or how hard to pull on levers.

When accepting the job you need to speak up for yourself but while being in a library it isn´t that nice to shout.

Trust
The reason for all the choices is that they make the girls around you either trust you more or less. If you gain their trust it shows in a nice sparkling star and it also shows in battle as if you keep them motivated their strength in battle increases.

Also increasing trust between your teammates makes them work better as a group and thus, the damage they make in joint attacks increase.

So it is important to get on the ladies good side. As well as getting the ladies themselves on their good side.

Story
I mentioned this might as well be a anime made game right? It´s the easiest way to describe this.

Shinjiro Taiga, the newest freshest soldier out from the academy gets sent from Japan to USA, New York to join the Star Division there. On arrival he is treated like the plague, they thought the commander from Japan was the one that would arrive and getting this cherry boy is a big let down.

As if this wasn´t enough he isn´t allowed to participate in any of the real fighting, instead he has to clean the base of the Star Division, the Littlelip Theater where they perform plays as Cleopatra, Hamlet, Rodeo & Juliet to name a few.

Given the hardships of being treated like shit and missunderstanding that just getting out of the academy isn´t enough to give you a reason to be part of the fighting we move on.

Eventually Shinjiro gains the trust of his companions and is even made the Command-in-training.

The enemies apparently want to resurrect their lord. But so far it hasn´t been said who that is. Which is a bit shameful as the baddies should need more time to explain their motives and such. But it isn´t the focus of the game anyway so.

Chapters
This game is divided into chapters. One for each girl I think and one prologue for you when you arrive in New York.

Think of it as getting to understand the ladies better than you did before, new girls arriving at the Theater and joining your team and so on and on. You know the drill :p

Battles
The battles are a bit strange. It´s turn based and the mecha look horrible. But after Jehuty from ZOE most other mechas look like shit in games. Everything is about mobility here. You use this to walk, attack and use special moves.

Each mecha also has a certain range. Shinjiro uses two swords so he is a melee fighter. Subaru uses a pair of fans to wipe the enemies out around her.

So you move towards the enemy, when the enemy is targeted you press X to attack. Pressing the X button 5 times in a row if you have the mobility makes the most damage. Otherwise it will just drain mobility and be a waste of it.

When all enemies are defeated most often there is a boss fight coming up. These usually take part when the mechas turn into ships and fly in the sky. The same basic mobility is used here as well. But this time every fires missiles. And the bosses have multiple target areas that you can attack.

I don´t know why but so far the battles have been very easy. One combo for most enemies except bosses and they are dead. With combos I mean five hits.

Bosses are also pretty easy. And they go down pretty fast.

Final Thoughts
It´s a good game. I´ve been wanting this type of game for a long time now. I could complain about how the characters are stereotypes and the villains don´t really appear and that it´s to much time spent reading text, save points are to far away and what not others complain about.

But so far, from my first impressions this game is gold and well worth the money. And since I got the premium edition I got a nicer boxart, a poster of Gemini and a little book about the Little Lip Theater, basically a flyer for their shows and such.

If you have the money, like dating sims/SRPGs then don´t hesitate. Buy this as fast as you can.

A big step for mankind and loads of money for Square-Enix. However you choose to look at it, Final Fantasy will never be the same again after this title. Not for me anyway.

It´s quite fun to see how they managed to make a game that is so damn hard to follow and where battles are a choice of either sitting and inputing more commands than FFXII or just letting the game´s AI choose the attacks for you.

My first impression is pretty mixed so we´ll just point some stuff out.

Story
Lightning boards a train that holds a lot of people that are going to be purged. Removed from the floating city of Cocoon thanks to a fal’Cie. But given that Lightnings sister is a l’Cie, a human cursed by the fal’Cie she isn´t going to let her die.

Wrecking havoc on the train with her gravitional skills and that she was a part of the protective corps gives her an edge.

After kicking some personal and mechanic butt Lightning and a crew of people gathered at the fal’Cie finds Serah, only to watch as she turns to crystal, having fullfilled her focus.

Thrown into despair the fal’Cie crashes down into the world below the floating city Cocoon.

Then all of a sudden we are thrown back two days before anything has happend and we get to see Snow propose to Serah.

Back again to where we left our heroes, in a icy field of crystals. Having decided what to do: Destroy Sanctum that goes after l’Cie.

For everyone, a destiny
This is the first irritating thing about FFXIII, the story is told from so many directions. We start out with Lightning, get thrown to Snow, back to Lightning, then we are suddenly playing as Hope a third character along with Vanille. Then back to Lightning, then back to Vanille and back to two days before anything happends, before everything started or even further away from the stuff that you´ve done.

And with this time I´ve spent I´ve played as every character, which is five in total. It gets a little irritating always being thrown around the characters.

A determined fighter
Fighting battles is easy, pick automatic battle and the AI does the rest. What you have to keep your focus on is what classes that the characters are using. Against certain opponents a hard hitting commando, a sentinel for defence and a medic for healing might be a good choice.

For another enemy a status inflicting Saboteur with a magic using Ravanger protected by a Synergist is a good combo. You decide what role a character should have in battle. But you only controll the leader which is also seen as the on screen character.

If you want to make your own decisions all completely then pick “ability” and a list of available abilities for the role you´re using at the moment becomes availabke. Pick anyone, for a maximum of three abilities(in the beginning) and then choose who to unleash the pain on.

Rince and repeat.

The battles are pretty showy, Lightning doing backflips and using her gunsword as a gun firing away for example.

Confusing at first, but ?_? at the end
With all the jumping around in the storyline where every character gets his/her own time as the main character, developing their feelings of hate or regret or just about anything it´s hard to pick one character to like as you rarely get the time needed to get to know them.

Getting summons is also a pain in the ass. Each eidolon that you face need to see that you are worthy of being it´s master, so it challanges you. First of all it casts Doom on you, which places a time limit on the fight. Then you have a meter where is says “gestalt” that you need to fill before time runs out or you are killed to acquire the eidolon and can then summon it at will as long as you have the required TP.

Conclussion
The story is part interesting and part confusing. The battles are meant to be showy and irritating as a false choice of role for your characters makes it game over and you have to retry it. Getting sent back to just before the battle.

So it is indeed a new type of Final Fantasy, and as I both enjoy the game and look at it with a ?_? face I really cant say. This Final Fantasy is not for everyone, that is one thing that is for sure.

p.s if this text is a lot weirder than what I usually write it´s because I´m sick and have some kind of semi-version of the flu. No fever but muscle pains, running nose and a sore throat. Which trashes my mind and my ability to write properly. Sorry bout that. But I think the point got trough.