BLOG - n8nmonster (6/2007 - 9/2007)
09/20/2007 - Havent picked up anything new in a while:
Picked this up today:
Onegai Twins Manga.
09/04/2007 - Wooo, as of 2:47am pst:
no.1 for the week.
no.8 for american total ranking.
08/28/2007 - Picked these up today:
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Brain Age 2.
Heroes: Season 1 Boxset.
and Best Buy Exclusive, Heroes Limited Edition Comic Book. 
08/20/2007 - SOCOM Tactical Strike Videos
We recently attended a private Sony Media Event showing off some of their upcoming titles, one of them the new SOCOM for the PlayStation Portable. Check the link above for a small preview we’ve put together and videos from the event.
08/17/2007 - Picked this up the other day, good read:
The Ring 0: Birthday Manga.
08/15/2007 - Tekken DR Online:
wooooooo, as of 3:44pm pst… 
08/14/2007 - Tekken DR Online:
woooooooo, i made it back into the top10 again.
08/10/2007 - Most Recent Additions:
Evolution 2006 DVD, and 300 Blu-Ray.
Tenchi Muyo Ryo-Ohki, and R.O.D. TV Complete.
08/05/2007 - Tekken DR Online!
rank 2nd in the world! tekken dr online! woooo
07/31/2007 - Crown Pickups From The Weekend:
TOMIE: Beginning, and TOMIE: Revenge.
Hellboy, and Casino Royale Blu-Rays.
And a brand new PLAYSTATION3!
07/27/2007 - Pepsi Optimus Prime!
Hahaha, the Pepsi Optimus Prime in action:
07/27/2007 - Comic Con!
First few pick ups from San Diego Comic Con:
Pepsi Optimus Prime.
Race Queen Rei Ayanami, San Diego Comic Con Variant.
Azumi, and Azumi 2.
Dark Horse Manga Sampler, and Ju-On Manga 1.
07/26/2007 - Comic Con!
Away for San Diego Comic Con this weekend, woohooo! Be sure to visit us at the SDTEKKEN Gaming Room in Room 17B on the Mezzanine Level of the Convention Center. SDTEKKEN will have open gaming on Thursday 1130am-closing, tournament on Friday 1pm, and open gaming again on Saturday 1130am-closing again. But wait! There will also be the EVO WEST tournament the same weekend across the street from the Con at the Omni Hotel San Diego. Tekken for EVO WEST will be Saturday 11am. Please cheer us on! And please visit us during our regular days too.
Other than that, enjoy the Con! Preview Night was already packed. It’s going to be one crazy weekend for all of us. Enjoy and have a safe weekend everybody!
07/25/2007 - Soul Nomad Gameplay Videos
We’ve put up three gameplay videos of NIS America’s upcoming SRPG for the PlayStation 2, Soul Nomad & the World Eaters. Check out the vids by clicking the link above.
07/24/2007 - Rock the 80s!
Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80s came out today. Go out and get it! Now!
07/23/2007 - Final Fantasy Retrospective!
Wooooo! Last week GameTrailers put up their 1st of a 13 part Final Fantasy Retrospective. Thirteen! And Part II just came out today. Just finished watching the second one and it makes me feel all the more appreciative of the series… and I can’t wait for the next retrospec to come out. (^_^)b
Check out parts I and II of the GameTrailers Final Fantasy Retrospective here: http://www.gametrailers.com/game/4831.html
07/23/2007 - EVO WEST GUIDE!
We’ve put together a guide for EVO WEST Participants:
For those attending this year’s San Diego Comic Con and EVO WEST Tournament, SDTEKKEN has put together small reference guide that includes an interactive map, suggested parking, and nearby food locations among other features.
EVOWEST 2007: Player’s Guide to San Diego
The guide will be updated throughout the week so check it frequently!
07/20/2007 - Like me to review anything?
Oh yea. If there are any products I’ve gotten that you’d like me to review or give small impressions on, feel free to leave a comment to let me know.
Games I’m currently working on:
Dragoneer’s Aria (NIS), Soul Nomad & the World of Eaters (NIS), Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology (Namco Bandai), “Fixed” Card Fighters DS (SNK).
07/20/2007 - Video Playback on Play-Yan Micro
Here are some results from the video playback test on the Play-Yan Micro:
Original File.
Converted File on Play-Yan Micro.
The file I used was a recent jdrama i’ve been watching: Proposal Daisakusen.
The program I used was 3GP Converter v0.34, using the “Transcode” file I found at the bottom of the article found on this page:
http://www.drewery.net/blog/2006/01/13
/getting-video-on-to-the-ipod/
The transcode file offered low/med/norm/high quality settings. The sizes for each converted file were:
HighQuaFullScreen = 226mb
NormQuaFullScreen = 173mb
MedQuaFullScreen = 120mb
LowQuaFullScreen = 67.4mb
The original file was 701mb.
This means you could put about:
4 HighQua,
5 NormQua,
8 MedQua, or
14 LowQuality vids on a 1GB (~982mb) sd card.
Subtitles are small as expected but were readable on all. However, I’d recommend using at least MedQua setting as LowQuality is noticably blocky, pixely.
R increases the brightness up to 5 while L decreases it back to zero.
Up and Down increases/decreases volume.
Right and Left fast forwards or rewinds.
Start Pauses, and holding Start while on Pause puts it to Sleep.
If you press B you exit to the video menu:
From here you can select to watch any other video or go to playing mp3s.
If you go back to the video, it has a nice memory option asking if you’d like to “Continue” or “Restart.” Although memory is erased if the gameboy is turned off. Thankfully the forward and rewind options are fast either way.
Hah wow, i really put a lot into this. Lol.
To finish it off, here’s a quick vid to how playback looks in action:
07/20/2007 - The More Additions Don’t Stop!
More Additions:
Twinbee Portable, and Chappelle’s Show Season 1.
Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology, and Tenchu Fatal Shadows.
07/18/2007 - Messing around with the Play-Yan Micro
Some pics and impressions of the Play-Yan Micro:
With some messing around, I like the interface. There’s actually no Japanese on it at all, except for that seizure warnin. Lol. But overall, simple and intuitive navigation.
It does however have that SD CARD ERROR when I tried my 2gb sd card on it. I guess the wiki page was true. :C Luckily I still had a spare 1gb sd card.
MP3 is nice, plus it allows for multi-lvl folders on the sd card. It has nice background animation too. You can also have a Mario background and flying stars animation by adding a file on the root directory of the sd card. If you wanted the original stick-man interface you could have it again by holding the R button when turning on the system (or remove the file altogether).
With headphones plugged in the cartridge headphone jack, you can also put the Play-Yan to sleep by pressing and holding the Start button. This has it so that other buttons being pressed won’t affect playback as well as turns the screen off. Nice battery saver, plus it solves another concern I had bout if it were jumblin around in my pocket. You can exit sleep mode by pressing the Start button again.
Currently still messing around with video playback. Hopefully I’ll get it working.
07/18/2007 - Newest Additions
Most Recent Additions:
Sony Cycle Energy Rechargeable Batteries and Charger.
Metal Gear Acid ($14.99), Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven ($7.99).
And Brand New Play-Yan Micro.
07/17/2007 - Couple New Pick Ups
Picked these up today:
New Psyclone Essentials PSP Car Kit. ($14.99)
Intec Audio Video System Selector. ($9.99)
07/16/2007 - SNK VS CAPCOM: CARD FIGHTERS DS
I just got my replacement cartridge today:
Packaging.
Folded Letter and Pack of King of Fighters Trading Cards.
Replacement Cartridge.
Unfolded Letter and Everything.
Close-Up of Enclosed Letter.
——————————————————————————-
Link to exchange program for SNK VS CAPCOM: CARD FIGHTERS DS:
http://www.snkplaymoreusa.com/recall.php
——————————————————————————-
07/16/2007 - More Dragoneer’s Aria
We’ve put together another small preview:
Here’s more gameplay footage for NIS and HitMaker’s Dragoneer’s Aria. This batch of footage shows off the Field Skills, Guard Ability, and the combined Elemental Attacks. Click on the above link to check em out. Enjoy!
07/12/2007 - New UMD, New DVD, and New DS Game!
Picked these up today:
Spongebob Squarepants Season 1 UMD, and Linda Linda Linda.
And Deep Labyrinth for only $7.98!
07/10/2007 - Dragoneer’s Aria
One of the newer games I’m workin on, Dragoneer’s Aria:
NIS and HitMaker’s upcoming RPG, Dragoneer’s Aria, for the PlayStation Portable is one of the newer game’s I’ve been working on. Check out the small preview and gameplay footage we’ve put together by clicking on the link above.
07/10/2007 - Electric Cancel 6.5
SoCal had a Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection Tourney over the weekend:
Electric Cancel 6.5 took place at the Brens Event Center at UC Irvine this past weekend on the lucky day of 7/7/7 (Also 20th Anniversary of Metal Gear!). Josh “Arario” Park took 1st in Singles Tourney while U.S. SBO representatives Team [MATE] took 1st in the Team Tourney! Click the link above for more details, results, and media from the event.
I was there to provide computer, speaker, and projector equipment, as well as assist in making sure the the tournament ran swiftly and smoothly. Thanks to all those came!
07/05/07 - frosted krusty-o’s, and ffv v for victory
not really a video game purchase, but i thought i’d share:
A box of Frosted Krusty-O’s and Buzz Cola from 7-11. hahahaha. In light of the upcoming Simpsons Movie, this was an impulse buy for me. Lol.
just recently finished the bonus dungeon and was pretty damn proud at how well i did. i even walked around my house yelling out, “wooooo! i beat it!” hahahaha. so proud, i posted my strat on the final bosses on gamefaqs too. hahahaha. but i also thought i might as well share it here as well:
neo shinryu :
combine/blue
combine/white
combine/white
combine/time
blitzshot+dragonfang / mighty guard
blitzshot+dragonfang / curaga
blitzshot+dragonfang / curaga
blitzshot+dragonfang / hastega
ribbon / ice shield / coral ring
ribbon / ice shield / coral ring
ribbon / ice shield / coral ring
ribbon / ice shield / coral ring
to tell you the truth, i cant believe how swift and easy this one went. the blitzshot+dragon fang was just dealin out the dmg, curaga and white wind helped me stay up, and coral ring helped me get healed by the wave attacks. of course, i must give credit to the preparation of lvlin up my cannoneers to have the combine abililty to begin with.
omega mk.ii :
I’m pretty sure others will suggest different strategies involvin rapdifire or whatever, but, hah damn, i was pretty amazed and proud at how the strategy i used instead worked so well. Lol. So I thought I’d share. I had my team set up like this:
freelancer / mix / white — aegis shield / ribbon / hermes rings
freelancer / mix / blue — flame shield / ribbon / hermes rings
freelancer / mix / blue — flame shield / ribbon / hermes rings
freelancer / mix / white — ice shield / ribbon / hermes rings
i gave flame shields to the “blue” mages so that they could absorb any blaze or atomic ray attacks. i only had two flame shields at the time, so i used the mix ability (ether + eyedrop) to give the other two resist / absorb fire.
made em all freelancers, so they could equip ribbons — nullifies the rainbow wind and delta attacks. gave em all hermes rings for the obvious speed in turns.
i originally used the mix ability (dragon fang + elixir) to double the hp of all my party members, but it gave my “white” mages a hard time to keep up with their curagas only healin in the 2000’s. Plus with the omega’s wave cannon attack automatically stripping away 50% of my chars’ max hps, getting hit with 4999 (of 9999) was really hurtin a lot.
BUT. I wanted the 9999 hp for the blue ability (self-destruct). o-o.
So i used the mix ability (dragon fang + elixir) to double the hp on my “blue” mages only, just for the (self-destruct) attack — which would do dmg equal to the hp of the user (usually around 7000-9999, dependin on how well i was able to keep their hps up). The “white” mages could comfortably stay alive losing only 2500 (of 5000) from the wave cannons.
I used the white ability (curaga+all) and blue ability (white wind) to help take care of health. For the dead or self-destructed, i used the mix ability (pheonix down + ether or elixir) to raise plus fully recover hp and mp, or the white ability (arise) to keep em at full health / full strength for the self-destruct.
So my basic strategy was getting my “blue” mages to double health (9999) then self-destructing em to deal 7000-9999 (despite all the reflect / absorb / barrier change / attack resist / attack miss problems that i’d encounter otherwise), and then continually re-raising em using mix or arise.
In the end, it eventually worked! I probably couldve changed the “mix” out from the “white” mages for different abilities, but it did help me get those buffs out quickly during the first round.
final bosses :
guardian, and enuo:
wow, cant believe how easy they were. to tell you the truth, i beat the final boss without any proper preparation cuz i thought i was going to run into more random encounters (and i was just going to lvl up my chemists. x-x).
for the guardian, i tried a little preparation cuz i saw the “boss spark” symbol in the way of my path. set em up with the standard blue for white wind and white for curaga, then decided to give jump a try. here was my set up:
freelancer / jump / blue — dual-wield whatever / ribbon / hermes
freelancer / jump / white — dual-wield whatever / ribbon / hermes
freelancer / jump / white — dual-wield whatever / ribbon / hermes
freelancer / jump / blue — dual-wield whatever / ribbon / hermes
just jump / jump everything. i was just tearin through it. and he died.
then i thought it was going to be a couple king behemoths and hades’ again, so i went back to lvlin my chemists, and was runnin out of items to use for mix / combine to do dmg, so i gave em finishers. they were set up like this:
chemist / drink / finisher — hermes
chemist / drink / finisher — hermes
chemist / drink / finisher — hermes
chemist / drink / finisher — hermes
very simple, not even an ideal set up for a final boss battle. but it ended up being the one i used. o-o. i step forward and it was the final boss encounter! i went, “ah damn, not even properly prepared.. ah well lets see what i can do…” my strategy went like this:
drink — goliath drink, finishers, elixir and/or holy water when necessary
drink — goliath drink, finishers, elixir and/or holy water when necessary
drink — goliath drink, finishers, elixir and/or holy water when necessary
drink — goliath drink, finishers, elixir and/or holy water when necessary
i was completely amazed that enuo, the bonus dungeon final boss was NOT resistant / absorbant to any elemental attacks, and was just takin in the 9999’s from the finishers.
to survive the battle, i was tryin to think what could be helpful and used the drink ability with goliath drinks to make em all double health (9999), and elixirs (i only had like 18 of em on hand, also zero phoenix downs) to restore any health back up to 9999.
and eventually, wow, i defeated the final boss bonus dungeon with probably the weakest class choice in the game (but yea, the finishers did help). Hah, usin finishers was how i defeated the original final boss as well (also another first try). Again amazed that he didnt have any resistance or absorbance to any elemental attacks.
i actually planned to go up to them just to check out what kind of attacks they had so i could plan my counter strategy for my real run through. but wow, with a stroke of luck in how my teams were set up, i beat the final two bosses first try.
in retrospec, omega mk.ii felt like a much harder encounter than either of these two.
——–
in the end, i really loved this game. still my favorite, especially with how flexible and ingenius you can get by mixing and matchin the abilities and job sets. all thats left for me now is to finally mess around with the necromancer and go through the cloister of the dead. but yea, ffv, awesome game. :thumbsup:
07/01/07 - anime expo
Wooo, these are the things i picked up today:
Final Fantasy III Figurines.
DJ Max Portable 2.
Evil Zone for PSone.
And Brand New White PSP. 
06/28/07 - re4, ffv, ff3, ggpo
Here are the games I’ve been playin recently:
Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition
I’ve never played RE4, and to tell you the truth I was a bit unwilling to play it since I’ve heard it was different from previous games in the series, of which I was huge fan of the playstyle. But yea, I’m a fan of the Wii, I’ve already missed out on the GameCube and PS2 versions of the game, and this one combines them both along with the Wii controls. So I thought I’d give it a try, and I must say, I’m very impressed. I’m liking it a lot more than I thought I would. Pretty fun game, I’m Chapter 3 into the game now. And, haha, I’ve also finally the chance to experience the Merchant.., stranger. haha.
Final Fantasy V Advance
It’s been a long time since I’ve played this game, but now I’m finally coming back to it. Just recently finished FF3, and was itchin to play more Final Fantasy. I’ve already finished FFV, but never the bonus dungeon. So I’m going around now to give it another try, plus finally master some of those remainder jobs. Just recently finished mastering the Cannoneer, Beastmaster, and now working on the Oracle.
The Cannoneer’s Master’d ability, “Combine” is quite impressive. Combine a “Blitzshot” with common buyable item, “Golden Needle” and it’s 3000 dmg to all monsters at the same time, or combine with a “Dragon Fang” and its about 4500 (or more on dragon types). Beastmaster is alright, nothing too exciting except for the “Control” ability to help use enemy abilities on your characters to learn Blue magic. Oracle has some interesting gameplay. The “Condemn” ability lets you cast one of 8 abilities which then leaves a countdown timer on the target before it appears. The two abilities I’ve been using have been “Doom,” which casts a 15sec timer to instantly kill the target, and “Rejuvenation,” which casts a 5sec timer to heal one of your characters like a Cura. There are some other timers like those with fire, ice, lightning effects, but they’re also of the -aga effect. Also, all of them are at no MP cost, so it’s an interesting ability. Just recently got the Oracle “ABP Up” ability, so that should be fun.
Final Fantasy III
Just recently finished this one, pretty cool game. Finished it using two dragoons and two sages. The two dragoons were equipped with Blood Lances (to help take care of their own healing), and another stronger spear to help make up for dmg. They would jump for opening attacks, and stay if I wanted to keep em for a group Curaga. The sages would use Cure off battle, Curagas in battle, Aeroga/Thundaga/Quake for the random encounters, Flare for opening attacks on boss battles, Aeroga for turns when heal wasn’t needed, and Arise for the occasional deaths. Finished it with the dragoons at about job lvl 89, sages about job lvl 44, all chars about lvl 64 (hps about 3700). Was funny, I finished it while running a Tekken tourney, waiting for matches to finish. Haha.
It was pretty cool how I got up to the final area too. I went through a good majority of the game as Red Mages. Then I felt like the Dragoon could be a good choice, especially with the Blood Lance combo (you could buy these!). So I made em all Dragoons and lvl’d them up until they could comfortable go up and down the final tower themselves no problem. During this, I discovered a small trick where if you rest as a magic user, you gain back all your MP. If you switch to a non-magic user, It’ll say they have no MP. But if you switch back to a magic user, the unused MP will still be there. Pretty cool. In the same sense as the Dragoons, I then thought the Sages would be a good choice (plus they were similar to the Red Mages in the ability to cast both Black and White magic), and brought them through the tower until they too could comfortable go up and down it themselves. If the Sages ran out of MP, I’d switch em back to Dragoons to fight their way back down. For the final run, I had em all rest as Sages (to gain the MP), then switched em all to Dragoons (to save the MP until I got up the final boss areas), climbed the tower as Dragoons, then switched em to the two and two. They were all equally lvl’d, so I just picked the lower lvls of each version. Lol.
With the game finished, I could probably try the friend code stuff to get the extra missions and the Onion Knight class (they sound very fun btw, with the ability to cast both Black and White magic, wear the best armor, and can have max stats — perfectly fitting my Red Mage to Sage playstyle). Right now trying to have my sister play through her game until she has her mognet available so we could do the friend mail exchanges. Haha, cuz I don’t want no random fags and their friend codes on my DS (jk, haha).
Street Fighter Alpha 2 on GGPO
Currently playing this now. I’m more of a Tekken player, and only mildly familiar with how to effectively do well in the Street Fighter series, but I’m actually finding it pretty fun. Hah, even if I am getting my ass handed to me. What makes it more fun is that it’s online! Feels like the old days when I used to play this MMO Dark Age of Camelot, where I’d wake up early just to play against someone online. But this time its a fighting game and not casting spells. Hah, then again, I did do the same thing with Metal Gear Online. Lol. But yea, GGPO is pretty fun. I’m really liking it.
Here’s to hoping T5DR ONLINE is just as fun, or even better.
