Date A Live Ars Install

Just beat the game’s true ending.

The game is really quite similar to the previous Date A Live game Rinne Utopia, with more characters and volume.

The game takes place after volume 7 (while Rinne Utopia takes place after volume 4), so there are 3 additional Spirits: Kaguya, Yuzuru and Miku (well, Kaguya and Yuzuru are twins).

Since Mana has recovered (she was heavily wounded in volume 4), she also appears in this game, but just a sub-character. Mikie that is more prominently featured in Date A Strike spin-off manga also made an appearance as well.

Just like Rinne Utopia, player has to first get all good endings of the visual novel characters (Tooka, Origami, Yoshino, Kurumi, Kotori, Kaguya, Yuzuru, and Miku) before being able to go to the true ending route that focuses on the brand-new characters.

So 8 initial routes to go through (5 in Rinne Utopia). The interesting thing about Kaguya and Yuzuru is that they start with the same route (you can’t choose them separately), then you can choose between one of the two near the end.

The two brand-new characters in this game are white and black Ars, although white Ars is the one player mostly interacts with. Since white Ars thinks that ‘Ars’ is just a surname, Shidou gives white Ars the name Maria (since her design looks like a sister). Black Ars also has a name but it’s only revealed near the end.

Also, as we beat more endings, Maria gradually has a few extra lines in the next playthroughs to keep the repetitions somewhat fresh.

I forgot what they did with Rinne Utopia to make the repeating world possible, but this time the plot device they use is more straightforward and that’s virtual reality.

Believe it or not, Ratatosk made ‘Koishite My Little Shidou 2′, a sequel to galge that was made to train Shidou in dating the Spirits. This time however it’s not just a simple galge but super simulated virtual reality, as such it can only be run with Fraxinus’ supercomputer, and it’s where the game mostly takes place.

So Maria and black Ars are not real Spirits but artificial, digital Spirits (i.e., computer programs). They are mostly 2 separate entities (so they’re not one character with split personality). They also did something interesting with the true identity of Maria. The common illustrations of Maria and black Ars do not show them in astral dress form btw, since the design is kind of spoilers.

The basic premise is that Maria mysteriously appears in the game world while Shidou is trying out the game, Shidou gets trapped, and then all the girls also log into the game to try to save Shidou. They face Maria, who turns out to be non-hostile and simply ‘wants to learn about love’. In the end Shidou and the girls agree to show her the answer by living in the game world as they would normally in the real world (there’s time difference between the game world and real world so that it’s no problem for them to stay for long time in the game world).

So Maria begins to observe how Shidou dates with the girls. Maria, having control of the game world, can reset the world and even manipulate the settings to create unusual date events, such as Tooka becoming a school doctor, Kotori a magical girl, Kaguya and Yuzuru succubus etc. This basically allows ‘dream situations’ that are not possible in the main story.

Here’s a spoiler of the true identity of Maria btw (highlight the next text): she’s Fraxinus AI personified, thanks to the contact with black Ars. She can be considered as Fraxinus herself. When Kotori and Reine mentioned to Shidou that Fraxinus is equipped with high-level AI, she is the one they are talking about. She’s also the one that ‘comes up with choices’ during date situations. When black Ars, the artificial Spirit created by DEM organization, broke into Fraxinus’ main computer, the AI trapped black Ars together with herself in the virtual reality world (the Koishite My Little Shidou 2 game) with strong protection. To understand and deal with the unknown enemy she’s facing, the AI collects traced information about the enemy and recreates a version out of herself (that’s why she gains appearance similar to black Ars and a personality). The AI is also locked out of her memories, since she’s also trapped inside. As a result the AI can’t remember anything, except for her purpose. That’s why she wants to know about love, since she’s originally an AI created to support Shidou in love situations with the Spirits. Her astral form design aptly resembles the design of Fraxinus ship. So unlike Rinne Utopia, she doesn’t really ‘disappear’ at the end of this game. In fact, at the very last part of the true ending, she manages to get installed as a virtual assistant app in Shidou’s phone while Fraxinus is under restoration (image) (and that’s why the game is called Ars Install ^^;).

Black Ars spoiler: her full name is 或守 鞠奈 (Arusu Marina). Unlike Maria, her name Marina is not given by Shidou but by her ‘father’ (presumably Wescott)..

So is this game better than Rinne Utopia? I think I would need to read Rinne Utopia again, but I think so. It’s also more straightforward and easier to wrap my head around. The true ending of this game is also quite touching I almost cried.

How to type [[]] (create links) quickly for wikis in Mac OS X

Here goes another one of my unexpected posts… a technology tutorial post? ^^;

I think TiddlyWiki is a very simple and powerful tool to create personal wikis without the fuss of set-up (cool navigation system that doesn’t force you to jump to new page as well).

While it’s fine to use wikis that are already out there, that many people have contributed information to, those wikis often contain too much information, information I don’t need or care, spoilers and ads (well, that’s how the ones hosting the wikis get ‘compensated’, while naive passionate contributors essentially ‘work for free’, but enough of the negative view ^^;).

I think it’s just more fun to build my personal ‘network of knowledge’ as I’m playing game or learning new subject.

One can store TiddlyWiki as a single HTML file in local storage, or even use TiddlySpot service to host it and make changes online (instructions on how to do it here)

Anyway, there’s one drawback that makes inputting entries in wikis less fun: to add a link, one would need to type [[]]. That’s 4 keystrokes, maybe 6 considering one might need to move the cursor backward 2 times (third world problems, I know ^^;).

(I know there’s a CamelCase convention for links for some types of wiki, but some languages such as Japanese don’t benefit from it ^^;)

So I found a way on how type [[]] quickly on Mac OS X (I’m using Yosemite Developer Preview, should also apply to older versions) and even automatically move the cursor to the right spot by creating a custom keyboard shortcut.

(Although we can use Text Substitution feature in Mac OS X, not all applications support it, and Google Chrome unfortunately seems to be one of them (I have issues with saving TiddlyWiki in Safari). And as far as I know, there is no way to move the cursor to the right place with Text Substitution)

Here’s how:

1. Open Automator (under Other in LaunchPad)

2. Click File -> New if step 3 below doesn’t appear

3. In ‘Choose a type for new document:’, pick Service

4. Change ‘Service received selected’ to ‘no input’. Keep ‘any application’

5. On the left, pick Utilities and double-click ‘Run AppleScript’

6. Replace ‘(* Your script goes here *)’ part with the script below (i.e., not the entire thing):

tell application "System Events" to get name of process 1 whose frontmost is true
tell application result to activate
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "[[]]"
tell application "System Events" to keystroke (ASCII character 28)
tell application "System Events" to keystroke (ASCII character 28)

7. Click File -> Save. I personally named it [[]]

8. Go to System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts

9. Pick Services, find the Service we just created ([[]] if you follow my personal naming, and it should be under General. If it’s under Text, you might miss step 4. If you made mistakes, see step 2 below)

10. Click ‘add shortcut’ and pick a keyboard shortcut that doesn’t conflict with existing shortcuts (I personally used Control + Command + [ )

And that’s it! Try using the shortcut on any text field. If it doesn’t work, chances are the shortcuts are already taken, either system-wide or application specific.

How to clean up the mess we did, in case you don’t like it:

1. Go to Automator, File -> Open, right click the Service file we just created and move to Trash.

2. You might need to close and reopen System Preferences to see the changes you made in Automator in Keyboard Shortcuts

So yeah, I hope you have more fun from now on in editing and creating wikis ^^

Update:

The above tutorial is for inputting [[]] quickly with cursor set in the right place. Here’s how to wrap already-typed text with [[]] when you want to turn the text into a link (e.g., from SomeLink to [[SomeLink]])

1. In Automator, create a new Service

2. This time set ‘Service receives selected’ as text and tick ‘Output replaces selected text’. Keep ‘any application’

3. On the left, pick Utilities, double-click ‘Run AppleScript’ and replaces the return line with this:

return "[[" & input & "]]" as string

4. Save (I personally save it as ‘Wrap with [[]]’)

5. This action is then available by selecting a text and then right-clicking it. You can also create a keyboard shortcut (can’t be the same as the action made in previous tutorial though). This time it’s under Text section since it takes text as input.

Gunslinger Girl Anime 1st Season

Just watched the entire 1st season of Gunslinger Girl (13 episodes)

I know it’s an old anime, but I think the quality is great. The art style is not too anime-ish, which is both good and bad for me (anime -> cuter ^^;)

Most characters look okay, except Franca, one of the terrorists. She looks old in this one. I guess her appearance did change in the manga as well, after she’s given more plot from volume 3 onward.

Since I read the manga as well, I know how they rearranged things in the anime.

Basically the 1st season covers ONLY the first 2 volumes of the manga. The episodes generally follow the order of the manga chapters with some exceptions:

– Chapter 1 is spread over the first 2 episodes of the anime

– Chapter 4 and 5, the last 2 chapters of volume 1 about Elsa de Sica, get pushed as episodes 10 and 11 of the anime.

– Also, they added an original story episode as a prelude to Elsa de Sica’s story (episode 9).

– Chapter 8 gets pushed to episode 13, become the ending of the anime. The anime strongly gives an impression that Angelica dies in the end, which of course doesn’t happen since…

– Chapter 10 and 11 (i.e., after chapter 8), also the last 2 chapters of volume 2, get pulled in and combined as episode 8 of the anime. These chapters are about Angelica’s backstory (i.e., if the manga chapters are chronological, then episode 13 actually happens before chapter 8, at least the first part that isn’t a flashback, in which case Angelica doesn’t die) (well she never dies until later in the manga, and she does appear in anime season 2). Talk about false emotions… ^^;

– Episode 13 (chapter 8) also gets an original prelude episode (episode 12), showing how Angelica got into the hospital. This episode also serves to give Claes a little more action time.

So yeah, 2 volumes, 11 manga chapters into 13 episodes of anime; first chapter is split into 2 episodes, chapter 10 and 11 are combined into 1 episode, plus 2 original episodes.

If you want to watch the anime in manga order, it’s like this:

1 (chapter 1)
2 (chapter 1)
3 (chapter 2)
4 (chapter 3)
9 (new)
10 (chapter 4)
11 (chapter 5)
5 (chapter 6, volume 2)
6 (chapter 7)
12 (new)
13 (chapter 8)
7 (chapter 9)
8 (chapter 10 & 11)

And if you want to read the manga in anime order, it’s like this: (lol)

1 (episode 1 & 2)
2 (episode 3)
3 (episode 4)
6 (episode 5)
7 (episode 6)
9 (episode 7)
10 (episode 8)
11 (episode 8)
4 (episode 10)
5 (episode 11)
8 (episode 13)

So yeah, I’m linking to some sites but… please support the author if possible ^^;

Anime watching

For some reason I have been watching some anime… (I don’t watch anime, usually) ^^;

Date A Live II

Since Ars Install PS3 game is coming soon, and it seems to take place after Miku arc (since I see her in the trailer), I thought I should refresh myself with the series.

So it’s only 10 episodes and people at myanimelist.net complain that it feels ‘rushed’. But if they read the visual novels, they would know that season 1 is ‘rushed’ as well ^^;

Remember season 1 covers the first 4 volumes of the light visual novels, while season 2 covers 5 to 7. So season 1 is 4 volumes 12 episodes, while season 2 is 3 volumes 10 episodes. Sounds about right. Also, in season 1 Yoshino of volume 2 only gets 2 episodes, and they have 1 original fan-service episode (the onsen one).

Well, it’s true that they can make another original fan-service episode here, right between Yuzuru-Kaguya and Miku arcs… but then again, they already have an original episode in season 2 with the first introductory chapter ^^;

Miku arc is also the first time in the series where the arc extends to 2 volumes (vol 6-7) (although Kurumi arc in a sense is still ongoing since Shidoh never really managed to conquer her ^^;)

Also need to remember that this anime is a light-novel adaptation, i.e., not an originally-thought story for the anime. It’s kinda sad for example that Kotori doesn’t make an appearance as spirit form in this season at all, but that’s what the story in the visual novel is.

I rather they stick to original instead of deviating from the light novels and create another reality just to make it seem better anime-wise.

I guess all anime adaptions of light novels are ‘rushed’ in a way… in light novels the story moves more slowly and there are more details and descriptions (they need to make the books to be of at least certain thickness, you know… ^^;)

There does seem to be some missing scenes in episode 9 though… It’s like the voices are there, but the scenes are not drawn ^^; Either they can’t finish it on time or they mistakenly use the incomplete version.

Gunslinger Girl Il Teatrino

This is the second season of the anime series. The drawings and animation have gotten worse from the first season, and some characters have changed voices. But apparently this second season is ‘under total supervision’ by the manga author Yu Aida.

If Date A Live is rushed, this is an anime that takes its time. 2 seasons, 26 episodes, and it only covers up to the end of volume 5 of the manga (of total 15 volumes)! If they keep this pace, they would need 4 more seasons to complete the series lol.

No wonder Petrushka doesn’t make it, as she is only introduced in the middle of chapter 6… ^^;

(There are 2 OVAs after the second season, and it pushes toward middle of chapter 6, right before Petrushka’s introduction)

The 2 seasons do complete a big arc, though, as I believe with the introduction of Petrushka, the series kinda takes a fresh new beginning (before converging back in the end). It’s like Gyakuten Saiban series originally ends with 3 and then they make Gyakuten Saiban 4. On a more negative side, I don’t think they’re going to make more anime for the Gunslinger Girl series -.-;

Also just like Date A Live, some people might complain for example why Henrietta didn’t join the final battle in season 2. Same answer: the story was like that in the manga ^^; in fact, if they read the manga further, they might realize that Henrietta wasn’t exactly the main protagonist of the series… ^^; (she does seem that way because she’s introduced first)

I watched a few episodes of the season 1 again and wow, it’s so much better… but season 2 has better story in the manga, I think… (season 1 has a lot of introduction to the characters)

Gunslinger Girl

Well, this manga series has actually ended some time ago but it’s only recently I noticed that it’s FINALLY on sale digitally at BookLive and BOOK☆WALKER etc (I’ve been waiting for this for so long… not sure why they didn’t think about this sooner ^^;)

BookLive:

BOOK☆WALKER:

BOOK☆WALKER seems to sell the manga cheaper but that’s because the price is before tax is added (sly tactic… -_-“). Anyway it also offers a custom in-app bookshelf theme as a reward for buying the first volume (with 15 slots, enough to put all 15 volumes), and some ‘booklet’ gift after buying all 15 volumes.

Custom bookshelf:

Booklet:

(The addition of the booklet would make the books not fit into the bookshelf theme though… they didn’t think of that? ^^;)

Not sure what the booklet contains but probably some cover illustrations published in magazines. But yeah, BOOK☆WALKER seems to be a more definitive place to buy the manga (since BOOK☆WALKER is run by the Dengeki company, and Gunslinger Girl is published by Dengeki as well)

Update: ah, the booklet redemption date has expired and it can’t be claimed anymore. It seems to contain just the manga covers without text.

This series to me is one of the most phenomenal manga I’ve ever read besides Saikano. It’s lolicon in a way (young girls turned into assassin cyborgs), but I feel like the series has ‘dignity’ and ‘self-respect’ unlike other series in similar genre. It has serious atmosphere and no fan-service at all (as far as I can remember).

Well, there is a couple of points in the manga where it kinda ‘slipped to the dark side of Japanese embarrassing storytelling’, such as there is this doctor accompanied by two twin cyborg assistant girls who talk in synch. Fortunately the manga didn’t stay in the hole for too long (I don’t remember seeing those twin cyborgs again after that chapter) ^^;

I haven’t bought these digital version though, but I am planning to buy them slowly. I actually used to have physical US version of the few first volumes of this manga series (Gunslinger Girl and Saikano are probably the only manga series that I bought the US version). I also remember having bought a few physical volumes of the Japanese version but yeah… I think I sold it ^^;

I have the physical form of the last volume though. The aftermath and ending were very touching T_T

(The climax was on volume 14 though)

I have watched the first season of the anime but only watched a few episodes of the second season. The second season seems to be drawn by a different company and the drawings got worse. The songs are nice though.

The opening theme:

There are two versions of the ending theme ‘doll’, song by two different artistes (this reminds me of Black Song in Drag On Dragoon 3 ^^;):

Slow updates ^^;

Due to family events, I can hardly use the TV these days to continue playing Fairy Fencer F (and I can foresee this would also apply to the upcoming Date A Live game) -.-;

And my Vita is still taken hostage by Neptune Re;Birth 2’s send-and-wait mini-game Nariyuki Dungeon. I’m still playing it though and I’m up to the last few dungeons now (where I’m sure the real difficulty awaits ^^;)

I find a strategy that generally works in the latter half of this game is to 1) first go halfway in the current dungeon with the latest equipments (halfway since I might still be not powerful enough to defeat the final floor boss even with the equipments that can be gotten in the current dungeon), then 2) go halfway in the next dungeon to get better equipments and finally 3) equip these better equipments and go all the way in the current dungeon and defeat the final floor boss.

Of course, there is no next dungeon for the final dungeon ^^;

Fairy Fencer F [5] 2nd Fairize Form music

Progressed on the game a bit. It’s a bit inconvenient when the living room TV is shared ^^;

Apparently Fang upgraded (well, it’s his partner and weapon, Arin, actually), allowing him to execute one more combo. So previously he was missing the 4th combo extension, but he can do 4 combos now. So if I unlock the last combo extension, he can do 5 combos? The UI for combo edit screen doesn’t seem to accommodate 5 combos… either there isn’t 5th combo and I was lucky I didn’t grind and upgrade too soon, or the screen would scroll horizontally for the 5th combo. The 5th combo should correspond to Neptune series’ EXE attacks (not the finisher but the one more attack thing).

The battle music when characters transform to Fairize form has also changed.

From this: (the first music)

To this:

Which I think is also very cool. The first one sounds like Power Rangers, while the second one sounds like modern Kamen Rider shows.

Also obtained more trophies, one for the upgrade and one for maxing a Fury’s level (so their max level is 10). Gotta switch to another Fury for Fang. I can imagine there’s a trophy for maxing every Furies’ level ^^;

Fairy Fencer F [4] Didn’t see it coming…

Finally I received another story-related trophy.

I was wondering why quite a number of the characters, even though they are enemies, just die left and right when I defeat them. Even the beautiful ladies. Seems to be a waste of creative efforts to me. Now I know why… I didn’t see it coming, but yeah, this game apparently has ‘that’ plot device (you should be able to guess it ^^). On a hindsight I should’ve noticed it, seeing how things are moving a little too fast ^^;

Gameplay-wise, it’s bad news to me though. The enemies now seem stronger than ever, that chipping away the boss health feels a bit unbearable now (and the tug of war of healing before dying). I think more than ever I need to upgrade my character parameters and skills (instead of saving the WP to get their last combo extension). I think I should’ve reloaded and done some more grinding before passing through this story point, but it’s too late now (yeah, my save management sucks ^^;)

Fairy Fencer F [3] Progress

Advanced in the game a bit.

I really want to try messing with the character customizations, getting new skills and attacks etc, but what’s keeping me is the last combo extension (so that the character can attack 4 times in a turn) costs 1000 WP (per character)! One enemy gives roughly 1 WP in battles for every characters -_-” So far the protagonist Fang has around 380+ WP, but yeah, still a long way to go even for him. Somehow I’m still doing pretty fine in the game, even though I’m barely upgrading. Well, maybe I could’ve been more powerful and breezed through the game…

I haven’t looked at the trophy list yet (don’t want to get spoiled), but so far I unlocked a few trophies for doing a certain number of battles and air combo. Progress feels slow, but this game has a lesser amount of trophies (29 vs the usual around 50). I can kinda guess the hard trophies though… like master every characters (i.e., purchase all customizations).

I’m kinda confused at one thing in this game. Apparently in the enemy list, the enemies might have a list of items that can be stolen from them. But so far I have not been able to find a way to steal from them. I’m guessing a character would join later that would have steal ability, but to make me unable to complete some low-rank quests for so long?

One thing I also forgot to mention in my previous posts is this background music that played everytime one of the characters enters Fairize form. It’s pretty cool:

But yeah, this game is like a more mainstream Neptune + fantasy setting. And there are also guys instead of all-female cast :p

I think Tsunako doesn’t illustrate every characters in this game. I think he (or she?) drew almost every female characters, like Arin and Tiara, but the male characters are drawn by the artist from Agarest Senki.

Nariyuki Dungeon [3] ギョウカイ墓場

This dungeon took me several tries.

Even though I used the latest equipments and focused on VIT (and my VIT reaches about 260 by the last floor), the last boss (the thousand-year turtle) still deals a lot of damage that Stella would die in 2 hits.

My breakthrough was I used the accessory マタタビネクタイ, which increases the chance of encountering enemies. It may seem counterintuitive at first (more danger to Stella), but since she encounters more enemies, she actually gets to level up more and her stats rise more. Her VIT reaches 270 plus, still lower than I expected, but apparently enough that she doesn’t get killed by the last boss easily.

Well, it could also be luck ^^;

p.s., the accessories that increase stats by chance in a battle just applies to the battle where they successfully activate (i.e., not permanent) so I think they are not too useful…