A Limited Guide to Fantasy Bunnies

So here's the Limited Edition guide of FFXII by Bradygames. I didn't get Rival Schools today as i have test tomorrow and didn't have time to drop by the comic store. I'll pick it up somtime during the weekend or next week when SF2 should be arriving. On w/ the show.

The packaging of the LE is basically a full spread of the Jugdes doing their infamous walk. For the unaware, the LE sports 1 of 6 different covers of the main characters. Who you get is totally random. It also includes an artbook which isn't that worthy if you're getting/have the Collector's Edition of the game. More details on that later. As i mentioned before, i don't usually don't use strategy guides for my RPGs, unless i'm stuck or i'm playing a JRPG. And cuz you get get help easily at Gamefaqs, so why waste 20+ bucks on a information/aid you can get for free. The reason was for the lame BG artbook. The strategy guide itself is useful though, as it contains a chock full of info on the battle system and has the license board layout showing you everything. There's also the usual bestiary guide and secrets/side quests section. The book is 350 pages and thus, the walkthrough is quite long and thorough. So i'd say this is definitely a worthy purchase compared to the other BG strategy guides. Also, as you can see, the FF gods were with me as i lucked out and was blessed with my ever favourite FRAN!!!!!! I SOOO wanted her. I wouldn't have mind Ashe either as she was my second pick. so booyah!

The artbook is almost 50 pages (only...-_-) and like i mentioned isn't worth it if you got the CE. Why? Cuz all of it is on the bonus DVD and the book contains less art sadly. There's no concept art which was what i was mostly hoping for (though it's on DVD). So you get the usual CG character illustration of the main characters (alongside the CG promo/event illustration which can be found everywhere on the net), the secondary characters in full CG illustration (the strategy guide only showed these CG pics in 'half'), the judges, races, the Espers, the weapons, airships and environments. I took shots of the same samples i used on the DVD yesterday. My camera ran out of battery before i could take any shots of the Espers (mateus and ultima ;)) and environments. But hey, it's nothing special as you can find 'em easily on the net. I'll end off the note w/ my fave viera hottie.

just some quick game news while i'm in between breaks @ school and dicking around on m laptop.

Some very exciting news is the announcement of Hajime no Ippo the fighting Revolution on the Wii in 2007!! I love the show and the games on PS2 and GBA. Check out the first one for a sweet demo vid (1 2).

After announcing the US virtual console games yesterday the JPN virtual wii games are announced today as well as EU.

'guinea pigs' playing twilight princess (click on the right hand side to see another JPN player, then UK and US as shown by the flags)
Twilight Princess Opening & trailer (2nd movie on the right)!!! Awesome.

undressing to see your wii-wii ;)

Jump Ultimate Stars site - sweeet
SNK vs. Capcom Cardfighters DS site now open - Fuckin' A, i'm all over this

Be sure to check various game sites as there's gonna be a lot of Nintendo coverage on the weekend with the Nintendo World Event going on. ;)

more sony colours for ps2 and psp...mmmm...bluuue
anohter hands on video w/ the PS3

some 360 news,
ign got lost odyssey demo impressions and vids
gamespot got 3 new lost planet vids. here's the bundle from famitsu.

xboxyde got idolm@ster famitsu scans and tgs trailer in nice resolution (for streaming & download) which is also available at the marketplace.
Halo 3 famitsu scans
and D3's other 360 game, Earth Defense Force X trailer which is actually from the official site.

One of the more crazee news today since it's a fighter
fatal fury/garou densetsu & fighter's history dynamite collaboration!!! A possible versus like game. While i must admit that i'm not huge fan of FHD since it was a total ripoff of SF (resulting in Data East going to court for that), i did enjoy it in the arcades back in the day as it was a pretty solid fighting game (i wonder why), character's spoke in their native language (ie. 2 CHN character speaking chinese, feilin shouting her moves in mandarin while lee shouts his moves in cantonese) so no CHN speaking JPN (ie. SF2, VF etc.) or French guy speaking english. But most important of all KARNOV in a fighting game!!!! So yeah, hopefully this'll be good but still rather strange collab as i'd prefer a FF x GG or any Capcom fighting collab.

While i'm on fighting game news, i want to make note that youtube has crappy vids of the new battle fantasia fighting game that was on its 1st test location in JPN last weekend. For you noobs who don't know :P ^^, the game is running on Taito's Type X2 (like KOF XII and the next SS) and is developed by Arc System Works (GG series). The artwork (so far just of Els) is pretty sweet. There's 12 charas so far in the test location game. There's like 8 or so vids @ youtube so far. Check 'em out, though you may get nauseous by the crap quality.

Nov.2 9:10 AM edit: Just of note since it's sorta Hisayuki-related and cuz i've been following Queen's Blade WAY WAY back (due to hisayuki's involvement), i want to indulge you in the news of the next wave of characters to be released on Dec. 23. While yumil wasn announced a long time ago, 2 new charas were announced today...Airi by the artist known as 'dance' (the art looks sorta familiar, gimme a link to his/her site if ya know) and a 3D version of Hirokazu Hisayuki's Reina/Leina!!!! Actually i'm not that excited cuz the 3D version doesn't look that great IMO. This 3D version is done by the infamous M-RS from incise soul (not all pics are work safe iirc) whose work you may remember seeing here a WHILE ago (as i used one of his Tifa pics for one of my FF7-releated posts) or elsewhere on the web. So it follows his style of CG rendering. While his CG art is usually good of other famous characters, i'm not clicking w/ this one. anyways that's it.

Nov.5 9:32 AM edit: hope you peeps had a great weekend (i sure did) and haven't just been playing FFXII :P. I actually haven't touched the game since Tues. (and still only 2 hours or so in). Been catching up on Nintendo World news (which has been awesome) and i must present this news that was unveiled today cuz i'm personally interested in it and have been a longtime fan of the source. Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen EX (Wii) will be released sometime in Feb/March 2K7 and it will not be developed by Eighting (NOOOOO), but instead by Dream Factory (NOOOOO!), who hasn't made a good game since '97 (w/ Tobal No.1 and Tobal 2). Though Eighting is not a great company at making fighting games in general, they're good at keeping true to the source and satisfying the fans w/ it's presentation but weak gameplay. Whereas, DF has just been disappointing on the whole. I own Wulong and that was crap presentation and gameplay-wise. The gameplay was like a downgrade Bouncer (which had shitty gameplay as well, but ppl didn't seem to think so at the time cuz of "ouu...Square EA and Nomura". So yeah, i don't have high hopes for this game anymore and hopefully DF will prove me wrong by adapting Eighting's style (not something totally new aside from controls) and finally develop a good game. Though i sorta see this game being successful cuz after all, it's based from a popular franchise. Speaking of Naruto, the DS game, shinobi retsuden has been scheduled for Dec.14 (old news from a couple of days ago). The game plays sorta slow from the videos but looks to be really pushing the DS cuz of the 3D models. Also, latest scans and screenshots haven't been great cuz they only show the characters in the Forest stage which has me wondering (i wanna not the game does have at least 3-4 stages from the video if you haven't seen). anyways be sure to check it out if you're a fan.