gen does Soul Nomad - gen ichida vs. the world (eaters)

so in lieu of the radio silence last month, aaaaand me getting kind of salty about the traffic crap i had to deal with in the last post, i think it's time for a bit of fun this summer.

things on my end seemed to have slowed down, so outside of practicing traditional drawing stuff and the frequent twitter activity, not a whole lot's been going on lately. and since i'd rather not sit here and do nothing while waiting for stuff like my birthday on July 8, Steam's summer sale, and Starbound's soon-ish 1.0 release, let's get things trucking on here again.

after mulling out how might probably roll with it, i'll be starting the Soul Nomad playthrough fairly soon. mostly will be doing it as a post-play commentary writeup since writing my thoughts on here while i play would end up being a bit cumbersome. i will be taking photos and even livetweeting bits on my twitter, but the more wordy thoughts will be reserved for after play sessions.

as for the playthrough itself, i'll be going in semi-blind. i have seen Soul Nomad's cutscenes a few times in the past, so i'm aware what goes on in the story. as far as gameplay goes, i only have a vague idea of how it works from reading the manual and bits of the strategy guide, and it's a radical change from Disgaea's gameplay. so yeah, settling into SN's gameplay will take some time.

also, don't expect entries to pop up too frequently on here. pretty sure you guys have come to expect it, but it takes a while for me to type this stuff out on here. though, for the impatient folks, you can check out my twitter for my less-than-140-characters-commentary and lowres screencaps while i play the game. amongst other things.

so yeah, pretty much how things will be going for the playthrough, but of course i can't end it off here. so what the heck is this game all about, and why'd i choose to play it?

a raincheck and makaipunkery

sometimes i keep asking myself why i continue to keep this blog up, considering updates on here just seem to be more and more sporadic. not to mention said updates don't seem to be very substantial since i am not a writing sort of guy and i make a lot of promises about writing about stuff that i don't follow up on.

well, as far as the first bit is concerned, i keep this site up because i like talking about the things i love and sharing them and my thoughts on them with other people. even if i don't keep this place as updated as much as i'd like to, i like talking about stuff i find interesting. and if someone likes the stuff i write or write about, then that makes the time invested all the more worth it. c:

as for the second bit of what i said, uh... yeah, i'm pretty sure i've said stuff on it in the past on here but i think it's plainly obvious i'm more of a visual kind of guy when it comes to creative stuff. i'm passionate about talking about stuff, but i'm not good at elaborating on my thoughts about things. said stuff about this sorta thing before whenever i talk about why i'm delaying on reviews and stuff so much, so i'll just leave it at that. no use in repeating every word i say.

with that said, might as well talk about a bit of stuff i've been doing as of lately. game collecting, book imports, other hobby stuff... and of course, talking about them. i kinda feel like i owe you guys a bit of newish content after several periods of stagnancy.

a small sampling of some games i have, some new, some oldish.

and yeah, with the mention of MAKAIPUNK in the title, expect a good deal of the stuff i'll be talking about to be related to Nippon Ichi game stuff.

and first off, i think i should mention that i managed to adjust the resolution on my camera when taking pictures. expect larger, more detailed photos of things here and in the future!

vlog - netherworld-produced vhs tapes

so, many people have been having issues with NISA's latest PC outing with Disgaea PC. stuttering, issues with the graphical settings, and generally buggy stuff have been bothering players this week. and in my case, the framerate's so slow at essentially 5fps on my low-spec rig that i pretty much can't play the game.

well, at the very least, NISA's been listening to these issues and even asked players to post their computer specs so they can work on a fix. the fix is reported to come out tomorrow on the 2nd. nice to see NISA values their community and community feedback when it comes to their stuff.

'course, if Disgaea PC still doesn't run well on my computer, at least i got the PSP version of Disgaea 1 to fall back on. still don't really regret buying it if it means the possibility of more NIS games on PC/Steam. >w>

in the meantime, enjoy some 90's inspired demonic doofery with the dudes at Mega64. i'll just be here trying to get some more stuff done for this place.

and wondering where the hell they managed to get that prinny costume.

MAKAIPUNK - building a netherworld travel diary

so first week of the new year went pretty well so far. managed to grab a couple obscure ps2 games, been working on getting my sleep schedule back on track, been helping out with quest writeups and design for that WoW private server i mentioned in my last non-jukebox post, and even got back to practicing my hand at pencil drawing. alongside a variety of other things. one of which was getting a cold last week and having to suffer through that.

been cleaning up a bit of my room a while back; my drawers and cabinets, mainly. stumbled upon a handful of drawing pads and various notebooks i had shoved in there when i moved into my new bedroom. they're a bit worn with age, but a majority of the pages of them are unmarked, so i'll use them for drawing instead of using a lot of printer paper for it.

the book before and after the new cover. art by airana@DA

that aside, stumbled upon a hardcover notebook with the title of "Forum for Excellence" and "The Warren Conference Center 2002" on it. so yeah, seemed pretty old, but the pages were all in perfect condition, oddly enough. from what my dad told me, he got it at a meeting way back when but never seemed to had used it. as for why i shoved it in my own cabinets when i got my own room... okay, to be honest, i'm not even sure why i had it there to begin with.

so now that i've rediscovered this little gem, i figured i'd make use of it and get started on a project i've been meaning to do for a while: making a "journal" of sorts centered around the world of Nippon Ichi Studio's Disgaea game series.

might seem like an odd project to write about on here, but it's been a while since i did a MAKAIPUNK thing anyway, so have a bit of a warmup on my end before i get back to bigger things. like hopefully chapter 3 of the Disgaea 1 manga readthrough thing. or maybe some game reviews or something. i don't know.

MAKAIPUNK - Manga Senki Disgaea CHAPTER 2

one day i'll learn to start doing MAKAIPUNK installments on a more frequent basis.

er, yeah. anyhow.

last time we left off with the manga readthrough, our princely protagonist Laharl woke up from a two year nap and found out that his father King Krichevskoy died. not really caring about that, Laharl decides to take the title of overlord for himself. and some guy named Vyers showed up, i guess. gen then went on a break from MAKAIPUNK for like three months to do shit involving the Playstation 2, bandicoots, Steam games, cosplay, and JoJo's Bizzare Adventure. alongside other things. ahem.

so yeah, let's get this back on track. will Flonne assassinate the king? will gen remember how to write these kinds of readthroughs after an entire winter? let's find out.

MAKAIPUNK - Disgaea Character Collection fanart gallery

2015. a new year, a fresh start. hopefully i'll work on posting crap more frequently here.

been dawdling as far as the next part of the Disgaea manga readthrough is concerned, but MAKAIPUNK isn't solely about the manga stuff. generally it's more about the lesser-known NIS/Disgaea stuff, and that being said, here's a bit of a treat for everyone to start the year off.

in 2003, some time after the release of the first Disgaea game on PS2, Dengeki Playstation printed the Disgaea Character Collection: an artbook with a bevy of official, concept, and promotional art from the first game, as well as some tidbits of lore, developer/voiceactor interviews, info on plot, endings, and some other gameplay things, among various other visual nifty stuff.

the artbook did see an english localization in 2006 under the name The World of Disgaea, published by the now-defunct Broccoli Books. i am planning on snapshotting some bits from the book eventually, but we're focusing on a different aspect of the book at the moment.

the original japanese Character Collection featured two pages of artwork drawn by fans of the series. curiously, these pages are absent in the english version, but i guess nobody in the US would know any of the artists who drew any of the pictures, being on the other side of the planet and all.

scans of the original japanese artbook do exist on the net, but for legal reasons, i won't be putting up any links to the full scanned book. though, considering these pages are absent from the english release, might as well put them up for posterity. that and the fanart here is pretty good for the 2003 era. if blogspot's iffy on showing the fullsized images, alternate imgur links exist here and here.

also of mention is that the japanese artbook for Makai Kingdom (Phantom Kingdom in Japan) has a fanart section like this. no scans of the artbook currently exist, but i'll probably snap some shots of the fanart if i can get them in decent quality.

happy new years, everyone. let's make this a great one. <3

MAKAIPUNK - Manga Senki Disgaea CHAPTER 1

oh god oh man oh god oh man this got done really late i'm so sorry

er, anyhow, when we last left off with our readthrough of the Disgaea manga, i gave a little primer on the Disgaea franchise, gave some information on the publication of the manga and some other details, and actually read through one/two pages of the manga before ending off there and spending a whole month on two completely different articles, and subsequently taking over half a month to do other things.

oh and we got introduced to angel trainee Flonne and our setting for this story i guess

i am definitely a bloke who keeps things on schedule and finishes things in a timely manner.

that being said, let's get rolling. heads up, you might need to click on some of the images to get a better look at them.

MAKAIPUNK - Manga Senki Disgaea INTRO

insert art (courtesy of minitokyo)

... the joke is the japanese title for the Disgaea series (Makai Senki Disgaea).

that aside, welcome to the first installment of MAKAIPUNK, a segment where i talk about stuff and media related to the Disgaea games and other games developed and published by Nippon Ichi Software (NIS). why does this segment have the same name as the url for my art tumblr? because i think MAKAIPUNK is a cool word. adding "punk" to any word just increases its coolness.

i beared mention of both NIS and Disgaea back when i did my readthrough of Tsubame the Ninja, but i didn't go too heavy on them since that wasn't the main focus of the review. plus outside of the publishing label's name ("Prinny Books"), it didn't really have much to do about Disgaea, which is why i didn't feature it under the MAKAIPUNK category. taking that into consideration, i guess now is better than any other time to explain what the heck Disgaea is.