Wobbufux Test 2: August 2011

空の軌跡

Monday, August 29, 2011

Finally got around to posting this one up. Finished the game in July-ish.

'Tis the Premius Edition of the Trails in the Sky triology. Loved the game. Came with a great balance of narrative, action and to top it all off, awesome characters. It's been a while since I've played such a great RPG. They're always entertaining to watch. In terms of the premium edition, this one was more or less your typical one. It is a PSP in the end, so there's only so much you can cram into it before it becomes unprofitable. ^^; Contains a whole lot less than the Catherine deluxe edition, which I covered earlier.

Inside the game box. The backside of the case cover has Scherazard, which surprised me a bit. Yes, she did play an important role in the game, but I would've thought that they'd stick either Joshua or Estelle in there.

Manual is made to look like the Bracer's handbook in game. If you ever play it, you'll be referring to it a lot. Enough so that it's actually hot key'd by default!

This is 90% of what was in that box. I'll show what that last 10% is in a bit. For now we'll look at this pretty stuff. The game, OST CD, and a metal Bracer badge, what many of the characters wear in the game.

Lots of reflection and shinyness because I forgot to take off the plastic wrapping before shooting. Was too lazy to retake the photos, so bear with me. Joshua (black haired, sitting) plays a harmonica. I haven't had a listen to the CD yet, but from experience, Falcom games almost always have great music. That was one of the awesome parts of the game. Hopefully they'll keep at least some of it in the upcoming anime adaptation...which has about as information out as I have money at the moment (that is to say, not much as I'm more or less broke due to textbooks and school "orz).

Not sure whether it'll be an OAV or a full on TV series, but whatever is becomes, it'll cover the trilogy as a whole. The theme you hear in the trailer is the main theme of Trails in the Sky; Joshua also plays an arrangement of it on his harmonica several times throughout the game.

Inside the CD case. Backside of the cover is graced with the girls of the game. There wasn't a scene like this in the game. Aside from Estelle (twintail, foreground), none of these characters would ever be together until the last chapters or so.

The Bracer emblem. A guild of swords-for-hire that complete citizen requests, like Ad Libitum in Tales of the World, or the Chantry Board in Dragon Age. Almost all the playable characters in the first game belong to the guild. It's a metal pin that's a bit more vividly coloured than the photo makes it look.

The last 10%? Well, it's a double-sided paper poster. One side has the world map of the first game. This is pretty much what you see when you bring up the world map in game.

On the otherside is a wonderful illustration of the lead characters for the trilogy. Estelle looks wonderful, doesn't she? The creases bug me a bit, especially because I know that they won't go away. ^^; Paper is also quite fragile, so I don't really want to tinker with this too much.

The ending (credit roll) for the first game. Note that this song is also to the same melody as the main theme. In Japan, this one's referred to as 空の軌跡FC (Sora no Kiseki FC). The video is likely the US version (as credits are in English). Falcom's one of my favourite game companies, so whenever the next installment comes out on this side of the pacific, keep an eye on the blog, because I'll likely be putting up the premium edition for that one up too. And then when XSEED decides to rerelease the whole trilogy with added bonuses, I'll kick myself.

Kenn

Manga of the Week - ほしのふるまち

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Image from Toyama-Brand

If you don't know who the author is (I'll tell you in a bit), you need a sledge hammer to the gnarly bits.

Title: ほしのふるまち, Hoshi no Furu Machi, The Town the Stars Fall Upon

Author: Hara Hidenori

Genre: Seinen, Romance, Slice of Life

Serialized in: Shogakugan Young Sunday

Total Volume Count: 7

Series Summary from MangaUpdates:

"The stars that don't shine in Tokyo surely do shine in a different town..."
TSUTSUMI Koutarou, who couldn't be a senior at a college-oriented high school in Tokyo, moves into Himi City, Toyama Prefecture with his relatives and spends one school year there.
"I wouldn't be able to shine for the rest of my life..."
He's hurt, and depressed.However, his encounter with a girl named Nagisa changes his "tomorrow" little by little.
Now, HARA Hidenori begins "the sweetest 'starting-over' love story in the world"...

Kenn's Comment: As I said before the jump, if you don't know who the author is, I'm not going to hound you for that. If you don't know at least one of his other works, that's a different story. Why? This is the author of Densha Otoko. If you don't know that series, go hit up your local bookstore that carries manga, or your DVD outlet an dlook for the live action. It's one of the series that you must read/watch. And there's no excuse to this one. If you're not 'an anime person' there's the live action. If you're not a '3D people make me ill' then there's the manga. Get on it. Now.

Anywho, can't say I've gotten to the end of this one, but from the bit I've read, I've had nothing but smooth sailing. Nothing really bothered me about the series, though that probably doesn't say much as I'm incredibly tolerant of happenings in manga and anime. All the characters are very human, and there's no heavy drama or constant unfortunately events happening. I feel that all too often, authors will put their characters through trial after trial to keep the story flowing, never giving it time to wind down. At times, that kind of story gets very arc-y (made up on arcs) and almost forced.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. Like Densha Otoko, this one also has a live action version, though I'm not sure how that one went. I'd normally say a realistic romance like this one wouldn't be that hard to pull off, but after reading the article about Usagi Drop's live action movie on the JapanTimes, I'm not so sure about live actions anymore. Anywho, enjoy!

Before I forget, Densha Otoko is available in North America through VIZ if you were looking for it. It's a bit old, so it'll likely be fairly hard to find.