Monday, November 25, 2013

Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate Team Combos (Hyper & Special) #3 - Shennong, Nu Wa, Fu Xi


Alright, this is coming along rather quickly and nicely now. This is team combo number three out of four total, which means there's only one more left to go!

Video:


Why were these characters chosen?

Shennong was the obligatory character here, as he's obviously from the new cast of Hyper and Special. I'm never quite fond of Shennong myself, as his character came off as a fruit in my eyes. Sorry, Shennong fans! Nevertheless, I must say his moveset and weapon is quite versatile and can be given endless possibilities with combos.

Along with Nu Wa and Fu Xi, these three characters makes up the mystic team that KOEI TECMO has blessed with a unique triple rush. That is, one that fortunately doesn't break your combo on a single opponent.

Special notes:

This combo was perhaps one of the longest combos I've done as part of this entire series. Like the rest of the combos, this one sort of just developed on its own as I was also experimenting. A lot of interesting things were done with Shennong's C1 freeze and it rather turned out nice.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate Team Combos (Hyper & Special) #2 - Momiji, Zhen Ji, Zhong Hui


Continuing on my work towards my soon to be released Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate - Team Combos Compilation (Hyper & Special) video, here is video footage #2 and team combo of Momiji, Zhen Ji, Zhong Hui.

Just so you know, I do plan on releasing the rest of the video footage before the 28th of Thursday. That is of course, when Shin Sangoku Musou 7: Moushouden (Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends) will be released in Japan. And yes, I do plan on obtaining that game and providing cool video footage of ityou know me; I never say no to another Musou game that isn't about Gundams and random animes!

But just so I don't spoil everything, I'm going to let the last combo video footage be a surprise!

Video:


Why were these characters chosen?

Momiji was a prime choice as she's part of the new cast for the Hyper and Special crew, which is what this combo video will be about. The other two characters are actually very important in assisting Momiji with a variety of her attacks.

Zhen Ji was chosen most purely due to her C1a simple 360 aura that has a 100% chance of slowing down enemies for a duration. Why is this of importance? You see, I really desired to incorporate Momiji's true musou in this combo. Since her musou like a lot of other SW characters has such a huge delay before its initial hit (the enemy will be able to recover from it before the initial hit, basically), that isn't going to be possible unless we find a way around it somehow. By utilizing Zhen Ji's C1 plus a single triple rush switch, Momiji can fire her musou during a combo and have it flawlessly connect!

Zhong Hui was another character for assisting in one of Momiji's attacksher R1, that is. Momiji's R1 has a high probability of sending the enemy very far, enough so that a standard switch combo will be difficult to connect. His musou when fired directly after the last hit of her R1 arrows, can counter this easily. Not to mention he has without a doubt one of the best musous in the game. There are actually a lot of other characters can go here, but I just chose Zhong Hui due to my massive familiarity and liking to his moveset.

Oh, and before you ask, the reason I did not use any of the unique triple rush teams with Momiji in it was because she only had one. That one was with Rachel. I simply didn't want to include Rachel again in another combo.

Special notes:

Although this combo appears a bit more simple than the rest, it's actually one of the more difficult ones to execute. This is due to a lot of moves requiring very strict timing to get correct. It also features a lot of advanced techniques, such as step canceling, analog rotation during R1 and others.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate Team Combos (Hyper & Special) #1 - Rachel, Masamune Date, Guo Hai



As you may not have know, I'm currently working on putting out another Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate Team Combos Compilation video, now focused on the newly introduced characters in Hyper and Special, instead of Ultimate.

I'm usually very secretive about these types of combo compilation videos. Prior to the video being publicly released, I'm only potentially handing out the video title and detailing what it's basically going to be about, but never shed any real light on the actual combos and characters being used.

Why's that? I want the video to exert as much surprise and awe as possible in one go. If I were to give everything away, that would ruin it, hmm?

Well, today I decided I'm going to say "Screw that!". Yes, I'm sharing exclusively with blog viewers all my progress on this next combo compilation video. This will include video footage of each combo that will be used in the final video. Consider it as "Behind the Scenes" if you will, but only that you get to look at all of this before the video is publicly released!

*Ahem*, I felt that since I've already released the first video publicly, the amount of surprise and awe is already much felt (especially since this video will be a direct continuation of that). Besides, I'm sure only like 10% of my YouTube audience actually reads this blog. :P

Onwards to today's video footage then!

Video:


Why were these characters chosen?

Of course, Rachel is mandatory because she's part of the Hyper and Special crew. Other than that, these characters are chosen simply for one reason: they have a unique triple rush, i.e. KOEI TECMO paired them up because they share similarities with one another.

When I find teams that have unique triple rushes, I always chose them over random teams for my team combos compilation videos. The sole reason is that being equipped with two different triple rushes significantly increases the variety and flashiness of the combo to be executed. Regardless, not all unique triple rushes are created equal. Some unique triple rushes are intended for an enemy crowd and fare poorly against a single opponent, which is what's important here. These unique triple rushes will fail to combo the single opponent effectively, allowing them to escape in midst of it and causing the combo to break.

Thankfully, these three characters have an unique triple rush that doesn't break the combo and allow the single opponent to escape. However, on the negative side, there is absolutely no way to continue juggling after Rachel's final rush attack. Hence, expect to either land it as the final killing blow or cancel it out completely (which is what I did with Masamune's musou).

Rachel also has another unique triple rush with a different team that includes Momiji. However, because I didn't want to include two new characters in one team (to extend the length of the compilation video), I chose to not use it.

Special notes:

All three characters have heavy uses of long distance firing bullets in their moveset arsenals. Hence, ice was something quite important to include to limit the amount of fly back due to their hits. Nevertheless, using ice also increases the probability of the combo failing, as it does not activate 100% all of the time. I think overall this was a good combo, that included all of the characters' signature moves and a flashy triple rush finish at the end.

Can you guess what the next team will be?!!

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Soul Gateway - One Stop for Cameo and Original CaS for Soulcalibur V


I like to dedicate today’s post to one of my top affiliates on my YouTube channel - Soul Gateway.

This is the only segment that’s left of a once large internet project for Soulcalibur CaS (Create-a-Soul), and one that shall stay permanently online. The Soul Gateway channel was intended to showcase viewers on CreatiVe Souls (a Soulcalibur V CaS website) on how to recreate custom character creations shown on the website.

If you haven’t visited this channel yet, you should definitely opt to do so. Even if you don’t play or care for Soulcalibur V, I’m sure you’ll take a liking to the custom character creations on there, both cameos and originals—some of which are derived from Musou games!

Here is the link to the channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/soulgateway

Sample videos:







Recent news has it that Soul Gateway wishes to bring the project back online. If you are interested in seeing a new website and forum dedicated to presenting sharing and presenting Soulcalibur custom character creations to the public, as well as revival of the YouTube channel, please leave a message about it on the channel or through PM. Remember, no interests = no plans!

Monday, November 11, 2013

Freebie: Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate Gallery Images

Here is a little freebie today for all Musou fans: gallery images from Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate in HD resolution.

Samples:


DOWNLOAD HERE - 103MB

Note: Only images exclusive to the game are included. Images that are taken from past games, such as Musou Orochi Z, can be found at: http://bit.ly/17QmbQr

If you prefer to browse the images manually, I also uploaded the entire album here: http://bit.ly/1ch3Ed1

Google+ YouTube Comments - Why People Are Overeacting


It seems everybody nowadays are severely resistant against any change, regardless of any positive or negative impact it may cause. I'm sure you can somewhat relate, as nobody likes it when they are finally accustomed to something, then have it abruptly change in front of their eyes. Then again, YouTube is no newbie to this, as they are the culprit to changing and screwing around with their site hundreds of times.

Google+ rolling out their "better" commenting system caused one of the most massive outrage on the internet, even potentially surpassing the outrage caused by the very first 2.0 channel layout back in 2009. It also spawned numerous petitions on change.org, garnering over 50,000 signatures to revert back to the way things were.

Honestly, I really don't think it's as bad as people are making it out to be. Call me crazy and hammer me on the head, but I actually like a lot of the new features and improved convenience of the new comments system. However, that doesn't mean its without its flaws. At the moment, if Google would iron out the bugs and possibly squash the enforcement of Google+, I truly think the new system would be mostly favorable compared to the old system.

Here's why:

Pros of the new comments system:


* Unlimited character length - One of the most annoying nuisances with the old comments was the maximum 500 character limit, which caused many people to break their long comments into many separate comments. Thus, this causes more comments posted than necessary and additionally increased confusion amongst viewers.
* HTML links allowed and clickable - If you didn't recall, the old comments didn't allow any sort of HTML links embedded. This was I believe due to Google enforcing anti-spam measures to protect comments from spammers. For the users ourselves, this is sort of a double edged sword—we can finally post HTML links in comments, but we are now more susceptible to spam. Nevertheless, I think the former outweighs the latter. As the manager of comments ourselves, we can safely block or delete all the nasty spam.
* Threaded replies - When people reply to comments, you can now much more easily see all the replies as they are correctly lay out and indented from the post being replied to. This is similar to how old comments used to work, until Google somehow screwed it up some time ago.
* Editing comments - All new comments can be edited infinitely, from changing a small typo to completing changing the contents. I'm not sure how I positively feel about this, as it could definitely cause increased fraud—where one user can say something, then turn around to say something else.
* Comments notifications - Albeit losing the YouTube Inbox completely for comments, the new notification system allows quick and easy access to new activities on your channel, including new comments posted to your videos. Better yet, you can check comments and even reply to them without leaving the page you're on (e.g. you can watch a video while checking and replying to comments at the same time).

Cons of the new comments system:


* Google+ enforcement - Of course, one of the most leading cons of the new comments system is Google's requirement of owning or creating a Google+ profile/page in order to post comments. Whether you think Google is secretly doing this to push popularity of their social networking service, you have to agree that nobody likes to be forced to use a separate service to be able to have a convenience such as posting comments. This is especially valid if one doesn't even need it.
* Top comments - By top comments, Google somehow has failed miserably in delivering what they are indicating. Instead of top comments, we get comments from Google+ circles and then the bulk of the rest hidden deemed to spam (even though the majority of them are NOT). There is also no way to automatically adjust comments to show newest only instead of top comments. This is by far the biggest issue of the bunch, making even popular YouTubers such as ashens disabling comments and directing viewers to another site to comment. Now that's just ludicrous.
* Unlimited character length and HTML links - Yes, two of the pros are also two of the cons. Unlimited character length encourages users to spam long, useless comments like the internet trolls they are, including stupid ASCII art—in which we thought we had forgotten about in the early 2000s. HTML links can cause innocent viewers to go to an obscene or offensive site. All of these are happening in abundance everywhere on the site right now. Regardless, I'm sure as time moves on, the internet trolls will become bored of this passion and we may hopefully receive more normality in comments.
* Inability to reply to old comments -  For some odd reason, Google decided that comments posted prior to the new comments system taking place can no longer be replied to, even if they are a couple hours old. It could be quite simple to update old comments to work with the new system, but being the fools they are, Google has decided old comments must be stuck in stone for eternity. Nice...

Okay, here is the biggest question people may ask if they are still on the fence about joining Google+ with their YouTube:

Will my privacy be preserved and will I be able to hide my real name to the public?

YES! Google grants you several options when you proceed to connect your YouTube account to a Google+ account. Of course, you can choose to have it be connected to your user profile account with you real name, but you have an option to keep your YouTube username or enter a new name.

When you pick "keep your YouTube username", all it does is create an additional page under your main Google+ user profile account with that name. Hence, the two are still intertwined. However, there is no way for someone to locate and find your Google+ user profile account by just looking at your YouTube Google+ page.

Perhaps the most favorable bit of connecting your YouTube account to a Google+ page is being able to edit your username as often as you like—opposed to your user profile, which you can only change the name every 3 years or so.

See the video below for more details:


Summary:


People really need to give the new comments system a try before they bash it with full on negativity. I for one am getting dreary of all the recent comments on every video bashing it, when they should be focusing on the video contents instead.

Yes, there are some major cons as aforementioned, but the way people are reacting to it now is senseless. They only cry about how bad it is, how it ruins their privacy (when it doesn't) and how they desire the old system back. When instead, they should be giving proper feedback with good etiquette in order to improve it. Even if individuals despise it solely because they're forced to use Google+, why not just leave their Google+ alone and they won't ever have to see it again? And honestly, do they really think Google will actually revert back to their old comments system? Haven't anyone ever heard about what happened to all the changes many years ago, where no matter of how many petitions and backlash, Google kept what they invented?

I'm not defending Google nor am I hating on them either. They did something that could have good potential with the comments system—they only need to iron out the bugs, since the Google+ aspect is pretty much ultimately set in stone.

Friday, November 8, 2013

SAVEDATA.JP - Ultimate Website for all Your Japanese Game Save Needs!

I know I mentioned SAVEDATA.JP earlier in November 4th's post titled "Musou Orochi 2 Japanese Platinum Game Save"; however, I felt like this awesome website deserves a more honorable and noticeable mention. I also wanted to give a little tutorial on how to navigate the website (whether you understand Japanese or not) and how to download game saves and find game save codes (for usage with Bruteforce Save Data).

So basically, if you're reading this post and are thus far interested, you should head on over to SAVEDATA.JP now. By the way, give it a bookmark as I'm sure you will refer back to it in the future.

When you first arrive at the website, you'll be greeted to a list of game consoles with links next to each:


Sounds like you know what to do right? Yep, simply click on the picture or link to the console you want to find game saves and codes for.

Afterwards, things get a little more complicated if you don't understand Japanese. Ignore all the guff on the top and scroll down the page until you start seeing a list of game names for that console (in Japanese, of course).

Game list for the PS3 page of SAVEDATA.JP
Conveniently, the website provides a link to the game's respective Amazon.jp page. Therefore, if you aren't familiar with the Japanese title, simply click on the link and you will be directed to that game's Amazon.jp page. There, you can then use the game's box photos to determine what game it is.

Okay, so you have found the game you are looking for. Now what?

There are three links next to each game, these are from left to right: Save Data, Save Edit, Questions and Other.

Save Data will direct to a message board where users on the website can upload their own game save for the game. This is what you will want to go to if you're only looking to download full game saves. Most of the time, these game saves will be 100% complete and have platinum status trophy. Each game save will be different in content and progress, so be sure to read the uploader's description (you can use Google Translate if you don't understand Japanese). Be wary of game saves that are heavily modified with codes, resulting in non-legit data and strange gameplay.

Downloading game saves will require you to resign them to your own PS3 profile before you can use them. Please see my "How to Resign PS3 Game Saves" post for more information regarding this.

Save Edit will direct to a message board where users on the website can share their codes for the game. By codes, I mean the cheats you can apply to game saves via Bruteforce Save Data. This is a more confusing area for those who won't understand Japanese. Regardless, Google Translate can also help here. If you are completely unsure of what a code does, feel free to e-mail me about it and I'll gladly translate it for you!

Questions and Other is a message board where users on the website can exchange information for one another and ask questions about the game. You don't really need to be here unless you understand Japanese.

And that's pretty much it to using SAVEDATA.JP. Simple, easy and effective, right?

Monday, November 4, 2013

Musou Orochi 2 Japanese Platinum Game Save


For those of you who are seeking a spare Musou Orochi 2 Japanese game save for whatever reason, then here is a near perfect one to use. This game save has platinum trophy status, meaning all trophies in the game have been completed. You can also ensure that everything is unlocked, including stages and characters.

This game save is fully compatible with Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate (Japan region) and can be used to transfer all existing data from the original game to the new game, so you can avoid having to start again from the beginning.

DOWNLOAD MUSOU OROCHI 2 GAME SAVE - 909KB

Note: PARAM.SFO file is not included. To use, you must run the game save through Bruteforce Save Data and do a full rebuild with your own profile. For steps and information on how to do this, check my PS3 game save resign post.

Credits for the game save goes to SAVEDATA.JP. If you are comfy with your Japanese, feel free to browse the website to find more Japanese game saves for various consoles, as well as save data codes. 

I do not own this save nor is it my own. I have lost my Musou Orochi 2 game save a long time ago. However, you can expect my contributions towards a great Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate game save within the next few weeks. Check back on the blog for updates!