Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping, lately, and I had an eventful week and a half or so. Tomorrow I’ll no longer be restricted in travel distance by our pathetic Daytonian transit system, the strength of my feet, or my horrifically disproportionately healthy legs, too since I finally found a car in my price range (cheap) that runs smooth and surprisingly, doesn’t look like total scheiss. Coincidentally, it’s also red, which means it goes well with the Gurren-Dan sticker Christina got me last year. Maybe I’ll call it… Auto-Gurren.

Or not.

At any rate, I’m overdue for another burst of significant updates thanks to work and uh, Bangai-O, though hopefully soon I can turn that buggery around too. It occurs to me my last few reviews have been missing my awesome rating system, so I’ll fix that later this evening. Maybe. It’s not like it’s essential or anything.

GaoGaiGar v2 is out in stores, those magnificent bastards snuck it into stores a couple weeks ago with little brouhaha. It’s the same low, low, price of 23.99 that the first half of the series was, so need I remind you that said series carries my hearty seal of approval*? Or if you don’t mind being a little lost, the series really hits its stride in volume 2 anyway. Rewatching it, I hate to admit, makes me painfully aware of its pacing problems- the first DVD collection ends at about the same time that the show is only beginning its wide turn from ‘Monster of the Week’ to ‘Sci-Fi Thriller.’ (Those who pay attention to minor details and characters during the ‘grind’ episodes, though, will be rewarded with more than a few “OH! That guy did…!” moments later.)

NiGHTS is creepy. [TRANSMISSION ENDS]

It’s a shame that the Bangai-O Spirits Sound Load System doesn’t have anything to do with yelling at your DS to raise attack or anything like that, since it inspires me to yelling like few games do. Not necessarily even bad yelling like a good I dunno, 80 percent of my backlog. Just a deeply-programmed need to call out things like GEKIGAN FLAAAARE or BANGAI BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURST before loosing a flock of deathmissiles in all directions.

I’ve also been invoking FALCON PAWNCH! during Heroscape bouts lately. Seems to help Captain America’s dice rolls. Yes, I still play that game. The new Wave 8, Heroes of Kinsland, does something remarkable by single handedly making the Elf race stop sucking with a wonderfully broken team of linked wizards. One of the things that I love most about Heroscape is the CCG-ish synergy bonds between figures. In the aforementioned example; placing an order marker on one particular figure can activate a ‘bond’ ability that lets you take turns with two other elf wizards, one of whom is capable of summoning 1-3 other Elf characters to his side, letting you quickly move a pretty good sized formation on a single token. Factor in that many of the elves get boosts by being in proximity to other elves, and well, they’re starting to seem a bit more like a pointy eared, effeminate bum rushing squad.

Yakyakyakyak tabletop buggery blah blah blah yakity shmakity.

N/A of the Recurring Commentor Guild that I’m making up right now has seen the invisible and done the impossible (which probably means he looked), and found that elusive Izuna doujin/artbook. Link follows, for the heck of it.

http://rapidshare.com/files/124113173/romantic_fool_-_izunya.rar

As was revealed in the thread for Izuna 2, the infamous RF book is really more of a collection of loose sketches and gag comics rather than a ‘hentai rag’ as the rumors say, which I have to say I’m a little relieved about. There’s some brief nudity (what I assume is supposed to be an interpretation of the insidious Sweaty Trap’s effects on the heroine, as well as plenty of sketches of the supporting cast. It’s worth a look as a semi-official fanbook.

In other Unemployed News, I tried out the Ninja Studios fighter Windy X Windam, a.k.a. “The Izuna Fighter,” and uh, wow. I haven’t played a fighting game this shitty since the early 90’s boom. If WxW had come out on the SNES, it might have been hailed as a revolutionary smash hit, for having an elaborate air-boosting dashing system, and had a few generations of improved sequels so that we could look at it and smile fondly at how far it’s come. Of course, an early 90s style fighter with stiff, awful controls coming out in 2008 doesn’t really inspire fond nostalgia or anything, just feelings best chased away by a Yuri Sakazaki, or perhaps a Sol Badguy.

Izuna’s pretty much Success’s mascot at this point, so I suppose it’s only natural that she’s going to be in a shitty game here and there (and let’s face it, the games she’s good in are pretty damned nichey.) It’s just a shame on multiple levels that WxW fails and fails hard- for one, the DS is pretty short on tolerable fighting games that aren’t based on Bleach, and when the day has come that a licensed property is a GOOD sign in a game, we’re upon the end times.

Call me naive, or hell, even a Romantic Fool, but I would like to see Izuna go good places. Maybe something in a Ninja Gaiden clone. A SRPG, perhaps*. I dunno. I had my hopes up for the fighting genre doing her justice, and while her sprite has lovingly detailed tits, and otherwise seems to be the character who got the most design attention in the game, it… didn’t. Maybe next time.

See ya in the unemployment line, Izzy.

The Yellow Lander/Randar is back in the address bar!

My RK page’s layout got screwed up while upgrading the backend, so it’s gonna be tomorrow night before I get it fixed up and close to normal. Sorry bout dat!