Even though Dizzy is scaled at 1/8, she takes a lot of space due to her wings. I wonder how big her box is going to be since height alone is 310 mm including her wings. It kinda makes for her price which is 11,800 yen MSRP.

Crazy sculpture work on her back especially on making those two wings but does it have enough support for those two wings ? it seems fragile to me. Don't you guys think so too ?

I just love her eyes. There is something about her eyes that piques my interest in this figure.

One of Dizzy's wing, Necro

Another Dizzy's wing, Undine

I got this preorder but I am still 50-50 on whether or not I will get her. How about you ?

Additional Tidbits

For the last 2 weeks, I have been playing SO4: LH non-stop and managed to finish couple days ago ,thus, I would love to share my readers what my thoughts are about this game. Speaking of Star Ocean series, one can expect of a great battle system and storyline. I believe those two are what defines Star Ocean series or a good RPG. Some may lean towards one or the other but I believe both work together to create a great RPG. Since it’s originally released for XBOX 360, there has been couple changes here and there for the PS3 version, however, I would not discuss it as PS3 vs Xbox360 comparisons can be easily found via Google or Sankakucomplex.com. Before I continue further, please be warned that this post may contain spoilers so stop reading at this point ^^ if you worry about ruining your enjoyment of SO4

Battle System

Square-Enix (SE) did a good job on keeping the same battle system since the original Star Ocean with some minor additions here and there. They kept most features in SO3 and added couple more features such as Blindsides, Rush, Bonus Board and BEAT system. I used Blindsides a lot early in the game but as I progressed through the game, I found it to be almost useless. Meanwhile, I love Rush and Rush combo and they both are great for dishing damage without getting knockback/interrupted. Two thumbs up  for SE for adding this features.

For those who played SO3 before, you should be familiar with Bonus Board. Even though it’s not the same but the concept behind is pretty similar and it’s a way for gaining extra EXPs, HP/MP recoveries, Fols and/or SPs. For me, Bonus board is good and bad at the same time. The good thing about is all those extras I mentioned earlier and the bad thing about is that I have to be extra careful when controlling a character because I need to avoid critical hit on me, otherwise, I lose those bonuses . I stop caring about Bonus Board after I have access to synthesize where you can synthesize FOL/EXP factor to your weapons and armors.

BEAT system is closely related to Rush. There is 2 types of BEAT: BEAT S and BEAT B (SE won an award for the best names ^^;). BEAT S is good for blindsides but the extra stats that it gives makes totally not worth to max it in comparison to BEAT B. Lets compare the two below:

BEAT B
Default: Increased critical hit chance during Rush Mode
Rank 5: Rush Gauge increase rate up
Rank 9: MP cost 25% during Rush Mode
Rank 13: Rush Gauge decrease rate down
Rank 17: Damage -5% during Rush Mode
Rank 20: Rush Gauge increases during Rush Mode

BEAT S
Default: Increased damage to Blindsided enemies
Rank 5: Chain Combo entry during Blindsides
Rank 9: Double Blindsides enabled (avoids counters)
Rank 13: Blindside charging enabled while attacking
Rank 17: Freeze nearby enemies when Blindsiding
Rank 20: "No Guard" status while Blindside charging

When you max Beat B, you can keep your Rush Gauge for the whole friggin battle which means you can kill enemies faster and cost you less MP to use skills. I think Beat S is pretty useless, thus, there is no need to introduce the BEAT system if it’s clearly that one will be used by everyone except maybe Meracle. When I just started the game, I expected that both BEATs would be great and there would be equal advantages and disadvantages between the two. SE fails on this one feature.

There’s still MP damage in this game just like SO3 but, there is no MP kill sadly. MP kill is (arguably) the best idea ever in an RPG game and it makes the game more challenging and interesting. Not only that you need to worry about your HP but you need to be aware of your MP. Too bad that SE removes this from SO4

Story

I was quite disappointed to be honest and it certainly didn’t live up to my expectation. The story was quite linear with one plot twister towards the end or one may call it ‘too cliche’. It has ‘Save the world’ theme in it. While I didn’t expect it to be something like Code Geass (plot twisting in almost every episode ^^;;), I thought SE/Tri-Ace could do better than this. Despite the lousy story line, cutscenes are awesome and I really enjoy all of them, although, sometimes it kinda sucks that you can’t pause in the middle of cutscenes.

Characters

When I thought the story was disappointing enough, characters development clearly takes the podium. Each characters is very very very lacking in developement and the 2 main characters, Edge and Reimi, don’t have what it takes to be the main characters of the story. There is no/very minimal backgrounds/stories about Edge, Reimi and Crowe’s power as Seed of Hope and what it is/ what it does. Through out the game, Reimi is pretty much Edge’s b1tch (excuse my language here) and Edge, himself, tries to be cool and the stuff that he said is just too cheesy ^^;;. In the middle of the game, due to some incidents, Edge became so irritating that I couldn’t stand and listen to him at all; thankfully, he became better and better.

Lymle, one of the usable characters, is also annoying with her ‘ mmm kay’ on every friggin sentence she says during ENTIRE game. First couples , it’s pretty cute but after a while, she is so damn annoying, although, I have to admit that I enjoy Lymle and Faize Private Actions (PA) the most but I also enjoy ecchi PAs like the one above ^^.

Replay Value

This is where SO4 and other SO series  truly shines. There are enormous side quests and post game dungeons for those who are looking for more challenge. In addition, there are 2 additional difficulties, Chaos and Universe if you think Galaxy level is not challenging enough for you. Too be honest, Galaxy is level is pretty easy because through out the main story (before post game), my characters die less than 10 times. Don’t ask how many times they die during post game though ^^;;. If you have hours to spare then this is the perfect game for you.

Others

Before I play this game, I read couple reviews for the XBOX version and majority of them said that Reimi is majorly overpowered especially her critical hits and Crimson Squall (Barrage arrows). Some said that in PS3 version, Reimi’s critical hits has been reduced but I think she is still quite overpowered especially with her Crimson Squall which is great against bosses. After post game, you will get Savage Sparrow which is guided arrows so you don’t need to aim anymore  ^^;;.

For some reasons, Myuria’s AI seems to be broken or something. She keeps going forward and try to hit an enemy with her staff, thus, she always dies first ^^;;. Not sure if this is a bug or what but it didn’t matter what strategy that I put on her, she always goes forward -_-;;.

Final Thoughts

Since everyone’s taste in RPGs greatly differs, please take what I said with a grain of salt and explore the game yourself ^^.

Rating: 7/10

My main/most used characters are Arumat, Reimi, Myuria and Sarah so what are yours ?

Image via Gelbooru

Stardock announced The Gamer’s Bill of Rights a day before Penny Arcade Expo. It contains list of standards or guidelines that they hope to be followed by game developers/publishers in particular PC game developers. The document was aimed toward PC games because console games developers already have some standards set by Nintendo, Microsoft or Sony. The objective of The Gamer’s Bill of Rights is

to increase the confidence of consumers of the quality of PC games which in turn will lead to more sales and a better gaming experience.

For those who are wondering about Stardock, they are the maker of Sins of a Solar Empire game which is a hit game in 2008. I also briefly mentioned about Stardock in my last game article Yar!! a Game Developer talked to Pirates and how they view piracy differently than other game developers.

The Gamer’s Bill of Rights(source: Stardock’s website) :

Gamers shall have the right to return games that don’t work with their computers for a full refund.

Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.

Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game’s release.

Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.

Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will play adequately on that computer.

Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won’t install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their consent.

Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.

Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.

Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.

Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.

Thoughts

The only problem that I already foresee is in the first one. I think there should be a time limit for this one otherwise people will abuse the loop hole and I know some people that will do this for sure unfortunately. Surely, it’s a good thing that there are developers out there thinking about gamers but this is only the beginning because the next step would be for others to follow this bill and it’s not going to be easy to do.

The rest of the rules are more related to DRM so if DRMs are removed from PC games, it will pretty much follow more than 50% of those rights. Easy , right? ^^ Creating the bill is easy but to follow them, can those companies do the same as what Stardock did ? The saying ‘Easier said than done’ fits perfectly in this situation ^^;;

Image via Moe Imouto

A game developer named Cliff ‘cliffski’ Harris from Positech Games, a small independent PC games company in UK, has been wondering why people (pirates) pirate games (re: his games) and out of curiosity and good intentions, he posted in a well known forum and site: slashdot and Penny Arcade forum . From both, his question made it to arstechnica, digg and bnet.

The answers that he got were massive and he summarized to 4 major points as of why people pirates PC games or other games:

image via google

1. Money / Financial problems

He stated that:

This *did* surprise me. A LOT of people cited the cost of games as a major reason for pirating. Many were kids with no cash and lots of time to play games, but many were not. I got a lot of peoples life stories, and a ton of them were my age. Even those who didn’t cite cost as their main reason almost always mentioned it at some stage. A lot of anger was directed at the retail $60 games, and console games. People in Australia were especially annoyed about higher prices there. My games were $19-23, but for a lot of people, it was claimed this was far too high. People talked a lot about impulse buying games if they were much cheaper.

Although it does not surprise me, I agree with others that the cost of games is one of the major problem.s If you take a look at the price of games these days ranging from $50 to $60 per game, they are quite expensive  especially since one of the major target markets is kids who does not have any income and depends on their parents to buy them games. From the perspective of parents, they have other needs (rent,mortgage,foods, cars, tuition fees,etc)  to fulfill and games are at the bottom of their very very long list. So how do the kids get their games ? Internet is the answer. Cheap and fast way to get their hands of any games they want. I was no exception when I had no income, I downloaded games because I could not afford them.

I also heard about games in Australia are considerably higher than the one in North America. Some of you guys who live in Aussie probably can say more about this matter.

image via google

2. Game Quality

Cliff said that

This was a big complaint too. And this also surprised me. I have a very low opinion of most new games, especially triple A ones, but it seems I’m not alone. Although there were many and varied complaints about tech support, game stability, bugs and system requirements, it was interesting to hear so many complaints about actual game design and gameplay. Not a single person said they had felt ripped off by a game due to substandard visuals or lack of content. The consensus was that games got boring too quickly, were too derivative, and had gameplay issues. Demos were widely considered to be too short and unrepresentative of the final product. People suspected that the full game was no better than the demo. Almost everyone had a tale of a game that was bought based on hype which turned out to be disappointing.

As much as this was a surprise to him,it’s nothing new for me nor others. How do you feel when you spend $50 on a game and you play only like a day if you are lucky ? I bought Oblivion for around $50 and I ditched it after a day because it’s getting to repetitive and boring, although, I seemed to like it when I played it at my friend’s house.

Do you remember Crysis,  the most over hyped game ever? A friend of mine bought it for $50 and finished the game within a day. Personally, I am not willing to pay $50 for a game that I am going to play just for a day and I would rather spend it on a figure for example. According to this news, only 86,633 units were sold in the first month of its release in US. Pretty disappointing numbers considering, it’s one of the most anticipated games in 2007. I am sure it would have done better if the requirements are not so ****ing high. It’s like telling people that you need to upgrade your PC to play the game and you expect to shell out $500 or more back then. Minimum upgrade would be your video card so add that to the cost of the game, total cost would be somewhere around $200.

Out of many PC games that I bought: FFXI , Diablo II and Orange Box are the ones worth every penny. I played Diablo II for 2 years, have been playing FFXI for 4 years and Team Fortress 2 for almost a year.

As for Demos, it’s not a true representative of the game. Unless they have beta version for everyone to test it out, a short demo is not enough to know the game. From marketing point of view, demo is like a movie trailer but your opinion on a trailer compare to the actual movie may be different. I understand that he wanted to give a teaser and not to reveal too much but if majority complaint about the demos then there must be something wrong with those demos.

image via http://talk.bmc.com/blogs

3. DRM

Quote from Cliff

This was expected, but whereas many pirates who debate the issue online are often abusive and aggressive on the topic, most of the DRM complaints were reasonable and well put. People don’t like DRM, we knew that, but the extent to which DRM is turning away people who have no other complaints is possibly misunderstood. If you wanted to change ONE thing to get more pirates to buy games, scrapping DRM is it. These gamers are the low hanging fruit of this whole debate.

The root of all evil: DRM. The easiest example for a game with DRM problems is Mass Effect. It requires to be activated every few days and each user can only have up to 3 activation keys. Even then there are still other problems with the DRM which stopped gamers from playing. The funny thing is that the pirated version works more smoothly so it means you spend $50 and couldn’t even play. Why would you want to play $50 for a problematic game while you can get the cracked version for free and run more smoothly XD ? Honest games who actualy buy the game got totally pwned in this case -_-;;. DRM is just bunch of marketing BS and a way to squeeze in more $$$ from gamers/customers. Check out Espy’s blog for an article regarding Mass Effect, Piracy and DRM.

If a game has qualities, people will buy it regardless for example, Sin of the Solar Empire released by Stardock Entertainment or World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, a lot of non-online games has minimal content and no re playability in particular FPS games. What I notice from most PC games these days, they are just eye-candy games. Looks good visually and crappy contents -_-; and I am not the only one who is frustrated with the content of PC games these day. Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock Entertainment also expressed his frustration in this article and he also added why he does not care about piracy in his personal blog. In case if you don’t know, Sin of the Solar Empire does not have any DRMs but made it to top 10 of best selling games in March 2008 according to ign.

image via Gama Sutra

4. Digital Distribution

He said that

Lots of people claimed to pirate because it was easier than going to shops. Many of them said they pirate everything that’s not on Steam. Steam got a pretty universal thumbs up from everyone. I still don’t get how buying from steam is any different to buying from me, other than you may already have an account on steam. For the record, I’d love to get my games on steam. I wish it was that easy.

Well…. I disagree with what others said. Steam is convenient and nice which is true but if you like the game, you will go to a game store and get it. I mean don’t tell me those guys are too lazy to go to a game store to get the games they want. I think this is just an excuse to pirate the games.

What others said above is valid reasons but of course, they are always a group of people that will pirate games just because they can or it’s free .

The reason Cliff asked people around is because he wants more sell from his games and to understand why people pirate his games. Unlike others, he actually listened to the complaints and took some actions (not just empty promises) as he mentioned them on the last part of his article. I think other developers should learn from him and what he has done so far and also Brad Wardell. Small game companies may follow his footsteps easily but big one like EA, it’s like wishing for a rain in a desert.

Yar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Updates:

• Added a link to Epsy’s blog

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