音時雨 ～Regentropfen～

To differentiate between CERO C/D/Z is sort of meaningless. Although the physical difference (to me) can be that you'll need a local credit card for CERO Z. << what I've just remembered.

I'm mainly talking about this:

I saw the writer's name who wrote Higurashi series!!
It must be horror, isn't it!? Moe-Horror, my favourite~ (/･ω･)/
(Sadly it's CERO Z = no play or buy hard copy..)

And one more, with more expectation!

Shin-Yomawari is coming!!~~ (ﾟ∀ﾟ)

Two characters this time, reminding me Nippon Ichi's other recent games, like Hotaru Nikki and Rose and the old castle. The system itself is getting better and better, so I'm not having any bad hunch for this. And it's possible to go into the buildings this time, which sounds more fun, and it can be harder. Think about earlier Biohazard series, I always chose to kill all the zombies even with only a knife, as running around in a house is just hard as physics or molecular chemistry.

From the official text, I'm already expecting a dark ending (like Hotaru nikki), but, maybe it's grey (as Yomawari) or can even be pure white (Rose and old castle). I personally would like the very first type. Besides, I'm wishing the girl in Yomawari could show up as a guest (but perhaps she won't).

Last, the main theme doesn't sound as much impressive as Yomawari, it's also beautiful though., making me wanting to transcribe the main melody again.
I can't play the middle fast part in Yomawari yet, need more practice, but my focus is right now not that.. orz

Biohazard Vendetta is eventually out, with its OST by Kenji Kawai!!

The main theme, just like how it sounds in the promotion movie, is cool. I'm satisfied with it, and the next is to wait for its bluray release -- it has to be the Japan version since I want the Japanese voice.. (*´∀｀*)

As for photographing, I'm getting into the direction, I think.
At least using a point-and-shoot smart phone I wouldn't be able to shoot the moon a few days ago like this:

Taking a careful look, the Earth's shadow is also visible. I'm happy with this outcome.
The lack of a remote shutter release, on the other hand, wasn't a problem though, as it's the moon, it doesn't move so fast. A timed shutter can simply compensate this. But I do feel there's a need for a tripod. As currently I'm positioning the camera with various supports: step stool, book, coaster, litereally anything that stays steady. ^^;

Note: I'm planning to take a picture of the moon everyday, as long as the night is clear. And it'll also be a good chance to observe more in terms of the moon phase, which I don't really pay much attention. -- Although it had been a two day break due to the clouds. When I just look at it, it has turned much more of a round shape.

In this week, suddenly I began to loop Akiko's "Kagaya (? or whatever it's pronounced)". At a point, all my imaginations had gathered to the tip of my pencil.
I'm just saying maybe my next drawing won't be motivated by "kinema mosaic" but this, which is more summer fitting... °A°;;

Even though I should have finish some notes about the largely mutated "lantern" image art, the majority of my free mind had been gone into the world of dark souls. I know I'm dying way too frequently, by all kinds of things, from walking into an endless hole by myself, forgetting the stamina bar while keep doing shield-guard, losing balance while rolling through layers of swinging axes, or messing up so many keys -- the control is indeed complicated!
But still, It's fun. And I've learnt that one important technique: hit and run~

The main topic today, the make-up of:

記憶の再結晶化を司る番人達
Although I don't know how shall I put it into English words. "Guardian girls of memory recrystallisation" sounds a little "hard", doesn't it.
More importantly, while assigning a title always is hard and the outcome is rather unexpected. This array of text I got was really a mixture between the standard Yorlga concept and my mind deviations -- plus, it's of a lot of characters! (；´∀｀)

Outfit:
Yorlga is always with an intense taste of the Taishou period, so the outfit must be of a good matching => kimono dress, a bit board under that kind of environment but isn't yet off too much. As for the colouring, unfortunately it's the same red+blue scheme again (at least they're in a lighter shade this time). I'm not sure if next time I shall use a different colour scheme, but blue+red and its relative shades do make a good harmony. I definitely need to have a try of other combinations though.
Not sure if I've mentioned it before, that I'm slightly mirroring "Alice in wonderland" while colouring the blue dress. In this case, the wonderland can be nothing but Yorlga's imperial capital.

Background:
Glowing jars, sort of a lantern-ish object. Before I came to a final idea regarding to what's inside, I changed my mind of the initial design, I removed the green field, but I didn't want to throw out those zoomed-in flowers in the foreground. So I sent them into the glass jars.
For a new set of floor ornaments, to further echo with the primary inspiration, I got many flower-shaped lanterns, both on the ground and as the new foreground. About the sky. Originally it was full of fireworks, but when I re-drew the entire floor, they also got dimmed out. In addition, I got a huge crystal cluster behind, once again as a reflection of Yorlga's unique sleeping-crystal (or whatever it's supposed to be).

Effect experience:
Working with crystals, and then the flames, with mostly watercolour brushes is the winner.

Next:
The draft was almost ready even including the background, and following my current plan, time for some (Taishou-romantic) "kinema mosaic" blending with (black) military uniforms.
I am excited, especially for the outfit, and its overall ambience.
Can't say when it's going to come true though..

##
Maeda Jun is having a new "Love Song" project! But sadly the featuring singer isn't Annabel.. (even though I know it may not be possible at all I'm still having such a little wish) Instead, that's someone that I don't even know how to pronounce her name, although I'm pretty sure I've seen her name for a few times before, somewhere.
I'm afraid I'm going to pass it, for such (?) reasons.

##
Just noticed my "R" key begins to show a sign of death! It'd be fun to get an order of how each of my keys retires.. xD

##
Double stop! I'm taking more seriousness in it!!

Again, my near-death D key has caused so much trouble whenever I'm coding or doing regular writing. It's now giving no response unless I do a hard-press, and in turn puts a string of D's that I have to trim out.
Although I wished Q could just break instead of D, it won't ever happen as D definitely gets more used compared to Q...
Didn't Holmes said that the most frequently used English letter is E? And why it didn't happen on my Ctrl first?

"Dark Soul" so far gives me a much stronger feeling of nothing but the purest evil. Those experienced ones don't need any explanation, do they?
Yet I'm not saying PsychoBreak AKUMU is easier. Just, playing the former makes me feeling that my analogue sticks would be worn out quick..
Generally there's no BGM in game, but each Boss has its own limited jukebox. I'd like to say they sound great, but I really don't have much attention in each fight. Usually it's entering the Boss room and getting killed within 3 seconds..

Like this... thing, which put me into exactly the situation above.

He's cool though! Frankly he by himself isn't really a big problem (in a sense); his two dogs are, plus the moveable range you have (trees so often made me blind)! °A°
Dogs are annoying, in whatever games (Biohazard, Silent Hill, and this); I'd prefer fighting the dark knight over this!

Any way...
The OST gave me a good time this afternoon. Another great game soundtrack found!

Now, less evil in this section.

In this week, I've watched two players playing the sounds hot game "Little Nightmares", as I'm never going to play it myself. It's not worth doing, not my style.
Perhaps the most common thing for people who just clear it for the first time would be thoughts like "I don't get the story".
And this is why I'm not tending to have a favour on it.

When there're not so many in a similar style like Limbo just got released, people found it's interesting, worth digging a lot from many aspects in order to assemble for an entire core. Being positive, I'm willing to assume the staff does have a deep meaning hidden behind, however, I hate things become too veiled. It's a responsibility for the authors to make others understand. If things become too vague, no matter what a wonderful idea is hidden behind, it would more likely cause misunderstanding and negative attitudes.
Don't think a mysterious-ish atmosphere can win much. The lack of story (and/or enough hints) means the staff wasn't sure what story they were come up with, or merely being just lazy, etc. In either case, there's no much difference from finishing a sudoku grid. Although yours may be more of some addition of action, colours and whatsoever.

Things I'm completely positive are like the environment does look good, and the little girl "looks" cute. << which are easy to achieve. Story is the pith, just like melody in a musical composition. u_u

Finally, it's time to get the "lantern" inspired artwork done..
I mean, it's 99% done. I just need a proper title.
It's graphically not related to lantern any more. Since last time I talked about the background, I had added a few new elements. I've got a new crystal cluster (supposed to be the yorlga crystal! :3) thing as the far-end background, and replaced the original grass-ish floor to a more wild shining flower field. As the foreground I removed the flowers in focus (they got put inside of the glowing jars), and instead there are many bigger flowers that look like lanterns. Even though I'm trying to keep the original motif "object", it's really more of fantasy over a grotesque night fest.
I still want to use a long title, just to echo with its mental root.
So hopefully it's getting the last stroke tomorrow~

Since I'm not a brain scientist, today's topic is of course about the ultimate (?) ridiculous Psycho Break AKUMU difficulty.
However, I managed to get it done!

... with 400+ deaths, and I have to mention, that I loaded my manual save in chapter 6 to upgrade, and thus I "lost" ~200 deaths in the never-ending two-room. So the real death count should +200 roughly though (I had LOTS of upgrades).
Still, it's better than what I thought, which could be over 1k deaths.

Halfway of the play through, I gave up recording the death count categorised by different enemies. After each death and during the 30-second-ish long loading screen, I tended to think about the strategy rather than drawing an additional line in the piece of death record paper.
AKUMU it's challenging, but I don't think I'll come back to do it again! I don't mind the one-hit death, but once again, the loading time is just way too long (I'm not confident at all to "not" die due to this or that mistakes. -_-'')

I didn't skip any cut scenes this time, hoping to find more new clues about the story. From the very beginning when the city collapsed, I began to think about Inception, which sadly I've forgotten most parts about its plot. Indeed the environment of such a ruined city is my favourite through the game... it's not what I want to talk though.

I haven't played nor got spoiled by Kidd's DLC, so for now, its my current understanding. After seeing the ending scene, I'd like to think they didn't escape/wake up completely, yet. Even with all the surrounding people from the police, it's still inside of the dream. In my opinion, the only "real" scene is the moment right before its ending, where we see Kidd and Tatiana together. The rest, all in a "dream" or a sort of advanced version of "nuroimaging", when multiple's brain are connected together. In chapter 1, the three receive the order and head to the hospital, soon the interruption comes, indicating that's already inside of such unreality. In the following chapters, unrelated scenes keep getting blended and transmitted into each other, including people involved like Joseph or the doctor. Previous memories imported into STEM system, and exported into current receivers at the terminal. In the very, very centre of that layers of worlds made from imagination, that's Ruvik and his spreading pure evils.

Being a nerd in studying living being's brain alive or in a bizarre way, Ruvik caught the attention from Doctor (don't know how to spell his name at all). They soon "collaborated", and Ruvik could make even bigger progress because of "samples" from Doctor. His goal, since lost his sister, could have become to get her back to life, perhaps through STEM. At a stage when it's mostly finished, Doctor betrayed, could because he wants to get all the honours, and has realised Ruvik's brain would serve an important role in STEM, plus (?), Ruvik might cause huge problem because of his research (pure guess).

Yet inside STEM, Ruvik became the core. Thoughts sent into STEM later from people who couldn't survive gradually turned to monsters. All of them want to return to the reality, and in my understanding more like reincarnation through replanting back into some living person's mind. In that case, according to those many audio records, two thoughts inside of one brain clashes, they would either kill each other, or eventually reach to a state of coexistence. Ruvik's target is Leslie (finally I understood why Doctor murmured "Leslie is the key" in chapter 4), but he perhaps also attempted to test on everyone inside of his world. After the second Laura fight, he said something like Joseph is not of hope for him, and later on when Seb helped Kidd, there's a scene that Ruvik attempts to transport into his mind.

Regardless, Ruvik might have a chance at the end when Leslie "melted", Laura won't be revived, because Ruvik is dead, and even after that, she becomes the ugly spider lady and just kills everyone she touches -- impossible for her to come out!

Too many memories and living thought get connected, and the inner world is exploding and becomes more and more complicated. As a new recipient, s/he may have an independent "core" with a mirror of Ruvik at the centre. The two are linked somehow, and to escape, one has to defeat the mirror core, like what players do in chapter 15, go out of "this" layer of STEM, sees Ruvik's brain, destroys it, and returns to the "previously recognised" reality. Meanwhile, the deeper core somewhere far away is still affecting this layer of normality, and this layer gets to merge into another one. Maybe after many layers, Seb will really wake up. I'll believe Joseph would survive too, so would Kidd who is an agent that is all I know from a quick glance of spoiler. Posters and newspaper and all other notes are fragments remained when two minds merge, while they're all based on the reality. After the story begins, we learn more truth from touch others' thoughts, which in turn all gather to one single point, the STEM core.

When someone dies inside STEM, others could see that when they wake up, and thus there's nobody in Leslie's tub, maybe he's alive in another layer, or maybe he really melted. Others may be forcefully connected to STEM, but I just don't know why Doctor is there too. Maybe to look for Leslie, who is another precious sample after surviving from Ruvik's connection but got lost this time.

I like this type of story (and I just hope what I've just wrote above is making a bit of sense), while the ending is sort of open, yet from all clues, it seems there's a clear answer. Definitely I'll find a time to get the DLCs and find more hints!

Besides, I just got this:

Pretty much because of people I follow on youtube keep referring to this and thus got me being curious.
Yet the first thing I did after game start was something worthless...
that to knead out a Leon S. Kennedy face! without knowing a single thing like what this game is all about AND knowing the character will have a hood/hat/etc...
By the way, I named the character "Ruvik"... (´・ω・｀)

The most stressful thing in this week could be in Friday evening when I carelessly typed the SQL statement "UPDATE table SET XX=YY" withOUT appending "WHERE id=xxx". I even wondered after hit enter, that why it took so long to execute this simple command, but soon I realised the irreversible mistake.
At that very moment, my brain felt being stung and squeezed -- perhaps close to the state of being flash-bolted by Seb's agony crossbow, which also because I knew I didn't have any acceptable SQL dump.
Fortunately, quickly I recalled just at the noon, there was a chunk of probably useful custom exported data I did at noon, and things I've affected on the remote DB could be extracted from it. So the issue was solved, sort of. Things for myself, that even after the recovery, I can't assure it's 100% good, but... I'll only say it here. ~_~

Therefore, as a way of letting off steam, I once again began to challenge PsychoBreak AKUMU, which has been pending for a while. It's hard, really hard, although I can't tell which is harder comparing to Silent Hill 2's 10-star result (because I can't do it yet). Last time I stopped in front of the shutter that first time releases Trauma to players. With the long time rest, I had less hard time to pass it, and surprisingly, in the next stage with two zombies + two traumas, I went through without problem at my first try, which was simply shock bolt + throwing all my 5 grenades + one fully upgraded harpoon bolt << apparently I didn't know whether I missed or not, as I was always in panic at this difficulty. But just due to the large consumption of ammo, I redid this checkpoint, which went better: shock bolt + 2 grenades + a few shotgun shells.

Then, Laura again! I had to finish it in two days with a good rest -- I've already lost count in how many times I ran into my unexpected death due to bear traps, bombs or whatever. Although I attempted to burn her up, I quickly gave up as I felt it would be so hopeless in AKUMU. I got stuck in Friday night, and finished within 3 tries in the next day. The following boss stopped my Saturday progress, but still, I passed it on Sunday within 5 tires.
I do believe such a longer rest yields a better condition to pass.
And thus, I wish I can pass the sequence with waves of zombies with fireworks, rifles, and machine-guns in next week easier!

Some handmade grissini for today (finally I can use up my bottle of rosemary that has literally expired many years)!

And, time to say good-bye to Canon IXUS210 and say hello to Sony DSC-HX400!
↓ It's a rainy evening, with these dark clouds.

Thanks to "Mastering Digital Cameras" and Mastering Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO and Exposure, I feel much better with most settings on the new HX400, in which many were not available on IXUS210. That author also had books on how to take good photos, but I personally prefer to only get the basic knowledges from experts, as for the artistic aspects of a photo, I'd rather find the way of expression by myself -- Every one is different!
Nonetheless, no matter what, I can't switch to flickr even though its 1TB storage sounds delicious. ^^;

Finally, the make up of the "lantern-motif" drawing is going well, although showing the sign of moving into a more fantasy-ish atmosphere instead of a retro, Orient and even "grotesque" one.

It seems impossible for me to play Bio7: [1] It's in first person, [2] NONE of the previous characters appear, so I eventually decided to watch people playing it.
The coming new full CG film is much more of attention of the series' fans.

And actually, Bio7 was also my background video earlier when I was working with the newest (idea was born in mid-March though) art work, based on the "lantern song" from "yorlga II" as mentioned before.
I'm good at making moe illustrations in a dark and evil environment. :3

However, while I initially had the intention, I'm not planning to draw a real lantern in the background, at least for now. The make-up drafting process was kind of out of expectation, which didn't take a whole day. As a quick note, major props will be glowing bins, flowers and floating lights in the night. -- A chance to improve skills related to make glowing effects~

Interestingly, even the Noriko band can't recognise most titles from that album, in which "this" song is indeed simplified as "lantern". xD

Thanks to another yorlga inspiration, I've yet decided my next target theme:
"KINEMA MOSAIC", FINALLY!
And I want to try on some military uniforms, still all girls though... (ΦωΦ)

Almost all that I wanted to record. Too short as an entry? I'm totally aware of that. The reason was straightforward too:
Persona 4 is fun!
Yet sadly I just learned how to upgrade my gears in the middle May in the game's timeline. <= Apparently I never read the text carefully enough. If I didn't find it, I would die miserably in Rise's dungeon... ¬_¬

Each time on Monday, when my colleagues ask me how my weekend is, a quick answer from me is "dying" -- Digitally because of Psycho Break AKUMU.
For so many times after doing a "should-be-no-problem-on-normal" sequence with lots of deaths, I just yelled "CHECKPOINT PLEASE!!" xDD

It is stressful, although it's fun or I'm never trying. Yet, I decided to switch gear by running another fresh round of biohazard 4 professional mode.
So that fresh means starting from zero without any stuff inherited. My first time pro round was largely helped by the second costume which made Ashley invincible. I personally thought it was quite a good start for people new in pro. Yet this time, besides that I wanted to get rid of that less professional help, I don't like Leon's 2nd costume at all. As I had over 10 rounds of bio2 playing experience, nothing would be better than his RPD uniform.
And this round took me nearly a whole day totally, in which I died 179 times (I tried not to "retry" too much so I could see the real number of death)! lol

Because I'm already so familiar with locations of all the treasures, money wasn't a problem at all for me, and I can always keep my pace with the progress of weapon upgrades.
At about the last 2 or 3 merchant point, I've pretty done maxed my weapon sets:
Red9 - People said it has aiming issues to be unstable, but I didn't feel it, perhaps I've forgotten how blacktail aims long time ago. Any way, I love the sound of Red9, so it'll become my main handgun forever!
Riot gun - It does look better than any other shotguns. So I'm okay to not think about the 100 capacity in the semi-auto. Although the only bad thing is it can't deal with a wide angle, while my playing skill can easily get myself in a bad situation being surrounded by zombies... ^^;
Rifle - I mean the initial old school rifle. I'm aware of that you'll have a bolt-action after each fire, but the bolt-action is especially what I love to see (No specific reason and I just think it looks cool)! Plus, after maxing it, the fire power is a sweet 50!
I basically like to aim and shoot, so I'd rather keep my distance with machine guns or assault rifles. Furthermore, those have generally weak fire-power and bad aiming accuracy. Also, no mine thrower, because I had bad experience with it in bio3. Regarding to the special weapons, like the infinite rocket launcher or the triple-shot handgun (forgot its name...) or Chicago typewriter. Current weapons satisfying me a lot, that it's just fun to use different weapons depending on the situation. I'm never a speed runner, so I don't really care about those super weapons that take the 1 shoot kill. Although I'm planning to still buy them and have a try.

Maybe next round of fresh run I can die less. I indeed learned from my failures a lot in terms of stradegy. I also found that Ashley isn't that annoying really (I'm NOT saying when she speaks nor when she asks you to catch her even though a ladder is available). In most scenes when she's beside, there's always a hiding point or handy checkpoints (I mean the green doors). And thus those more challenging scenes with her would be: [1] she turns the cranks and you'll have to knock the black-robes down while fighting some rushing toward you. [2] while controlling the giant metal ball (don't know what it's called) to smash the wall, as there're always bad islanders coming from everywhere!
The rest scenes are super doable even without a trash bin for hiding: In the village she can go to the clock tower, before the king's grail she can stay in the hallway with the lion statue, etc...
And by Leon himself, I find it's hard at the first time for a few scenes:
- the beginning survival moment in the village blended with one or two chainsaw fights, "hit and away" and shotgun + gernades is important.
- the second (?) survival stage with Luis = a big mess and the hardest to me.
- the big cheese boss fight, I still don't have a good way to fight but I kind of think rifle is the way out.
- the water poll (?) stage that right before Ashley goes up and turns two cranks, I had no good way but kept using the door-checkpoint after killing a few numbers without damage.
- the king grail stage, I know I can head-shot each of them and burst out the bugs, but I'm bad at head shooting... ._.
- the right hand escape or fight, if you don't use the free rocket launcher of course. I need to confess that I missed the rocket shot and had to retry... >_> -- the Salazar boss fight is nothing. I got him down in a minute!
- Jack Krauser fight. I learned from my ~50 deaths, that you can take him quick with the knife, while PUSHING ALL L1/L2/□/✕ BUTTONS AT THE SAME TIME for the QTE, so you don't have to think about what to push.
- The 3 Gatling towers stage. I even though I was going to be stuck, but, the point is to silence the middle one, and then rifle the two on the side.
- The final boss fight... It's questionable. My first time pro run was hard, because I had no grenades left (so I had to go and buy a mine thrower). But this time, I got 7 in my box. and it became a little (he still hurts) easier.

Finally, let me declare:
1. the winner in bio4 weapons should be the little knife! As long as you're in a high position with a ladder and your back is safe, you can knife all of them and enjoy the pleasant sound when they fall off. -- Am I the real evil one?!
2. I love Red9 and Uncle Merchant (I like Luis too but sadly he dies too quick)!

3. I believe another reason for bio4 to be so successful is all the mishearing of Spanish? xDD

I happened to see the new publish of Furtwängler conducts Beethoven with a super decent price (previously I mainly hit for some past releases with stupidly high prices), so I got it without hesitation. Together with it, it's a 10 CD set of Tchaikovsky's orchestra works. The Beethoven set would be no surprising as I know how it sounds like. But the latter was indeed "interesting". There's no booklet, and thus I had no clue how these recordings were selected and put together into the 10 disks. For a quick look, things are inconsistent: How could a 199x recording being put with a 195x one, and they are performed by completely different artists! Generally, it's like $2-3 each disk so I was kind of aware of such "abnormalities" and have no complaints. I'd even say I bought this "suspicious" CD box only because of its low price -- just another "weird" yet "great (most performers were the big names)" set of mono recordings into my collection~!