I’m kinda bored of blogs already. I don’t see how someone can be motivated enough to constantly have something to share. Or maybe I’m just too inconsistent. Well whatever it is, I don’t expect much online activity to happen from me for a while. I’ll probably just write stuff once in a while.
It seems to me that High-activity sites are just more useful… well, some of them at least.
Here are a few useful sites :
Digg.com
(One of the best sites for finding what new articles are popular)
Metacritic.com
(One of the best sites for seeing the different reviews for movies, books, games and stuff.)
ThePirateBay.org
(My favorite individual Torrent site. Enormous amount of things to download) Torrentz.com
(This site might actually be the best torrent site, as it lists the links to torrents from other sites)
IsoHunt.com is also a huge torrent site.
PhotoBucket.com
(Surprisingly, photobucket might be the best place to search for images. It’s pretty good.)
RawStorycom
(One of the least biased news site out there) InfoWars.com
(An somewhat-extreme non-mainstream news site. It’s interesting seeing all the different comments in the news.)
SurfTheChannel.com
(Pretty good site for finding tv shows links to stream and watch)
1up.com
(One of the better main-stream video game news sites. Though there’s lots of other good ones out there)
VGChartz.com
(Very interesting Video Game site. Has statistics, reviews, and good articles.)
IndieGames.com
(Good site for having a look at independent games.)
It’s interesting to look at or play independent games. They usually have a touch of creativity which you don’t see in main-stream games.
..And yes, I’ve been back into gaming lately.
I’d like to know other useful and interesting sites that aren’t blogs. If anyone would like to share some, please do.
Two interesting sand-box-type games have come out recently; inFamous, on the PS3 only, and ProtoType on PS3, XBox 360, and PC.
I would’ve liked to do an in-depth review and comparison but unfortunately I’ve only recently been playing inFamous and am waiting to finish that one before I play ProtoType more(there’s a reason for that, which I’ll get into later).
Now, I think just from watching both, it’s obvious that they’re quite different games, even though they both have sand-box-type gameplay and cool powers to use. I’m sure some have tried to compare both.
Note: Keep in mind that I haven’t seen as much from ProtoType as I have of inFamous. The following is more of my initial impression of both games put into a comparison.
inFamous, when it comes to attacks, is mostly about 1 particular concept; shooting or blowing stuff with electricity. The player is powerful apart from that, but for the most part, it’s more about using and developping new electrical abilities (with the help of exp points), but it sort of feels intricately designed; You can absorb electricity from anything that has a current to recharge your energy, and every ability you earn is useful in different ways. In ProtoType, the player’s abilities are on a different spectrum. The player is very powerful and your powers are almost demonic, and you can get and absorb new ones in different ways. The abilities are varied and the amount of possibilities for the different ones you can get seem far greater. You don’t only have all sorts of different kinds of weapons and attacks that you can materialize to use, but there’s all kinds of abilities, including some stealth abilities like taking over someones body to pass unnoticed, and you can also use lots of things laying around as weapons, such as rocket launchers and tanks.
Note: You can’t drive cars in inFamous.
In inFamous, things can get chaotic, but for the most part things around are a lot more passive. There’s some exploration going on; you can climb wherever there’s ledges at a cool pace, and there’s actually a kind of sense of exploration and of satisfaction from getting to certain areas — A fun platforming aspect is present. And along the other aspects, the entirety of the gaming experience just seems high quality.
Compare that to ProtoType, where you can run like the wind and run up buildings and jump 2 stories high in the air and pretty much go anywhere at a fightening pace. The rush from going around in an awesome manner is much greater in ProtoType, but at the same time the exploration aspect doesn’t feel as rewarding since it’s so easy to get around… but there is awesomeness, and the stealth aspect of the game may bring that certain slow-pace element that can be fun. One other thing about the game is that things around are extremely chaotic and dangerous, which also makes playing a bit more demanding.
In inFamous, The setting is somewhat dark, but apart from that it’s that extreme and depending on the way you play, you can choose to be good or evil. ProtoType you have no choice but to go down a dark path; everything is bad, chaotic, and gruesome. And you get to tear up people, Hell Yeah!
In many ways, The intensity in ProtoType seems like a step up for many aspects, compared to inFamous, especially with the pacing and the action. More intense doesn’t mean better, and inFamous pulls through by its attention to key details which make a game fun. But it is the reason why I’m playing inFamous before, because I think there’s the possibility that I might find its gameplay dull compared to the extremity of ProtoType, if I play it at the same time. Who knows, for now.
Now, one aspect of the gameplay which makes a huge difference, which I don’t think a lot of people have talked about, is the controls. The controls determine the biggest part of the gameplay. inFamous has really refined controls and it feels tight and nice, But there’s one significant factor in determining how someone will like it; it’s largely a 3rd person shooter. When you hold L1 to use your powers, your perspective shifts to almost a 1st person aspect, where you control the aiming with the right analog stick, and shoot lightning bolts and your other projectiles. And that’s really a big thing. The majority of your powers are projectiles and you use them like you would in a 3d shooter. Anyone who’s fan of 3d shooters on consoles wouldn’t have a problem with this and probably like it a lot, but I know a lot of people who can’t stand to play that kind of playing on a console. It’s just that the game has a particular combination of playing types; the electric attack aspect feels like it’s a separate mode from the adventure aspect because of the way it’s done (like a shooter). The adventure aspect plays really well on the controllers. Most who have gotten used to playing shooters on the PC, will agree that using a mouse is not only simpler and more accurate, but also less annoying to control. Though, they didn’t do a bad job at all with the aiming; it’s really well-done and provides an interesting shooting experience, but it’s not for everyone. ProtoType has a lot more melee and is a lot more varied in the different kinds of abilities. It’s a significant difference for many gamers, as it kind of seperates both games into different enough genres, just because of that. Also, I’m surprised by how good and smooth the controls and gameplay. ProtoType may not be as good for how well it works in certain ways, but I expected that.
As for stories and missions, inFamous is again less extreme, and a bit more typical, but it stays fun and entertaining. ProtoType may not do as good a job as to keep intrigue, and less attention to detail may be present here and there.
So, overall, both games have different aspects to offer, and whereas inFamous feels a bit more typical, narrow, and shooter-esque, it’s a bit more meticulous in certain aspects. The atmosphere is interesting to play in, and it can even be relaxing to play (Well, depending). It’s overall well-done and a solid experience. A quality product.
ProtoType on the other hand, is in some ways more expansive, and way more extreme and intense, as well as very dark with its content. Certain things make it seem a bit less refined, as things may be too unrestricted, but sheer pleasure from how extreme it gets, and to feel so powerful, surely makes up for it.
Note: I’d have more to say in the future, as well as a more accurate review, after I’ve played fully both games. That may be in quite a while though.
I can say though, that up to now, inFamous is one of my favorite games to date. And that says a lot.
The new motion control that Sony came up with seems promising, especially with the demos that show just how precise it is. The Wii failed to produce something as precise. Sony showed off at one point a shield and sword demo, and I think everyone who sees it can picture having enormous fun with it. It should be capable of doing what the Wii was supposed to, but failed doing. I’m sure it’ll still feel gimmicky at first, before game companies get how to exploit it, and it’ll be hard to make good use of it without sacrificing a certain balance in games, but it’ll be worth it if we can slash stuff so precisely. I don’t know why GamePro considers this announcement “bad”.
On the PS3, God of War 3, Uncharted 2, and Assassin’s Creed 2, were all popular announcements, of course.
PSP Go, the new Sony handheld. I don’t know if it’ll succeed that much over the old one, but we’ll see. At the very least you can easily download content for it, and it has touch screen.
The new Super Mario Bros on the Wii caught my eye. It’s good that at least Nintendo has realized the potential of 2d games to a certain degree. 2d has always been and is still fun, but has been neglected throughout the years with the advancement of 3d. Since Mario 3, I’ve always wanted to play such a 2d scroller with friends simultaneously, during a level, instead of taking turns. With the addition of the propeller suit, it finally brings back the fun of a power up to fall slowly, which we could do in Mario 3 and Super Mario World.
The new Metroid (Other M) might let down many fans, as it’s an action-oriented third person game, and the series has usually more focused on exploration than action, but it’ll be an interesting change. Apparently a crew used to working on Ninja Gaiden are part of making it. Seeing as how good Ninja Gaiden is, I’m pretty curious how it’ll turn out.
Mario Galaxy 2 sounds alright. And fans of the Mario & Luigi RPG will be interested by the odd new title, where you apparently end up inside bowser’s organs?
I don’t have much to say about the Xbox 360, but some of the announcements, like Crackdown 2, were pretty cool.
Final Fantasy 13 is announced to come out in Spring 2010 for North America, which means another year to wait, at the least.
France. I went there, so now I’ll talk a bit about my trip.
The first city I went to was Paris, and it’s not exactly how we’d picture it; it’s a lot more metropolitan-like than I expected. I suppose it’s natural, considering how popular the city is. There’s tons of roads, lights and metros (which are really complicated to navigate in). When walking throughout Paris, I thought it looked how I pictured a typical European city, and not really how we’re shown France in Hollywood movies and stuff like that. The Eiffel tower wasn’t that impressive, and is actually not that tall, but it was still pretty cool seeing the surroundings from a higher point of view. We went at night, and the lights made it look pretty interesting.
Wherever there were bridges with water is where the prettiest scenes were. Also nice, a few places had pedestrian streets, where no cars went through and so just a bunch of people walked through, surrounded by boutiques and in one place a cool little park that combined well with the surroundings — those were the areas that were note-worthy, and I wished there were more places like those.
Buildings in France are a good change of pace from all the PVC and plastic I’m used to in Canada. That was probably what I liked the most about the buildings in Paris, was that they were all made with a classic touch to it, from material that looked more natural and stony.
By far my favorite part of Paris were the Catacombs. It’s something so different and wicked, and being able to traverse through that dungeon-like passage really feels like being immersed in a dark part of history. Walls packed full of bones and skulls, some with cool patterns, and… I swear, at one place the skulls were placed so that it looked like the shape of a heart, it’s really funny and eerie at the same time.
For food, at a restaurant, I tried some Duck; The texture is interesting as it’s more firm than chicken, and the skin is fattier… and the actual meat tastes great. I’d eat duck over chicken any day.
And of course, a fun part about being in France was eating baguettes and pastries. It’s all individually made and just generally tastes better than average pastries we can get in North America. You can bet I ate my share of em. Though I’m surprised I didn’t eat more than I did.
One curious thing though, is that they don’t eat butter with their bread. If they put anything on it, it’s Jam.
Now, are people in Paris truly rude? I’d say no, but they are pretty boring. They don’t smile and only mind their own business. Though there was this one guy that got real pissed off when we simply passed in front of him. They definitely have a different list of what they consider polite and impolite over there.
We went to Versailles, to see the famous castle, and were actually disappointed by it. It was more of a museum than a castle. Very touristic, and overrated. What we found awesome was actually a part outside close-by called “Petit Trianon”. It had beautiful scenery and old french village-like houses, as well as a few greek-like structures. Very nice place to walk around.
The next city we visited was Tours. And it was pretty damn cool. The city was generally just prettier and it felt a lot less chaotic than Paris. The environment looked even more natural and classic in Tours, and things just felt more relaxed. The people were less serious too, and greeted often. One odd thing though, it was almost as if people were expected to greet others, there. When they said “Bonjour”, they would stare at you until you’d greet them back.
Also, people in Tours speak french really well. They don’t have an excessive accent like the ones in Paris do.
We went to see multiple castles around Tours, now that’s cool. I was still hoping to see a real medieval castle, where I could picture soldiers and horses battling around. Unfortunately, most castles we saw weren’t of that nature, but they still looked cool. It’s the kind of castles you’d see some rich nobles buy.
When we got to the castle at “Amboise”, we finally got to see some cool fortress-like walls and there were actual suits of armor in the castle, along with some swords and spears hanging on some walls, mahaha! Now that’s what I’m talking about. I felt like grabbing one of them and slashing some knights.
Last big city we went to was Nantes. It felt a lot like Paris, in many ways, but with a bit more open space.
For some reason, there were alot of insects flying around, and let me tell you something, there’s no screens for windows in France.. at all. So if you’re thinking of getting some air by opening the window, don’t mind the mosquito infestation you’ll get. Seriously, we left the window open for about 20 minutes, and when we came back there were hundreds of bugs flying in our hotel room. They didn’t even warn us about such a problem — unacceptable . I managed to get them to move us to another room.
By far the best place we visited was a small town called Clisson, not far from Nantes. Being small, the surroundings were less industrialized, and more open. There were some older houses and there was green growing everywhere; on the walls and gates, as well as the houses.. it just made everything look unique and sort of artistic. There were multiple pedestrian streets with restaurants having verandas and tables outside, with a nice relaxing scene to dine at.
A popular dish around those parts was something called something like “Cricke”, which was basically slices of potatoes with different melted cheeses on it. It was seen as fancy, but to me it just resembled nachos, with a fancier presentation.
The French spoken in those parts is really particular, and we had trouble communicating with the folks there. Canadian French just didn’t cut it. Example: When we wanted the bill, we couldn’t ask for a “bill”, or “recu”, or “check”, or even “facture”, we had to say we want the “Addition”, else they didn’t understand.
Now, the last thing I visited was the best. The Clisson Castle, was exactly the kind of castle I wanted to see. It dated from medieval times, and was now partly in ruins, with vegetation growing on it and birds flying around. Roaming around with old stone walls and towers, you can really picture there being soldiers around and all that. It would’ve been a great place to film a movie or stage an epic war.
Overall, France is interesting, but I felt like The most popular places weren’t actually the best. Places like Paris are overrated, and smaller towns with older buildings, castles and ruins are way cooler, not to mention there are less tourists, so it’s easier to roam around and get good views.
Oh, and, they really take good care of their parks over there. Roaming around the parks was one of my favorite events. Lots of vegetation. They also have lots of ducks fiddling around them(mmm.. yummy ducks..). One park in Tours was pretty big, and had about a dozen different animals living in them too, behind fences — kangaroos, ostriches, turtles, goats, and flamingos. It was odd that nobody had to pay to get in, but really nice.
As far as prices go. Traveling is very expensive, especially if someone wants to see multiple areas. Food in Europe costs a lot. Just a sandwich at a store can cost about 4.50 Euros, which equates to like 8 Canadian dollars. That’s crazy (Something similar might cost 3.50 CAD in Canada). Thankfully bread itself is pretty cheap, and one decently long baguette is only about 0.60 euros. But the costs of living over there really is high.
By far the most annoying expense is water. Having to constantly buy water whenever thirsty, is not only troublesome, but very pricey. One small bottle of mineral water is typically 1.50 euros to 2.10 euros, depending on where bought.
Temperatures were warm and humid.. and it was cloudy often.
I’d say It was worth it. I don’t think I’ll be going back to France though. Going there once is enough.
That’s all I have to say about the trip for now.
My trip to France was interesting. I will talk about my impression of it in the near future, as well as my thoughts on traveling.
If you asked me just what is France about, my first thought would be: baguettes. Sure they have a long interesting history, and beautifully built structures, but is that really relevant in modern times? No, with today’s harsh times, the french don’t have the luxury to enjoy their surroundings and all that intriguing stuff; they have to work and survive, and to survive they need to eat, and for that, making bread has always been second nature to them, so bread has and is still relevant and a significant part of the french culture.
We all know that baguettes are an important food to the french, but just how vast is it spread across the culture?
I share with you this video I made from my footage taken in France, of baguettes:
I’m going away on a trip. Won’t be back until the end of May. Upon my return, my impression of France may appear. The trip is going to make a serious dent in my savings, but it’s all good.
Having been somewhat bored by video games for a while, I’m much less excited when new seemingly-interesting titles come out. I don’t know if it’s because I’m older, or simply because I’ve just become turned off by seeing too much of the same type of stuff being pumped out by the gaming industry.
It is at least true for many RPG titles and series (sspecially JRPG), that gameplay hasn’t progressed as much as it could have, as the focus has been mostly about the stories. The gameplay tends to lack and rely on the same key features.
I remember playing the first Dragon Quest, and having to fight some slimes to then go heal and then train some more, leveling up to be able to fight stronger monsters, and the enjoyment I felt at being able to obliterate those cute slimes with no trouble after becoming stronger, to then test my growth against stronger enemy, or a boss. Final Fantasy games were similar but changed in some ways with time, whereas Dragon Quest just kinda stuck to the same thing, with minor additions.
The concept was interesting. By putting up generic encounters and command-type batting throughout most of the game, combined with growth, the programmers were able to make a long game, because they didn’t have to micro-manage the enemies’ locations or behavior, just slightly-varying progressive stats. Also, they didn’t have to make complex physics. Just walking anywhere within huge areas of terrain contained a determined chance of an encounter with an enemy.
But because battling becomes very repetitive, gameplay can become boring very fast, as I’m sure many will agree.
This doesn’t mean that we should only turn towards making Real-time and/or Action-type games and drop Turn-Based and/or Command-intake elements. Many basic elements in traditional RPGs are fun, addictive, and entertaining in their own way, if built upon or used correctly.
(Note: What I mean by Command, is that characters are not directly controlled, but are given commands to be executed automatically within certain time spans.)
A few RPGs tried Adding Real-time elements to turn-based & command-based gameplay, but haven’t done that great a job up to now — In some games, enemies can still act while you’re browsing your commands; searching through menus and trying to figure out which command to use while being pummeled by enemies, is annoying, and most times you’ll just opt to always use the regular attack out of simplicity and to save time.
The concept of having different skills and/or spells is cool, but the most frequent system for utilizing these hasn’t been well thought out, and has been used in way too many games — I’m talking about MP — Magic Points, are needed and used up when a skill is used, and then it requires some bothersome way to be replenished, like finding or buying and using up certain items; this leads a player to play very conservatively, because you don’t want to waste MP and items; you want to save it and cast magic only when you need to, like against hard enemies/bosses, or to heal.
From a survival standpoint, it may be intriguing, but anyone who’s played an RPG with this mechanism surely recalls going through the game almost only using the “Attack” command over and over. Why waste magic points when you can just kill everything with regular attacks to then become stronger and able to kill everything easily by just bashing it? The concept is purely flawed, from a gaming perspective, it just fails to be any fun, and causes battles to become a chore (a grind, as gamers refer it to). Mixed with Random/Unavoidable encounters, it’s a formula for annoyance; it becomes annoying to fight every freakin enemy you encounter traveling from area to area. You start hoping to encounter less enemies so as not to deal with the unenjoyable work — because that’s what it becomes: work.
One of the reasons I liked Chrono Cross so much, was because there was no MP system; you could cast each spell you had equipped once in every battle. Another great thing, was that enemy encounters weren’t random or unavoidable(for the most part), making it not annoying to travel, and more able to fight at your own pace. Although, I didn’t really know why I found the game so enjoyable at the time, and only realized after finishing it twice. Chrono Cross also helped me realize how important music can be in games, especially RPGs, to create a certain atmosphere. It had awesome music. Good battle music is a must.
Other games I like for the magic system are Final Fantasy Tactics games — there’s MP, but it replenishes itself after each fight or during the fight (depending on the game), which makes it more intuitive; the player can still play conservatively, but it feels more strategic and balanced, as skills are relatively more accessible.
The concept of experience and LEVEL UP! is also overrated. It’s interesting to become stronger, but at the same time, just seeing your advancement in numbers and stats can be boring. On top of that, if you have the patience to grind battles, you can become overly strong, and the game just fails to be a challenge; In some cases it’s cool to do, because of being able to finish annoying battles quicker, and the feeling of being powerful, but at the same time, you lose several elements that make a game fun.
Suikoden did something simple but clever to prevent being overpowerful, and just stops giving experience in an area once you’ve reached a certain level.
Certain other games, like some of the Final Fantasy Tactics games, have the enemies become stronger as you level up,… When I play those games, I really notice how overrated Level ups are, because when you can’t become superior simply by grinding, it actually becomes fun to try and customize and strategize to try and beat enemies. There’s still lots of stuff that you can gain, like money, items or other types of points, that can do a good job for the enjoyment of advancing and becoming stronger, but in a more intuitive way. When you can become overpowerful just by leveling up, there’s not much point in customizing your team or coming up with strategies, since you can kill everything easily anyway (Except maybe the last boss or secret boss).
Throughout the years, on average, stories in RPGs have become a bit more entertaining, but many elements in gameplay have actually become worse. One of these elements is the difficulty. In the past, one of the main fun factors in RPGs was to be able to overcome areas or enemies by becoming stronger. But after, a lot of games have been balanced in a way that you don’t even need to train anymore, you can just go through it and the experience you gain on the way is enough to overcome everything as encounter it. The concept of overcoming, is one of the main reasons for even having experience and level ups. What is the point in becoming stronger if you don’t even feel like there is need to be stronger, and don’t even really notice that you’ve become stronger? All you’re doing is going through the motions, without excitement. I know there’s some so-called gamers who like being able to breeze through everything to see story faster, but isn’t it supposed to be a game? — Games are about the gameplay; at the very least, the gameplay should be as entertaining as the story. I’m not saying the concept of overcoming needs to be potent, but we need a better balance overall.
As for Action-RPGs, those with level ups often feel unbalanced, I think, because we can already improve our skills and strategies naturally, and often makes it feel like overkill to be able of becoming stronger in-game through level ups on top of that. Certain designs have done a pretty good job though.
Many RPGs are good even with unbalance, because many elements can make a game fun, and there’s quite a few exceptional ones out there, but I’m saying it could be better.
There are plenty of games that have utilized the traditional formula, and someone feeling nostalgic, or someone who likes to grind, have an immense amount of games at their disposal. But it’s time to step out of the box and demand more original, balanced, and intuitive RPGs, and actually, the same for any new game. There are so many possibilities for making any type of game fun in its own merit. And you shouldn’t sacrifice gameplay for story.
Now, I never get too excited from anticipitating a game these days, but looking at some developments for Final Fantasy 13, it’s an exception.
I saw this recently about the game on 1up.com:
There’s no MP. That’s right, use all the magic you want.
There are no level-ups or XP.
There are no random battles, with all enemies seen on-screen.
Awesome! This is exactly what I was talking about!
*Note: Turns out the final version will have Levels, but that’s fine, I just would have welcomed it if it didn’t. It just depends how well it’s integrated in the game.
I found this interesting from someone who played the demo : “A big change in Final Fantasy XIII is spells don’t consume MP. There isn’t any MP in the game! To counterbalance fire spamming, magic isn’t as powerful. Without the bonus meter, Fire does around 90 damage while fight does 115 damage.
This may be a demo thing, but you start every battle with full HP. “
The balance for magic sounds interesting (more balanced anyway). And actually, having full HP at the start of every battle wouldn’t be a bad concept; it would make it finally break from the tradition of having to constantly use hp-recovery items. It could also open up for the possibility of making a bigger focus on individual battles, like in Strategy-RPG games.
It seems there are elements of real-time in the game, while keeping the concept of commands, but it doesn’t appear to be a problem, as commands can be chained and queued somehow so that the actions happen automatically in succession while the battle progresses. Hopefully it’s well designed and the system is well balanced and intuitive.
Also, there seems to be cool combos going on in fights when linking attacks. Sounds fun.
It seems like the pace of the game will be somewhat fast and demanding enough, so it won’t be as casual and relaxing to play as older Final Fantasy games, but for what it’ll be, it’ll be quite something.
We still don’t know the full extent of the gameplay, or how good the story is.. but it looks promising, and I can tell you this; the animations look WICKED. If you’ve ever watched Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children, prepare for a similar type of incredible fast-paced animation spectacle… and imagine the joy of experiencing it within gameplay! If the gameplay still consists of giving commands, why not show some cool animations to make it entertaining?
I’m a big fan of battle action and choreography, and I can’t describe what kind of joy I get from just seeing the trailer for FF13. It’s not like I have incredible expectations for this game or anything, but I do know that I like what I’ve seen up to now, and it seems to be going in an incredibly interesting direction.
The main character is female this time around, and she looks incredible.
It’s supposed to be released in 2009 in Japan.
That’s all I have to say for now. May many great games come in the future.
Learning Japanese,
Writing a story,
Attempt at making a video game,
Read more constructive books,
Video editing
…
It’s not like it’s overly much, but I’m so slow and easily distracted, that I never end up getting anything done. Learning Japanese is actually progressing, since I have ended up dedicating at least 30 minutes every other day since September to that. I’d really like to dedicate more time, but I keep floating from one project to another constantly, and never get a good pace going on any 1. Well, maybe it’s for the best; floating from one place to another, since getting too attached to one place tends to bring about an overstayed welcome.
Hopefully things will actually bring about to being more productive at some point.
Although some animes are still good after translation, it doesn’t beat the original. The easiest way to watch original anime is with fansubs. Nowadays it’s really really easy to watch anime, as many sites can just stream it to you.
Anime Top List is extremely useful as it lists the most popular sites to stream anime, and also ranks them. You can also search for an anime and it lists which sites have links for watching it.
Streaming is inconvenient at times though, and actually downloading the video files is definitely preferred. For that, the easiest way is to look for torrents:
For someone who’s not sure which animes would be good, AnimeNfo is a pretty good site for information on the different animes. AniDB seems usefull too.
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A few of my favorite animes, that I highly recommend, are:
Hajime no Ippo (Awesome anime about boxing. Characters and development are top notch, and the action is excellent)
Hunter X Hunter (Very interesting and addicting action adventure.)
Death Note(A darker anime that really stands out for its originality and intelligence. It also has some interesting philosophical and psychological aspects)
Berserk (Has a Medieval type setting, involving strength and massacres, but also intruiging political aspects. The show ends at an odd place, and one must read the manga to continue the story, and it turns very very gruesome and dark at that point.)
Excel Saga (Very fast-paced, weird, and crazy, but entertaining. Anyone who likes it would also like Puni Puni Poemi)
Nodame Cantabile (One of the best animes I’ve ever seen. Even if you don’t like anime, if you like music, Interesting characters, comedy, and good stories and development, this is a must-watch.)
Azumanga Daioh (This is a really funny and cute anime. There’s no epic or grand story; it’s mostly lots of small misadventures around a group of girls at a school)
Akira(Movie) (A bit old, but still one of the best anime movies out)
And there’s lots of other good animes. Naruto, One Piece, Inu Yasha, and Dragonball are popular ones, but I don’t recommend those unless you have a lot of free time and don’t mind extremely stretched out scenes, as well as repetitive story aspects.
Asu no Yoichi is a short anime series of 12 episodes, which recently finished.
The story revolves around Yoichi, a young samurai who’s lived his entire life in the mountains, training martial arts with his father in the Ukiha Divine Wind style. One day, his father decides that Yoichi should head to the city to expand his training and stay at Ikaruga’s Ukiha Divine Wind Style Swordplay school of martial arts. The family staying there consists of 4 sisters. Yoichi is accepted there, and, for humour, throughout his stay, tons of small mishadventures and misunderstandings happen around him, who is unfamiliar with the city life… and women.
The show innately showed some promise. Some aspects are pretty cool; a well-trained samurai with awesome wind techniques, as well as funny or awkward situations he would get into in the city because of his unfamilarity with society. And indeed, In the first episode, Seeing his acrobatics and abilities as he was training was interesting, and the series of whacky events and situations he gets into in the city was quite entertaining. There was also the traditional anime humour of ‘ guy accidentally touches or sees a part of a girl he shouldn’t, and gets beaten up by girl’… which at first was ok, and expected from that type of anime, but as the episodes moved on, I would discover it to plague the entire series.
After the first episode, Yoichi is seen as a freeloader at the dojo, and as he tries to prove himself to the girls, he somehow always ends up on the bad side of Ibuki Ikaruga, the eldest sister. This wouldn’t be a problem if there was any development in their relationship, but there isn’t! It’s just the same kind of cheap jokes over and over; Yoichi does or sees something that makes Ibuki jealous and then she beats him up(cheaply). More characters are added into the mix and some infatuations pop up between certain characters, but none of that or the developments happening throughout the series ever have real consistence or become too interesting or funny; It’s like, just there. A few characters are sometimes funny, like Washizu, a delinquent in love with Ibuki; his preception of what’s going on around him is exagerated and inaccurately odd.
Unlike the first episode, the rest doesn’t get very whacky, in fact, the whole rest of the series is pretty mellow, which says alot about the action — There’s a fighting scene here and there, but it doesn’t try very hard. The series isn’t bad though, and the animation is pretty decent.
Overall, I’d like to recommend the first episode, and maybe the second one… but unless you’re bored and up for watching anything, I’d ignore the rest of the series — you won’t miss much.
