Akilae

Didn't the Dreamcast version have a US release? I remember seeing English on the screen somewhere. "Sword of Beserk: Gatsu's Rage" something or other....

You're not alone Phyrox =) The TV series ending left much more up the to viewer, and was actually more satisfying and less depressing than the movies... damnit, at least I could convince myself that Shinji FINALLY achieved some sort of spiritual enlightenment on his own...

IMHO, it's LESS confusing to just go with the TV series ending... although I suppose you have to be able to follow the uber-mentalness of the last two episodes. From what I know, everything after the TV series was made as a physical representation of Shinji's mental state in the last two TV episodes. In essence, what happened is this: The DEATH and REBIRTH of humans through the actions taken by SEELE and Gendo, with Shinji and Asuka being the new Adam and Eve. [EDIT] Oh yeah, think of LCL as primordial ooze.

Well, the portion the anime portrayed is actually fairly mild compared to the rest of the manga... dunno how they'll adapt that =) AFAIK, the Dreamcast game follows a bit of the story afterwards, although I've never played it. Isn't a PS2 game supposed to be coming out soon in Japan? Wonder if they'll bring it over to the states...

ah, okay, I didn't know that... haven't finished the game. Somehow there's no pressing impetus to actually continue on with it for some reason.... FFVII did it for me, MAJOR plot twist with Aerith's death, after which you just wanna get that sumb***h that killed her. FFVIII and IX were alright. FFX is just lackluster.

AH! But do you like english dubbed J-pop songs? eyes on me was (FFVIII) an okay song.... *prepares for massive barrage of insults....* err.. Eyes on Me was meant to be an English song... at least the original Faye Wong version is sung in English. In and of itself, taking in the cultural context, FFX-2 has its appeal, at least I liked the opening song... well, I'm an avid J-pop fan If they dare dub it in the American release though........ How was Kingdom Heart's dubbed song? The original Japanese version by Hikaru Utada was quite nice, never got a chance (or the guts :-p) to listen to the English verion.

I think Square's stories haven't changed that much, my main beef is with the character designs... Yoshitaka Amano really provided a lot of the feel to the series, at the very least he's creative. Tetsuya Nomura, on the other hand, seems to be quite limited to how far he can stretch his imagination... anybody notice how Cloud, Squall, and Tidus all look VERY similar?

lemme get this straight... they shelved the remakes of two perfectly good games after the movie bombed, only to make *another* movie? That doesn't sound right somehow... Dunno about anybody else, but my knee-jerk reaction to seeing the title of this post was: FFVII - Spice Girls style?!?!?!

Oh, almost forgot, dumb me... *smack self on head...* Ion plats work wonders.. long range, four ions beams per platform, what's not to like? especially when you're on the defensive and the AI is only coming from one direction.

Might wanna refer to my tips post, which was made with mission 12 in mind. Here's a few more that came up when I replayed it: Try to arrange your ships in what you think is the best defensive position and stay there. Keey everything together so they can support each other. Even the mothership, mobile resource platform, and the carriers have AA turrets that can help out. If you have that many RUs, forget about harvesting and concentrate on repairing. The moment there's a lull in the combat, send all of your fighter/vetts in for repairing, then reform them right after they're done. One thing that would work very well in theory would be to send in your bombers and take out the engines and missile launchers of the BCs, then send your own ships in right next to them. Remember, the Vaygr BCs can only fire at what's in front of them. Your BCs and Destroyers will benefit, since they work best firing full broadside anyway... Then again, I haven't tried this, so I don't know how this'll actually work. Once again, focus fire helps. You'd be amazed at how fast a destroyer falls to a full contingent of fighters/vetts/movers (well, not fast enough... but not too bad :-p). I really think if it's not a combat ship, then you really don't need it. Build Marine and def. field frigs when you need them, otherwise they're just cannon fodder. Build while you fight. And one kicker that a lot of people seem to forget: the pause function. If things get hectic, pause, replot, give out your commands, then unpause. Anybody tried jumping in with a minimalist fleet? The AI is dynamic, so in theory the less you jump in with.... You really get a sense of satisfaction though, after taking out a fleet that outnumbers you ten to one

Use the Dreadnaught hehe, you'd be surprised how fast 6 BCs can take down the Dreadnaught (or in my case, it was 8 BCs....). A few tips from how I finally managed to pass that level: Stay on the defensive, at least till you've managed to whittle away most of their attack forces, then stay on the defensive for a while longer, or at least send a probe forward. I took out the first four incoming BCs, then sent my tattered fleet forward to finish the Vaygr off. Imagine how surprised I was to see my 2 BCs, 2 Destroyers, and 3 torp frigs run full frontal into another 4 BCs and 6 more Destroyers..... Focus fire. Focus everything from your interceptors to your Dreadnaught on one target (unless there's a pressing reason not to... like your BC is being swarmed by bombers...). Build while you're fighting. A lot of people actually don't do this for some reason.... but the Mothership, carrier(s), and shipyard can make up for your losses, at least enough to keep you in the fight. Between the AA turrets on the mothership, shipyard, and mobile resource station, fighters actually go down pretty fast. I find that BC AA turrets also do a pretty good job, wish we were allowed to build more of them...*grumble grumble....* Hope these help... once your past this one, the rest is downhill, especially after you get.... *ahem..* =)

hehe... it was HW2 or Jedi Academy... got HW2 :-p they really revamped the difficulty though... first two missions were "pfft.....". After that, it was from "Holy...." to "OMFG....." to hitting them poor knees every time I see red dots, praying that it's not a full fledged strike force on the way. It's fun though, makes you pull out all the stops and really use every ship available.

LOL, well put... so THAT's the strange feeling of repulsion I felt when I first watched Yukikaze...

IMHO, for Evangelion, go through all the regular episodes first, up to the last two. If the ending doesn't make sense, THEN go on to the two later releases. Personally, the first ending made more sense to me than the later releases. For Gundam, watch it all the way up to Char's Counterattack (that includes 0083, 0080, 08 MS), MAYBE F-91 (F-91 is somewhere on the timeline I think...). G-Gundam is good for laughs, just don't take it too seriously and you'll have a blast. Personally, I'd just steer clear of Wing and Turn-A... Tylor ranks top on my list of must sees... the TV series definately. The OVA series tends to be overlooked, and a bit darker in tone, but I think is essential in terms of character development. Tekkaman Blade (the 90s remake, better graphics :-p), Nadia, etc... Brewtal is right, the classics really are more worth watching. Not sure if you can find it, but Eden's Bowy isn't too bad. Initial D if you're a racing fanatic.. watching that made me want to beat most of GT3 using the Sprinter Trueno :-p If you like Naruto, then I'd highly suggest Ninku (no stateside release that I'm aware of). The animation shows its age, but for its time it was THE ninja anime. For the 21st century.. Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Now and Then Here and There, Full Metal Panic, and Saikano are really the only ones I've seen that I liked.

If I remember correctly, Nagano states somewhere in the margins that FSS was never meant to be a giant-mecha action manga, rather a "fairy tale"... in fact, flipping through the manga, action and mechs really take up a small fraction of FSS, with most being devoted to character development. (I really don't know how to comment on the plot development... since we all know what's going to happen in 7777...) The movie covers about the first Japanese manga volume I think... being that we're all the way up to 11 now, it's a good indication of how much more depth there is =) btw, IMHO, there's never fan service for fan service's sake... in fact, I think Nagano really made the character designs... unusual :-p but hey, they're not meant to be human anyway.

I thought unit capping was in the original HW too? "Maximum number of assault frigates reached..." "Maximum number of blah blah blah...." which is why salvage was always such an attractive option. Bridge of Sighs, mmm....

Speaking of kits... with all the latest trend in going big, I wonder if a 1:100 Jagd Mirage will ever see the light of day I remember seeing a completed Jagd once at a model shop, don't know what scale it was, but the damn thing, including the dual buster cannons, was taller than me! Of the people that have put together KOG and LEDs, are they really as bad as I heard they were? I remember reading a few reviews that involved lots of patching and mending seams, and that the Wave/Flamer LED kit was a bit on the complex side.

I dunno... can't imagine Harry Potter going psycho and clutching his head.... I wonder what the stateside reaction will be to such a movie... either have to censor the heck out of it, or REALLY tone it down, so much so that a lot of what Eva was really about would probably be lost. I just hope they're not doing a sequel... the entire plotline is over and done with already, even with at least three different retellings of the last two episodes...

Finally, some fellow FSS fans!! Well, at least you guys still have stuff to look forward to buying.. I've been waiting for Vol. 11 (Japanese) for.. oh... two years now? So much so that I've stopped paying attention to if he's ever gonna finish the damn story, grr.... then again, the man has the whole story laid out for us already... I think his latest mech designs have been gearing towards streamlining, more or less like how Junchoon's design like... then again, it could be that all the Mirage designs were always meant to give ppl that "skeleton in armor" feeling :-p Anybody who reads Newtype on a regular basis know if he's made any progress on the story? The last I left off the Mage's War (direct, inaccurate translation... you all know what I mean :-p) was about to begin...