Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Moving to Tumblr

I'm probably no longer going to post anything here for the foreseeable future. I've been really active on my Tumblr and Instagram blogs as of late so please check it out if you want some daily Dawn' pink dress content and my usual ramblings. Thank you for you patronage and I hope you enjoy my new blogs

Thanks to http://kurotennyo.deviantart.com/ for making this for me


www.instagram.com/dawnspinkdress/

dawnspinkdress.tumblr.com/

paolo1350.tumblr.com

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Big things happening for the week of February 14 to 20 (Part 2)

My lifelong journey with Power Rangers and eventually Super Sentai

As with most, I was introduced to the genre through MMPR. Classic show, nostalgia factor forever. Green Ranger arc is so good. I still watch Dragonzord Vs Tyrannozord in awe. In awe of the special effects work and in awe of seeing 2 Godzilla like robots fight.
(Johnny Bravo voice) Ooooh, Not the tail!
I followed the series until the live action movie, which was pretty good. And then for some reason, I never got to watch Zeo and the succeeding seasons. I don't know why but I think the show simply stopped airing. I do have the Megazord up to Turbo and I even have a VHS of Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie. That had a harrowing water scene involving Jason and Kimberly. After that, I had no knowledge whatsoever about In Space till Time Force.
The fulflej song was pretty rocking though
I had the Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue game for the PS1. I loved the soundtrack of that. It was annoying that I never ever got to finish that game because it always hanged at one point.
Will we ever get a decent Power Rangers/Sentai game?

I got back into it when I saw Wild Force promo. I thought, hey, Power Rangers. I loved that before, let's watch this new one.  And I did and I enjoyed it. Especially when Zen Aku came around. I got my mom to buy me the Wild Force Megazords and the Predazord was just so cool. Unfortunately the Predazord got broken and I can no longer display it. These are the last Megazords I ever got.
I wouldn't mind if Toei did this with all 40

I continued watching Ninja Storm all the way to Mystic Force. I stopped at Operation Overdrive because I could not stand to watch even 1 episode of it. Jungle Fury was a lot better and RPM was so so for me. I know it gets praised but by this time, I think I was ready to move on.  And I did, I stopped for maybe a year.  But then I came across a youtube video that said, female red ranger and I couldn't believe it. It was unheard of at the time, sure there was the SPD one but it was hardly remembered. So I watched it and that's when I was introduced to the wonderful world of tokusatsu.
Add caption

And the rest is elementary. Gokaiger was right around the corner by this time and seeing all these teams that are unknown to me teaming up with familiar power ranger teams just blew my mind. I had to know who these were.

I thought I knew every Power Ranger series after seeing Forever Red and following the series but there was so much more. So much more amazing action sequences, roll calls and teams ups to be seen and loved. So I threw myself into Sentai and after oh, 5 years, I have quite the collection of unwatched subbed seasons. I have Figuarts that show my appreciation for the franchise that has entertained me for majority of my life. I have followed Sentai since Gokaiger and I don't see myself stopping anytime soon. As long as Toei can keep making new ones every year, I'll always be interested in them

Zyuohger looks really good. I don't know why people hated on the suits. It may be plain but it's the good kind of plain. It looks so clean and smooth. Not clunky henshin device on the wrist is a plus.



Big things happening for the week of February 14 to 20 (Part 1)

Ah February, the time when the new Sentai is upon us. It's always exciting especially if the general consensus prior is positive, unlike a certain train themed one. But this year's February is extra special. Not only is it Sentai's 40th anniversary, it also marks the release of Street Fighter 5.



Now this may come a little off topic for this blog since I never really talked about fighting games but ever since E3 and EVO 2015, my focus on the gaming industry has intensified, specifically on fighting games. Whenever I have the time, I have been visiting Eventhubs for fighting game news and USF4 highlights. I watch the top players on the Capcom Pro Tour and I really enjoy the moments. I played MK X for quite some time too, having Jason and Predator really piqued my interest. Ferra Torr was my first character and they are a blast to play as. It's a crying shame the PC users will not be getting Alien. I was planning on purchasing the Komplete Edition but I guess WB lost another customer with this decision.

I had so much fun with this Variation
Now if only Freddy returned this would be even more perfect


So with all these big events happening in my fandoms, I began thinking about how I grew up with these 2 fandoms. I will start with the fighting game genre

One of my earliest gaming memories involve Street Fighter 2. I do not know which iteration I had I was trying to get 2 Blankas to hit their electric attacks at the same time. I don't believe I ever succeeded.
In fact, when I try to think about old gaming memories, majority of them are from fighting games. I remember battling my cousins in an Alpha Series. I was button mashing like crazy and my thumb always had blisters. We battled in Tekken 3 where Eddy Gordo was the cheapest character ever.

The Vs series blew my mind. I loved playing those games over and over with different teams. I remember seeing a 99 hit Super combo with a 2 Gambit team and I was so into it.
This is probably my favorite one of the series

Eventually the PS2 era came and we got Tekken 4 and MVC2. By this time we were not that into it anymore. We got to play the Naruto Vs games and that reinvigorated us for a while. Then the PSP came along. Tekken 5 was in a handheld device. I was able to take it anywhere with me. It was amazing. I threw myself into training mode and grinded out the most damaging combos I could find. Then Tekken 6 came out and I can't tell you how many hours I wasted beating the same Arcade mode over and over again.

                                  
                                           

After the end of that, I was done. I did not want to game anymore. Nowadays we all have PC games and console gaming in my family is ancient history. I do miss the days when we would get together, boot up the old PS1/PS2 games and play.

One big reason fighting games have always appealed to me is because of its fast pace.  After 2 rounds, you have a winner. The loser gives the controller to the next guy and the cycle continues. Everyone will likely get a chance to play. Everyone can get the chance to show off their favorite characters. It's so satisfying to win and it's exciting to watch. Even those who don't play can get in on the action by button mashing and back then, it usually works.

As I got older, I realized something, I told myself, "Hey, you've been playing these games all this time and I don't think you even really know how to do a Hadouken" And I felt ashamed. Unfortunately for the Street Fighter  side of me, which was really non existent at that point in time, I never got to play SF3. It was Tekken 5 era. So I learned Tekken. Then SF4 came out, I realized the inputs were identical. A Phoenix Smasher had the same input as Hadouken. A Lightning Fist input is the same as a Shoryuken. I never properly learned SF4. I never got to learn FADC combos or whatnot. Playing on keyboard and trying to pull off Ultra moves with say Guile or Zangief confounded the hell out of me.

                                   Arcade Stick CDBArcade Stick Delta (How in the world do I do this in keyboard?)

And the links, oh my gosh a simple 2 button combo was impossible for me to do. I was so dumbfounded that I could not link a light and medium punch combo. So I gave up, what chance did I have with those long combos that ended with  Ultras. So I just played casual as can be SF4 with friends. And I loved every minute of it. Even though we couldn't do the fancy stuff, I still felt the same feelings the old games gave me. The excitement of simply watching 2 people try to win in a fighting game is all one needs to enjoy them.

With SFV on the horizon, I plan to be an online player. It's a new game, we are all on even playing field, except those who got the beta, I have a definite interest for the FGC, I have a decent laptop that hopefully can run it. I also have a PS4 controller. I think the way Capcom is handling the DLC is the way every game with DLC should be handled. SF4 with all its iterations really did it no favors.
Pre order shenanigans

Oh wow, this was longer than I expected, I'll talk about Sentai/PR in the next post.