音時雨 ～Regentropfen～

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~!

Dying over 200 times in PsychoBreak chapter 6 AKUMU, the two-room sequence (and I have fully upgraded flash bolts x 7)...
↑ Who is more miserable than me?
I believe regardless you have a rocket launcher or not, you need some kind of luck and preparation.
Comparing to this, which would take less than 5 minutes in normal condition, none of the so-called "instant death games" are real.

Indeed the longest 5 minutes.

I wished so many times that I'd rather go fighting Laura another 10 times if I don't have to do this.. But God knows whether I'll keep my decision later on! xD;;
Although I died 32 times with chapter 5's Laura.

Well, at least I got it passed.
And perhaps I'll never do it again.

Yet I'm very worrying about the doggy fight which is coming soon. Except the dino-alpha fight, this one was of the top 1 headache for me in past experiences.
Before that, I'm counting on you about the giant twin fight, Joseph!

My copy of "yorlga II" had just arrived yesterday. Eventually I was able to read its booklet.

Black.
Even more black than its sister.
Not surprising though -- I wasn't even expecting too much at all. That we all know Most of her booklets are in a pure black!!

But the happiest thing has to be that there is furigana!
Otherwise I can't even read all the titles without problem. -- They didn't want you to read it at all, perhaps. I'd say "yorlga II" is the "scariest" now; it beats all Shikata Akiko's "dark side" incantations.

More importantly, it's literally grotesque.
The Noriko style: artistically grotesque.

After a not-so- less-impressive introduction, the military song could be the most normal pick from the whole set. Yet it's has been numbered "zero", which means... past? faded out in history? exiled?... The moon-waiting song is equivalent to "tama no fune" in my opinion, sort of; the ambience is great enough to lead my mind thinking in this way. As for some key words, "moon wax and wane; the last moment; slashed heart; pale death white; interval between sky, earth and the other world"... apparently it's a "talking to the death" song! (I can't help but I'm no literal soul to choose those more fitting words across languages. lol) While the next rock song (can't tell if it's real rock), with more power, it shows a brave soul's bold intention of dying for (forbidden?) love.

Hirota's "mikado" is cool, really.

Starting the exorcising song, the "yorlga-touch" is getting a stronger. What I should point out? The title itself is self explaining. With mixed use of katakana, the song indeed turns into a great dark magic charm -- P.S. This one has the most furigana annotation among all songs. The high tension immediately gets repressed by the following alone-in-the-garden song. "even though I'm here watching for everything, but I'm yet not here as no one sees me." << I'm so familiar with this kind of "Noriko motif" (hyper)! >> "I know who I am." (For some reason, this song and the next are swapped in pages in the booklet.) Then here comes my first-time-listening favourite lantern song~ There is a intensive aura of a ghost parade to me before reading the lyrics. However, as usual, my mind illustration was off a bit lot. You can find all kinds of eerie stuff on the weirdest night market, not only a lantern that shows you the invisible, also mermaid's scales, houou's feather, an automaton girl's heart... Whatever, I'm following my initial imagination to get my draft completed.

Next the canary song is the easiest to follow in terms of the lyrics, like a piece of dark fairytale. Somehow it brings me characters in her "yume kai" story from "yorlga". While the syndrome song is an echo of the final piece of the previous release, still of intensive piles of "negative words". But the penultimate piece, it's exactly "Jack the Ripper" (which reminds me the very beginning of Shadow Hearts)! Finally, the last "meta-ish" song goes out of my type again (because that's a boy instead of a girl? ^^;).

Overall, I like biohazard and Silent Hill, so I'm totally fine with this degree of literal grotesque.
Less favourable than the initial "yorlga" though.

And a new now-playing (other than Bach's cantata marathon): NieR: Automata OST.

All that I know about this game was a 10 seconds long video, and these 10 seconds made me remembering it. The scene they showed on the home page looks beautiful though. The music so far is good too, every track, instead of being a 1-2 minute short piece, it's rather like an independent instrumental song that lasts 5-6 minutes. -- All good but except the stupid shop song. I just can't endure and hate people singing off key, especially on purpose (looks at Takayama Minami)...
Good game BGM doesn't mean the game would be good (e.g. Final Fantasy XV and Valkyria: Azure Revolution based on amazon reviews), but for a few times I do play games only for the music. I'll see, after finishing PsychoBreak AKUMU and probably BIOHAZARD 5 Pro and 6 No-Hope.. (which would take ages!)

The first piece in this year: the previously continuously mentioned "Revive" has finally been remade! ・ω・ﾉ

Revive ~remake~
(because it had "re" in both the title and subtitle, it was a little confusing each time when I type it.. xD;;)

A couple of new music has been released, including binaria's "tsuduri" and Noriko's "yorlga II".
Sadly, "tsuduri" is still in a state of no touch... .__. I indeed looped "yorlga II" though.
But I'd say the first "yorlga" is better, in terms of the overall ambience. -- The introduction of "Tama no Fune" was way too impressive that made the world of "yorlga" perfect.
I'm not intending to make more comparisons here. So I'm trying to make more praises of "II". I do think all the instrumental tracks are better than "I", and many songs are great too. Of the most attention, I like the "lantern song", the introduction sounds so much like "Shadow Hearts"!! <= Definitely my coming next artwork inspiration!

Then, an earlier release.
The Last Door Soundtracks

It's the type that resembles classical music, and thus become my favourite. "Crows over the city" is the one I can't stop looping, and eventually I tried to transcribe it..

I'm so glad, it's in D minor!!
Maybe I should make a D-minor-collection playlist sometime.
A little wish, that someday I can do it. (I should, the notes aren't that hard.)
However, playing the second half tremolos is a pain. I'm not good with either trills or tremolos. I absolutely believe playing such == muscle training.

The last part. I just reincarnated my site into a revised set of cgi scripts.
NOTE: the phrase "revised set of cgi scripts" used to be "a set of php files" at the period of my "Hello PHP".
It can be due to my quick scanning of only 1 php book in a short time (whereas I've gone through 5+ perl books). Nonetheless, I'm not fond of php at all right now. I used to believe using php would be a pleasant experience since I don't have to chmod to be executable and switch shebangs across OS and handles all POST/GET/WHATEVER within a second without calling extra modules. But problems such as variable scope, empty variable, and my stubborn perl habits making things more difficult than expected. I still think it's a stupid idea to mix ARRAY and HASH, and I strongly hate that I have to quote every single key while calling an array value.
Be brief, I gave up on php. It's hard to convert. I'm a happy resident of the Programming Republic of Perl forever~ (￣ー￣)ﾆﾔﾘ

This post should have been written 9 hours ago, but my Surface was charging and I was too tired.
At least now I can go burning Laura! xD

There're no that many times I dream about video games in all kinds of forms and still remember it after I wake up: Silent Hill 3 and 4 for sure, and then PsychoBreak. That I clearly know the latter was so real, as if I were the main character and running away from Laura or Mr. Chainsaw, and praying for a lovely "check point".
In a sense, PsychoBreak thus made itself to be one of my favourites. And recently I finally began my long survival trip in AKUMU mode, aka the instant kill mode. I've got a pretty Death Record chart, and will be looking forward the outcome after I come back from the crazy loop of dying and loading and reanalysing and improving.

Yet I didn't know our Chainsaw man got me exactly 5 times in chapter 1! It should have been a piece of cake after clear the entire game two times. But who knows there's a pile of "stuff" blocking my way toward the exit.. and knitting with chainsaw man wasn't as easy as watching people streaming on YouTube. Without actually dying for a few times, I won't be able to figure out how the situation was in terms of the placement of various objects.
Chapter 1 took me 49 minutes, including all cutscenes (which applies to all following chapters, as what I've decided).

Chapter 2 could be the beginning of the real AKUMU experience. However, before I actually entered the surivial world, I got lost again in the beginning forest... and in my previous game plays, I got lost too. -__-
In AKUMU, I clearly feel the zombies are sharper in sensing me. Seems the view angle of them got wider so I got caught up more easily. And they run faster, making it impossible for me to throw a bottle at their faces.
Another big problem here was, I could barely see them, as if they are perfectly melted in the darkness. Sometimes I heard their voices surrounding me, and I turned around trying to locate them. Sadly, for most of times, they got me before I finding out where exactly they come from. For quite a lot of times, I attempted to run for a better distance in order to pull out the trigger, and out of luck some "objects" blocked me and I got stressed that I missed all my shots (like Leon said, I should really consider using a knife in close up fights but the system doesn't let me doing so). Either drop a match, or use the handgun. With a half second of hesitation, you'll be dead. Continuous dying got me tired on Friday evening, but at the same time, I did get a better memory about the geography of the village map, together with the enemy locations. I'm for sure getting better, which giving me a big feeling of achieving.
3 hours in total at the end of chapter 2. But the actual time I spent would be longer, as each "now loading" screen would take about 35 seconds.

Fortunately, I'm so pathetic that I couldn't do the no key + no upgrade run (yet). So at chapter 3 I felt much, much better. Not saying that I was able to open the lockers and upgrade the charming flash bolt, Tatiana was right beside me! I was happy and was almost on an one save per kill mode. Again, my brain went crazy and I had trouble find the proper way to the attic after turning the crank for the "old-man" doctor.
In AKUMU, I totally forgot they added one fake Ruvik near the gate, which caused quite a lot of trouble. Also thanks for that, I realised I could went across the fence and thus get access into the building where the doctor was in directly, without going from the front door. The building opposite got one sniper which was even a bigger threat than fake Ruvik. This time, I did something different, that I took the sniper down by shooting him from the room where doctor was hiding. That was fun.
Eventually I didn't want to bother killing Ruvik and all the zombies before dealing with the chainsaw -- as I could upgrade! I chose the second floor in the barn -- as once I got off and Ruvik imposter would get mixed in. I stabbed chainsaw man a couple of times, and finished him up with an explosive. Good thing was Ruvik imposter wasn't treated as an additional boss so he disappeared when chainsaw man was downed -- otherwise I'd be downed by Laura's claws..
Even that chapter 3 wasn't really a pain, 5 hours in total when I made it into the next chapter. I had to say I got lost again and went around the little village for long, only for a missed shotgun shell! Nothing is more important than ammo except your life.
Less deaths here though, and I was quite happy with my good luck in taking care of the bombs. Well trained by Shadow Hearts!?

Stay cool, Seb, we'll make it through!

I wish I could play "Clair de Lune". I'm not asking for something flawless, but now the biggest problem wasn't the key, but the high range in some parts. And I don't feel like I want to shift into the 5th position yet.

"Revive -remake-" is getting there! Now I just need to brush out a good environmentronemnt with a stronger taste! Somehow I got numbed by the song due to over-looping it. Need a break => PsychoBreak! xD;

Black tea hell, the subtitle of "古色迷宮輪舞曲".
The story was rather good, which gives players the desire to keep reading. However, without a flowchart, there's no doubt that I'd give up it half way.
I tend to find a walk-through even that's multiple-choice based. As I never say I'm good at visual novels, in terms of gameplay -- especially flags from the choices. I'm seeing tons of control flows each day, so I'd rely on others' guides and mainly enjoy the story.
That in this game, it's much beyond the level of multiple-choice. It's not even riddles. It's just a tiresome word play (can be worse for people like me, who read by literally "eyes").

Even though, it was over 25 hours of playing time. Not bad for a 1000-JPY game (I bought it when it was on sale).

I think I switched to the game-guide mode not too far after the well known black tea hell sequence. Not less than 5 times of dying, I remember clearly.
So I was mad and searched for help. But the other surprising thing I found with that was...
It used to be an eroge... (# ﾟДﾟ)
Comparing to psycho or horror or gore, I do believe H-CG's are the worst to both my eyes and brain. Then yandere pictures of girls with focus-less or cat eyes. Therefore, the two traumatic CGs in this game were all of Mihoshi.. Those who have seen them would know what I'm referring to..
She is definitely a yandere. Stop.
And her sister Mitsuki. Isn't this a cursed name? Think about Mitsuki from "Double Cast".

Among the "words" appeared in that game, I did find a few interesting explanations. One of the most impressive was:
Suicide: (...) To give a stare at someone right before falling onto the ground is not a good memory.
Key pick: (...) For quite a lot of times that's an item female characters would have at the beginning.
That's "School Days" and the old-fashioned "BIOHAZARD"! Thank you very much!! xDD

Although the story itself contradicts to itself (or it might be due to my reading-by-eyes-only. Most people would naturally link to "Steins;Gate". But I didn't understand by what kind of trigger someone became able to, and how exactly s/he could move the "time-line". What happens to the world when some one shifts out, and how memories of the rest could change before and after...
It might not be an issue as a game, but it did direct my mind to think more in this aspect. Also, recently I was watching someone playing "Life is strange" (not that interesting), which didn't explain (at the current stage) why and how. So I was mad again. I want to see things that make sense, even in a game! -- Or at least make that to be an "of-course" thing, for instance, Rika just can (since the very beginning) go back and experience different loops in Higurashi.

Thinking too much about time-line or paradox, and a few days ago, a sudden thought came out as "if I do (or not do) something today, 'yorlga II' would be delayed".
No, it's not funny. I even skipped the samples. Hirota said the taste would be strong, so I don't want to ruin my current "plain" sensation.
I'll welcome a sharp change. It's not jump scare of H or yandere girl CGs any way!!

The aftermath was, I lost my interesting to get "Steins;Gate 0" (and other visual novels). So let me make a note here.
If it's on sale again next time, and I've already finished "Steins;Gate", I'll get it.

The biggest reason I decided to transform with php was it's so easy to deal with Get and Post and MySql and escape special characters and so on. Just like I choose actual scissors over a Swiss army knife when I want to cut, although the latter is definitely more multi-functional.
But as a camel follower, it's not a good experience each time when I see minor bugs due to "habit" and "bad grammar".

The above was still okay.
The thing I began to hate php was how it evaluate whether a variable is true, defined, empty or this sort. As I can't define all variables I need at begin and test later. So,

if (!$variable)

works perfectly in Perl but

if (!isset($variable))

kept bothering me over these days.
Moreover, I have to literally put parentheses around every

s/printf

, the REGEX match/replace require so much more typing, and blocks such as a

if statement

doesn't have its own scope.

I wonder what I would complain if I started with php instead of Perl. Though I'd never know.
I can't do time leap.

Since its last year's release, I tried to remember what that classical piece is, that appears at the end of Mitose Noriko's "小さな庭", the last track from her "SilentHiSongs". The first impression plus my classical experience told me that the composer must be Beethoven, as I'm not a very huge fan of him I couldn't reach the very end conclusion.
In this week since I began my Beethoven loop (simply as working BGM after the folder playing of DG's Brahms collection... orz)...
It's "Pathétique"! Now I'm good.

Honestly, I don't want to touch this song too often, for now. It makes me feeling sad.

"Pathétique".

However! Fining the true answer couldn't change the fact that my rather low compatibility with Beethoven. After being dumped (of a much higher amount comparing to dumping a project-sized database) with so many piano sonatas in the whole day, if I was asked for what I was listening to, perhaps I wouldn't be able to answer.
Think about it, what was I listening to???
Some melodies that couldn't turn on the switch of my "to love" system.

Not sweet enough. For certain.
So on that day, as a "ending melody", I flipped to K.298, something got my super attention since 18 years ago.
It was sweet, so I was good.

As for compatibility. In my Tuesday night dream, I "saw" I was playing a FPS, presumably "biohazard 7". I played quite a while, and told my self, "so I'm not sick to FPS any more!".
But is the reality so? I doubt.
I should test myself using Code Veronica's battle game. But it requires LOTS of courage -- I wasn't pleased with the terrible afternoon with "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth". ~_~
To look forward the coming Biohazard 3D animation would be more of excitement.

The human brain is fantastic. For no reason on Tuesday (or Wednesday) morning I hummed the main melody of Tchaikovsky's "Variations on a Rococo Theme". Even I felt weird, that why this piece? ^^;;
Although soon the song I sing to myself turned to KOKIA's "song of pocchong" (that was so great for practising position shifting)!

-- A wonder follows. Only one day after a no-touch, out of anyone's expectation, that all but the A string were loose. I'd say, the pegs were like being once plugged out. Yet I believe I didn't do anything!
Unfortunately no one knew what happened exactly inside the case. ( ﾟдﾟ )

One of the most recent upates on Opera Developer allowed us to select right on links!
Thank you very much!! ｷﾀ━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━!!

そして↓↓
どう見ても癖です本当にありがとうございました…

短いですがお終い。悲しいですがもう一度「小さな庭」を聞きに行きます♪
素朴な一曲でありがとうございました。ちょいとクラシックを混ざったらすぐにリートになっちゃったんなんて。
吉良さん、本当にありがとうございました。

......

なんで猫が柔らかいのだろう…（*´▽｀*）