[RePlay] The Legend of Zelda a Link to the Past # 3 on Retro-Saturday

Once again it's Time for the new [RePlay] Episode with The Legend of Zelda a Link to the Past.

Today we've entered the 2nd temple, it's located in the desert. To enter the dungeon we need the book Mudora from the library, therefore we use the Pegasus Bootgot from Sahasralha after finishing the first temple.

The temple's treasure is the power glove - now we can lift up bright rocks - so we are able to enter the realms of the Zora now, to buy flippers.

On our way we also gathered 4 more pieces of heart to obtain one more heart containerand 1 heart piece after having the flippers.

The ice rod, an item upgrading fairy and a bottle crossed our way, too.

That's all for the explaination folks, just watch the video

See you next time!!!

[Treasure-Thursday] Advance Wars Game Guide and a [RePlay] Episode - AllinOne

It's Thursday, that means it's Treasure-Thursday.

Today we picked the game guide of the strategy game for GBA - Advance Wars.
It was released in 2001 in NA, 2002 in EU and later in Japan, when Part 2 was released in 2004.

 

It's also the first game I've ever played on GBA if I remember correctly.

In this strategy game you're a CO and you have to command your troops to victory, as in almost every strategy war game, but the Advance Wars series is much more... let's say friendly, it's not that cruel, though it's still war and 2 armies fighting against each other, but the style and the setting is different to most games of this genre.

A huge Pro for this game is the way of acting with your characters, everything is done step by step, so you can take your time to think about every unit and their actions before you start the struggle.

I guess this game was the reason that I got so much into the Fire Emblem series, many fighting mechanics of those 2 series are the same, though Fire Emblem has a special feature, the Perma-Death, if a character dies, he really dies and is gone for the rest of the game, but by this way you start to get in touch with your chars, not wasting them as cannon fodder.

In advance Wars in some situations you either have to sacrifice a unit or it dies because of standing no chance vs. a stronger one.

Enough talking - Watch the video of the Game Guide and as a small BONUS: the first [RePlay] Episode of Advance Wars, too.

Enjoy and see you soon.

[Whatever-Wednesday] What is COSPLAY

Greetings fellows.

Today's topic on Whatever-Wednesday is COSPLAY. I've mentioned it in several entries already and today I'll explain it, for those who have never heard of it before.

Cosplay is a mixture of costume and play, so these 2 words are also the center of "doing cosplay".
So you wear a costume of the characterof your choice and then you play / act / behave yourself like this character used to be in some kind.

In my opinion some go a bit too far - if the char is not talking the cosplayer are not doing either (e.g. Mana from Malice Mizer), or when the character is "creeping around" and touching everything with 2 finger (L from Death Note)

There are also very many shops that specialized on cosplay, e.g. in Akiba or Ikebukuro, especially the wigs and the other props are a paradise for Cosplayers

At Tokyo Game Show and other events you can see many cosplayers, here are some examples

And here's just a small collection of German Cosplayers at several events

 

But normally the Cosplayer pick someone the like or love from their favorite anime, manga, game, comic, etc. to impersonate those on their own, sometimes because the person is just cool or because they like several characteristics the Cosplayers would like to have, too.

There are also many competitions, some are even nationwide or international (DCM in Germany or WCS worldwide with its final in Japan (Nagoya).

Those who are participating in the big contests use many weeks or even months to craft or sew their perfect costume, trying to even match the material or at least make it look in the original artwort / concept sketch - for armory KobraCast or Worblas Finest Art are used a lot (Cast4Art - links in my Link section)

It's hard to define the origin of cosplay, there is no real patient ZERO for this and it's no zombie like crisis... - some people even might consider KISS as Cosplayers although I would define their masks / characters more Kabuki-like than cosplay-like, but from some point of view it may be plausible.

The Cosplay phenomen has its roots in Japan at least the word itself, that's also why most characters are chosen from manga / Anime / Games, although dressing up in a costume is not invented by Japan, carneval or halloween is celebrated throughout the world, so what's the difference, well, cosplay doesn't need a purpose like those mentioned, in Tokyo, especially at the bridge of Harajuku's JR-station Cosplayers meet almost every Sunday - in other countries they normally dress up for conventions, although photo shootings outside of the cosplay "season" are getting more and more popular and are not common anymore.


That's it for today's topic, it might be only a rough summary, but I hope you got a clue about it now.