The 25th of October 2011 had to be the greatest day of my life! That day was like no other, that day marked the day I would hear all my favourite music from a legendary game series and that game series is none other than... Drum roll please... I said give me a god damn drum roll!!! ;Drum roll; Thank you! That game series is none other than The Legend of Zelda!!
25 years of The Legend of Zelda
and our green tunic wearing
Protagonist Link!
This orchestrated wonderment was put in place to celebrate the wonderful 25 years that The Legend of Zelda has blessed our gaming lives with its captivating storylines, beautiful environments, lovable characters and not to forget, it's music! Even though I wasn't alive when to witness the actual birth of The Legend of Zelda series, I have played all of the games and enjoyed them all except for a certain few and those few are, The Legend of Zelda 2: Adventures of Link and what the CD-i Zeldas were called...
Of course to listen to this splendid orchestral wonderment, I had to travel up to London from County of Cornwall. So, myself and my friends Darrien and Dom set out on our journey to the amazing event at 5am to catch our transport being the Megabus which from this point on shall be referred to as Nimbus. At 6am, we boarded the Nimbus after being dropped off to the bus station by Dom's Mother, Mandy. The journey on the Nimbus was full of laughs until Darrien and Dom fell asleep so I took this time to take in the scenery although there wasn't very much to look at so we shall skip this bit... And now we are in London! If only the trip was actually that quick!
Manga at Japan Centre.
Once we reached London, we began our epic quest of meeting up with Antony and getting to the HMV Apollo Theatre! Because everyone can't navigate the back of a spoon, it was up to Phantombane to guide everyone around the tube system! Blah blah blah Japan Centre Blah Blah Pocky Blah Blah We are waiting in line for entrance to what shall now be known as the greatest day of my life so far!
Outside the event.
We waited patiently in line with thousands of Zelda fans, the front of the HMV Apollo Theatre decorated with Legend of Zelda banners and Skyward Sword trailer looping over and over again! Life was good and then... The doors swung open and we rushed... I mean we slowly advanced through the doors, our tickets scanned, we entered the main hall to be greeted by merchandise stands where fans pushed and shoved and if I knew I wouldn't get kicked out, I would have pushed everyone into the floor in order to stop those impatient [Censored] worthless insensitive assholes! That aside I acquired a Legend of Zelda T-shirt and a poster decorated with every Link through-out the time of Zeld's existence.
The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra
and Eimear Noone.
Once we found our seats, we took pictures and such. Unfortunately we were separated from Darrien and Dom but regardless the event started with Eiji Aonuma stepping out on stage with his translator with as he introduced the event and joking about how poor his English is but we forgive him! Then the event started, Hyrule Castle theme from A Link to the Past echoed throughout the theatre! I wanted to cry but being so macho I couldn't but at least I cried inside and isn't that what counts really? No? Well shut up! I saw it and you didn't!
The beautiful Zelda Williams
steps out onto the stage.
After the song had ended, Eimear Noone turned to face the audience and thanked us for coming and she told us to give a warm welcome to a very special guest! You know what I am wishing I could return to the past and relive this evening all over again, I am getting quiet emotional retelling this epic tale but nevermind, The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and Eimear Noone will return next year so without further adieu. The special guest was none other than the beautiful Zelda Williams! Zelda was our host for evening as she guided us through the magic of the evening and kept up with all the tweets everyone was posting on her Twitter and received a screaming compliment from some guy saying she is gorgeous and he wasn't lying!
The set list for evening.
The night went on with all of our favourite tunes been played in front of us with old memories being played on the projection screen as we listened to the appropriate song and then finally out of no where, Koji Kondo-sama stepped out onto the stage and played Grandma's Theme from Wind Waker which reduced half of the audience to tears of joy as that man's magical fingers played this heart warming theme of the grand piano. After Kondo-sama finished and everyone wiped away their tears, Kondo-sama appeared at the front of the stage to thank us for attending the glorious evening. Afterward Aonuma-sama returned to the stage stating how much better Kondo-sama's English is compared to his own. Afterwards Aonuma-sama continued to thank us and then asked us if we are psyched for the release of Skyward Sword! The audience screamed, whistled and cheered and as the audience calmed down Aonuma-sama told us we were going to hear the theme song of Skyward Sword live whilst being shown the Lyre (Harp) trailer which was wonderful but all great things have to come end and with that the concert came to an end, all the audience stood up and left, tears of joy streaming from our eyes knowing full well we will be experiencing this beauty again next year.
I hope to see you all next year!
Another quest will start from here!
Press the Start button.
Skyward Sword launches in the UK on 18th November, the US on 20th November, Japan on 23rd November and Australia on 24th November!
Lastly, watch out for my Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception review in the coming days.
Saturday 29 October 2011
Happy Halloween 2011
Halloween is a fun time of year that we can all enjoy! With crazy costumes, sugary snacks, alcohol and everything fun about partying! Halloween also brings spine tingling tales and movie marathons of your favourite horror genre movies! I personally prefer to sit and play a good horror game such as Project Zero (Fatal Frame) or Silent Hill with a few friends and have a few drinks~
This Halloween, me and a couple of friends will be watching Paranormal Activity 3 and mocking it as we did with the previous two. Paranormal Activity isn't an overly scary franchise, it only provides jumps not scares. But we enjoy it that way thus we can insult it and joke about it as much we want without quaking in our boots.
Unfortunately, the gaming industry hasn't provided us with any new or decent horror games for this Halloween season. But nevermind! On the second of November we are gifted with Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception! Which is shaping up to the best in the series to date which is a relief unlike most games nowadays that just get worse as the work their way up the number scale.
Finally, this entry wasn't just about my excitement for Halloween and Uncharted 3 but to also apologize for my lack of updating and that also I will be writing the Extra Life article and an article on The Legend of Zelda: 25th Anniversary Symphony! That I attended in London on the 25th October! So keep an eye out for those in the next couple of days.
Bleach Episode 343: "3rd Year High School Student! Dressed Up, and a New Chapter Begins!" This episode marks the start of The Fullbring Arc!
Finally! After what seems like forever, we return to canon material and making our way through the Fullbring Arc. Although, I'm not quite sure when we will fall back into fillers because this episode used almost three chapters of manga... And seeming the manga takes more breaks over the Christmas and New Year period than the anime, it's kind of worrying... But nonetheless Bleach is back to canon material!
The episode started off just as the manga, reintroducing Ichigo as it did at the end of episode one of Bleach but he has aged by two years since the beginning. This episode takes place 17 months after the events and defeat of Aizen Sousuke, whom was the main antagonist of Bleach.
After the reintroducing of our orange haired protagonist we were graced with a new opening showing us teasers of the events to come in the new arc. The opening theme song was preformed by "SCANDAL" and the song was titled "HARUKAZE." This is the fifteenth opening theme for the Bleach anime series. "SCANDAL" had previous done the tenth opening theme titled "SHOJO S."
Throughout the episode we were shown old faces with their new appearance since the time skip. The episode also gave us a few flashbacks of the final fight against Aizen and Ichigo as Ichigo spoke that he never once felt superior to others because of his gift. Half way through the episode we were greeted by a new character who is yet to introduce himself. (If you read the manga you will know his name.) The new character also has a Substitute Shinigami Pass like Ichigo setting up a few twists. Running toward the end of the episode after more high school drama, we return to our new character who seems to be entering a block of flats using a card with the words, "Welcome to our Xcution." Written on it. He arrives in a room with three other people; an old man at the bar, a young male playing on a Playstation Portable and a coloured female on a sofa. As he sits down, a young red haired girl walks up to our mysterious new character and asks "Did you find him?" and he replies with "The next Substitute Shinigami seems like an interesting fellow."
The episode then ends with a new ending preformed by "Aimer" the song titled "Re:Pray." The ending is a very smooth and very quite sad but very catchy. The episode finally sums up with the preview for the next episode and the tale of Keigo Asano's hair styles during the time skip which was quite funny and received a good chuckle from me.
Overall, the animators don't seem to be messing around, like they usually do where they have about 30 seconds of Ichigo spacing and having a three minute flashback. They seem to realise that the beginning of this arc didn't going down well in the manga, Bleach was at the bottom of Shonen Jump's rankings... I am happy about the fast pace of things but I don't want them to rush it too much that we instantly fall back into fillers. As for the new opening and ending themes, I thoroughly enjoyed them especially the opening as I am a fan of "SCANDAL" not just because they are attractive to look at but because they are very talented and delivered a fitting opening.
As you can see by the title, I am kinda new to all this blogging stuff.
But nevermind, I'm sure I will simply get used to it all! After all this is going to be nothing more than my ranting zone and reviewing page. I will review all kinds of media from Games to Movies to Anime and Manga! I am usually pretty biased when it comes to video games and manga but for the sole purpose of this being a blog for my journalism course and to appeal to a wider audience, I will try and review a bit of everything that appeals to everyone.
I hope you enjoy coming and reading my blog in the future and I hope we can all have great fun discussing and sharing our views on different things.
