no longer cardfight pro, now cardfight casual

Touya/トウヤ i don't know what i do anymore i'm just trying to pick up my life lost-worlds.neocities.org/

[vanguardus]

Moved

I have another Tumblr now, it’s too hard to go back to this one because of all the memories.

For now the handle is t0w0ya.

[vanguardus]

「地獄の門より放たれし闇の命。 生い茂り、すべてを覆い尽くせ！ ブレイクライド！ メイデン・オブ・ビーナストラップ “Я”」

Jigoku no mon yori hanatareshi yami no inochi. Oishigeri, subete wo ooitsukuse! Bureikuraido! Maiden of Venus Trap “Я”!

“Life of darkness released from the gates of hell, grow thick, and cover everything! Break ride! Maiden of Venus Trap, “Я”!”

[vanguardus]

I want you all to know you haven't been able to see or reblog this post for three years because tumblr thought it was adult content.

[vanguardus]

[vanguardus]

A look back at the humble beginnings of Falcom’s long-running Ys franchise, from the birth of the games in the late 1980s to the political fallout between the president and devteam!

[vanguardus]

A look back at the humble beginnings of Falcom’s long-running Ys franchise, from the birth of the games in the late 1980s to the political fallout between the president and devteam!

[vanguardus]

[vanguardus]

"Pioneer 1 may have damaged the ecological system of Ragol before we were aware of it. So, the native creatures tried to remove the invaders."

[vanguardus]

"A huge interstellar transport ship was sent to Ragol. That was Pioneer 1. Pioneer 1 confirmed Ragol as a suitable location to settle on. And a second ship departed. That was us... Pioneer 2."

[vanguardus]

Designing Ys, Vol. 1: Jenocres

The early Ys games rarely seem to get much recognition in the western wing of the world. It's understandable why; the original personal computer iterations from the late 1980s were entirely incompatible with western Operating Systems, and the PC Engine bombed internationally, so their primary home console ports never reached a broad English-speaking audience. From an American's perspective, it might be tempting to think that the Action RPG genre got good with Secret of Mana—but there's so much more behind history's curtain. In the context of 1989, Ys I & II must have seemed overwhelming. It was among the earliest of the PCE/TurboGrafx's RPG library, preceded only by the first Tengai Makyō game, Necromancer, and Dungeon Explorer. While sales numbers for PC Engine software seem lost to time, it's clear from the prominent featuring of Ys in Gekkan PC Engine and other gaming magazines that this was a very significant title in its moment, and we know from Falcom's PC Engine-exclusives that all of the company's games performed well on the console. The PC Engine was something like the Vita of its day, and Falcom was still Falcom, producing games well into 1995 for a system that was abandoned by its own manufacturer in '92. Without this Ys port, we'd have never arrived at Legend of Xanadu or The Legend of Heroes.

[...] The disc that first went out to retailers some thirty years ago wasn't just the proof of concept for the format, it was the state-of-the-art. Director and main programmer Iwasaki Hiromasa later remarked in The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers Vol. 2 that before Ys, everyone believed the CD-ROM format was slow; after Ys, "only a bad developer would make a really, really slow game."

Keep reading

[vanguardus]

We get crunchy and look into how damage breaks down in the final mainline Final Fantasy to use ATB!

[vanguardus]

We take a walk back through time to the origins of the Action RPG genre, from Druaga to Dragon Slayer and beyond, in this new video covering Falcom’s 1985 PC-88/MSX game Xanadu!

[vanguardus]

How Dragon Quest created the Survival Arc

This is the first Surival Arc, and it is a seminal moment in the history of Role-Playing Games for also being the genre's first grind. It is not meaningless, no matter how it unconscionable it may be. The Survival Arc establishes the hostility of the world and how unwelcome the protagonist is inside of it; the hero's job is to perform a role fighting monsters, but at the outset of their adventure they can do so only inside a limited space in which the conditions are right for them to thrive.

The hero of Dragon Quest can only survive fighting Slimes and the occasional Red Slimes until he reaches level 3, Alis of Phantasy Star can only profit from fighting Sworms on the outskirts of Camineet--and encountering nearly anything else is a death sentence until her first level-up. The Warriors of Light in Final Fantasy are stopped cold if they try to fight Gigas Worms before Goblins, and Ninten of MOTHER/EarthBound Beginnings won't get far against Alligators if he doesn't stop to beat up some Hippies first. Each and every one of these games follows a delicate but soul-crushing sense of balance in which the player must slowly acquire strength in a hostile world where power rules absolute over all else. So it goes for Courageous Perseus, Mugen no Shinzou, and Xanadu.

Over the course of a traditional Japanese Role-Playing Game the stat paradigm governing the Survival Arc shifts. The oppressor-oppressed relationship between the monstrous world and the player character transforms into one of predator and prey. The endgame of any RPG has the player hunting down rare monsters rather than hiding from them; chasing Grand Kuwagamon parties in the Destroyed Belt of Digimon Story for that maximized 4000+ XP, or hunting the Jachol Cave Skull Eaters in Final Fantasy V for 5~10 Ability Points. This curve reflects the development of the party into a functional and destructive force in the world.

Keep reading

[vanguardus]

Understanding RPGs: What are Survival Arcs?

[vanguardus]

So I know things are super dead on tumblr these days but I figured I’d update on where I’m at now.

I’ve repurposed the old YouTube channel into RPG Maniax, a channel about the crunchy side of Role-Playing Games. I’m working on an equivalent text website that will (fingers crossed) be ready later tonight.

It’s not that I’ve fallen out with Vanguard, but that I can’t really do it at this stage of my life anymore--I’m at that point where my parents are aging rapidly and I really need my big break into a career. And frankly, I know I don’t have great odds of that, so it might not be so easy going forward. It’s more about what I’m about to do right now in terms of time and dedication.

[vanguardus]

Kagerо̄ overtakes OTT in 193 Vanguard Championship

Last Sunday the 3rd 193 VGCS in Nagoya saw Oracle Think Tank's train of dominance broken by the format's previous number 2, Kagerо̄. Dragon Empire's sole representative in Standard made up nearly 40% of the 193 Championship, with the finals coming down to a Kagerо̄ versus Kagerо̄ match and third place becoming a struggle between Kagerо̄ and OTT. Decklists for the top 4 follow below.

The top cut consisted of 5 Oracle Think Tank, 7 Kagerо̄, 2 Nova Grappler, and 2 Royal Paladin cardfighters. The tournament began with five 30 minute best-of-one Swiss rounds followed by a three-round best-of-three cut to top 16 with hour rounds.

The next major tournament for Standard is the Preyz Cup hosted by Card Shop Preyz, on June 17th: it will be Japan's last large unofficial tournament prior to the end of the V-BT01 format on the 29th.

Keep reading

[shihanne]

Digimon, Toy Sales, and the 2002 Downfall

I talked a little earlier about how Digimon could have done better with its toy model, and I think it’s worth clarifying exactly what happened with Digimon when Frontier marked the temporary end of the franchise in 2002.

I like talking about Digimon in relation to Toei’s other multi-serial franchises (and you can probably expect me to write many more posts about this topic, since I find the larger context of how Toei runs its stuff to be very important to evaluating Digimon). And I think it’s easy for people who aren’t familiar with this to jump to conclusions about what must have caused what, especially when I often see blaming of factors that generally haven’t actually been shown to cause an effect on a franchise’s health.

So the question I want to address is a discussion of what, exactly, happened to Digimon in 2002-2003 that caused it to have its first major hiatus? Although Digimon is not necessarily an anime-bound franchise per se, the first major lull occurred after Frontier’s airing finish, and the franchise has never quite recovered from it. Frontier detractors are quick to claim “it failed because it was bad”, but saying so is a generalization that ignores many other factors that become a bit trickier to analyze. So what really happened?

Keep reading

[vanguardus]

Weekly Bites reveals: Machining Stag Beetle and Machining Spark Hercules 

Machining Stag Beetle AUTO [Vanguard/Rearguard Circle]: When placed from hand, choose up to 2 cards from soul and call them to Rearguard Circle as Rest, and if this unit is on Vanguard Circle, it gets the combined power of all units called by this effect until end of turn.

Machining Stag Beetle is V-EB01/007 RRR, below Juggernaut Maximum and above Machining Mantis, with one open slot between Beetle and Mantis.

Machining Spark Hercules ACT [Vanguard Circle ] Once per turn: [Cost: Counterblast 2] Choose 5 of your rearguards, Stand them, and they get Power +5000 until end of turn. Rest all of your opponent's units, and until the end of your opponent's next turn, they get Power -5000.

ACT [Vanguard Circle]: Once per turn: [Cost: Put 1 of your grade 2 or greater rearguards put into your soul] This unit gets Power +5000 for each of your opponent's Rested units until end of turn..

Machining Spark Hercules is V-EB01/003 VR, the first Vanguard Rare of the set to be revealed.