Recent Posts

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Umihara Kawase Fresh! / Re: Play with the original controllers

« Last post by Alc on Yesterday at 07:36:22 PM »

I'm not surprised that people would use eBay to take advantage of the limited supply, but I'm sure it won't be too long before they're back in stock.

Unfortunately it's Nintendo, who have historically always been conservative when stocking hardware, to the delight of ebay scalpers and the ire of everyone else. Here in Europe, Nintendo's response to these selling out overnight was to say that a "small number" will be made available at some later date, which isn't particularly reassuring. Any other company would be delighted that there was such strong demand for a product, and would endeavour to meet it, but apparently not Nintendo. Are they marketing geniuses, deftly generating desire among their user base through scarcity, or are they simply incompetent? I guess it's academic. I can't buy one without hopping on ebay and paying double what it cost first hand, and that's irritating.

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Umihara Kawase Fresh! / Re: Play with the original controllers

« Last post by KawaseFan on Yesterday at 05:28:22 AM »

Yeah, I noticed issues with the sticks on my joy-cons about a month ago.  Unfortunate that they'd only last a bit over two years (didn't quite get my Switch at launch, got it a couple of months later).  I'm holding out on buying new ones as long as I can, but it seems inevitable that I'll have to.

I was planning to get one of the wireless SNES controllers and then totally forgot about it!  I'm not surprised that people would use eBay to take advantage of the limited supply, but I'm sure it won't be too long before they're back in stock.  I'd definitely be interested in any impressions if anyone around here got one, though!

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Other Umihara Kawase Discussion / Re: Kawase in Crystal Crisis

« Last post by Alc on Yesterday at 12:35:30 AM »

Just started playing this one recently. Anyone else pick it up?

It's a passable Puzzle Fighter clone. I love that game so I'm having fun toying with this one. The story mode is ridiculous, but it passes the time. I've yet to unlock a few characters, Kawase included.

One criticism I'd have is that the perspective of the playing field is skewed slightly by default. I don't know why they did that, it's distracting. There's an option to disable it, thankfully.

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Umihara Kawase Fresh! / Re: Play with the original controllers

« Last post by Alc on October 15, 2019, 06:59:34 PM »

I plan to buy the new Switch SNES wireless controllers that were announced in the Nintendo Direct recently.

They sold out pretty fast, huh? Did you get any? They're being flipped for about £50 apiece on ebay, which isn't terrible, but I'd want a cast-iron recommendation before dropping that. I did have a pair of the NES controllers, which were fun for the NES virtual console thing, but the d-pads were a little sharp (just like the real NES) so I sold them on.

In general I'm not too impressed with the Joycons. They don't have great range and are really susceptible to interference, even by bluetooth standards. There's also a class action lawsuit started up in the Sates over the failure rates on their analogue sticks, so far mine have been alright but they feel flimsy and I dare say I'll have to replace them before too long. I'm disappointed that they didn't alter the design for the new all-in-one Switch, they know those sticks start to drift over time. My feeling is that it's kind of shitty that joycons die, but at least you can just replace them - with an integrated system that's a real problem.

The Switch Pro controller I've got is mostly fine but as time's gone on I've noticed that occasionally I get a faulty "up" input on the d-pad, which seems a common complaint. I've heard of some pretty janky fixes involving raising the d-pad, but people then seem to have to increase pressure to get it responsive, so I just use that pad for its analogue sticks. All around I'd say this generation is a drop in the usual Nintendo quality.

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Umihara Kawase Fresh! / Re: Nicalis is publishing western release of Umihara Kawase Fresh! Coming July 9

« Last post by Alc on October 15, 2019, 06:55:50 PM »

Huh, the guy who runs Nicalis is a shitlord. Who knew.

But the thing is Umihara Kawase never was trending.  The series has always been very niche, with independently developed titles.  That's always been part of the charm of the series.  Watching this series survive from developer to developer and produce varied releases on numerous different consoles.  The history of Umihara Kawase and her survival in the game world is about as interesting as the games are.

Well said! I think Fresh is the weakest main entry in the series but at least it isn't an absolute disaster like the PSP game. I like that they're experimenting with new modes of play - obviously I don't think they hit the mark with Fresh, but at least they tried.

I'd also agree that awareness of the series is at an all-time high. Ten years ago almost nobody had heard of it, nowadays it's a bit of a cult classic. The GameCenter CX episode helped, and it's been on GDQ a couple of times too - so even if people haven't played it, they know of it.

I don't have an issue with the health bar at all; in fact, I'd say Fresh would be a far worse game without it...  That said, the hunger bar was totally unnecessary.

This is my take on it too. The health bar is fine, and the reduced lethality of the enemies is welcome in a game with the scope of Fresh's open world. That wretched hunger bar just needs ditching, though. You can tell they're a tiny developer when bone-headed blunders like that make it into the final product.

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Other Umihara Kawase Discussion / Re: Umihara Kawase BaZooKa!! (Switch/PS4/Steam),Summer 2020, Rubbering Battle Action

« Last post by Alc on October 15, 2019, 06:07:08 PM »

stop re-using assets and music, especially on new hardware.

Yeah I was a bit surprised to hear music from Sayonara in Fresh, I get that these are made on a shoestring budget, but that just feels like amateur hour.

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Site Discussion / Re: Plans for info section relaunch, site rename

« Last post by Alc on October 15, 2019, 04:53:12 PM »

Anything that encourages community participation is a good thing, in my estimation. I think a wiki would be a positive development.

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Other Umihara Kawase Discussion / Re: Umihara Kawase BaZooKa!! (Switch/PS4/Steam),Summer 2020, Rubbering Battle Action

« Last post by Princess Rescuer on October 13, 2019, 06:31:11 AM »

OH YES!!! THIS'LL REPLACE SMASH! DEFINITELY!

Just make a normal Umihara game please. And stop re-using assets and music, especially on new hardware.

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Other Umihara Kawase Discussion / Re: I have found Kawase Osakan sibling!

« Last post by KawasexAsuka on October 10, 2019, 09:52:44 PM »

That's certainly quite the theory you have there, with some rather interesting information that definitely gives a reason to believe.  As a Tekken fan, I'm delighted to see the comparison!

I'll try to break a few things down based upon what I've learned over the years.  From the character style perspective, Toshinobu Kondo's art style has constantly changed.  As a result Umihara Kawase has never stuck with an exact art style.  This becomes really apparent by how both versions of Shun have different styles of Kawase on the cover.  The only real change to Umi across the games has been an increase being done to her bust.  Making it either far greater, or more noticeable. 

While the tomboy stuff is quite interesting, Kawase, to be frank, doesn't have a personality or really any character traits.  The only thing we've known about her is that she's a wandering chef, with the only character elements being added into Fresh and Blade Strangers.  From there, it would be anyones guess if any of the character traits featured in either of those games are just side story elements, or actual character traits.  KawaseFan could most likely speak on that far more accurately than I could, as I might very easily be missing something that may of been mentioned.

In terms of the bikini itself, I'd venture to guess that has something more so to do with a way of offering fan service for marketable audience appeal.  Umihara Kawase games have made a larger focus in recent iterations on Umi's appeal.  Like how her midriff is exposed in Fresh.

Interesting comparisons all the same!

Anyways, from what you wrote, yes I did notice that Kawase got Hotter and Sexier in later games in the series. Especially now in Fresh with the midriff part, and speaking of midriff part, I noticed that Asuka Kazama also has a midriff as well.



But what weird is Kawase is legal age of consent at 19-20 range yet Asuka is supposedly under age 17 range yet they both don't look much younger or older and some may think both have pedo vibs even though one of them (Kawase is legal in all titles while Asuka is not), it weird that Japan has a big love for over sexulizing under age girls that have unrealistic body types go figure with Japan age of consent being 13!

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Other Umihara Kawase Discussion / Re: I have found Kawase Osakan sibling!

« Last post by CyanideBlizzard on October 10, 2019, 03:35:55 AM »

That's certainly quite the theory you have there, with some rather interesting information that definitely gives a reason to believe.  As a Tekken fan, I'm delighted to see the comparison!

I'll try to break a few things down based upon what I've learned over the years.  From the character style perspective, Toshinobu Kondo's art style has constantly changed.  As a result Umihara Kawase has never stuck with an exact art style.  This becomes really apparent by how both versions of Shun have different styles of Kawase on the cover.  The only real change to Umi across the games has been an increase being done to her bust.  Making it either far greater, or more noticeable. 

While the tomboy stuff is quite interesting, Kawase, to be frank, doesn't have a personality or really any character traits.  The only thing we've known about her is that she's a wandering chef, with the only character elements being added into Fresh and Blade Strangers.  From there, it would be anyones guess if any of the character traits featured in either of those games are just side story elements, or actual character traits.  KawaseFan could most likely speak on that far more accurately than I could, as I might very easily be missing something that may of been mentioned.

In terms of the bikini itself, I'd venture to guess that has something more so to do with a way of offering fan service for marketable audience appeal.  Umihara Kawase games have made a larger focus in recent iterations on Umi's appeal.  Like how her midriff is exposed in Fresh.

Interesting comparisons all the same!