MMBN6 Hard Mode status

I'll be honest. I haven't done much to the Hard Mode patch. The scale of the project makes it very difficult to carry on. And having my parents constantly peering over my shoulder saying it's unproductive is kind of an obvious sign. I gotta admit, a hacking project like this isn't doing me much good, in a point where time is very important.

So in an attempt to save the project, I'm making what I have public. I hope maybe someday, more dedicated people will complete it more than I have.
http://www.mediafire.com/?axxrz98a615rvyw

So really, don't expect any more large-scale hacking projects anymore. I just can't do that anymore due to time and personal issues. I will carry on smaller projects from time to time which are more manageable, but this Hard Mode patch is not very manageable for me anymore.

Good luck.

Star Force OCW pushed back again!

Well it looks like this book will never come out. I got an email saying that my order for the Mega Man Star Force Official Complete Works has been pushed back... to January 13, 2012! Why the sudden 6-month delay? I've almost had enough with the delays considering the book was supposed to be out LAST YEAR. The Battle Network OCW at least came out in March after a couple delays. This is just silly. Why won't Udon just say it won't come out at all and stop adding months to the supposed release?
Bad Udon!

MMBN5 Cutting Room Floor article written

I just finished writing the article on Megaman Battle Network 5 for The Cutting Room Floor. Check it out!
http://tcrf.net/Mega_Man_Battle_Network_5

I think it's fairly thorough and mentions that Wireless play feature. I've seen how they write articles on this website, though and I think it needs more comparisons. Primarily version-differences and beta screenshots. This also means I can move on to the BN6 article. Obviously I have tons of content for that.

Speaking of beta, I found something interesting while digging through old Capcom websites. Not only did Dr. Hikari's mugshot in BN1 used to look hideous, Max Mode is actually used. I haven't played the game recently, or any multiplayer, so I didn't know. Apparently Max Mode shows up during multiplayer. I didn't know. But it had to have something to do with multiplayer since BN5 brought it back exclusively for Crossover Battle.

The Past Returns!

It's amazing! Over at Archive.org, Capcom's old pages started showing up again. I had always wanted to see some of the old pages again. I got to see the Comic Con '06 for the MMBN6 tourney. It's a splash of memories!

In terms of the flash pages, it did contain some content that no longer exists on the live Web.

The Mega Man logo primarily used in the early 2000s. Mega Man Anniversary Collection and Mega Man Legends used it.

An alternate logo used to commemorate the Mega Man 15th Anniversary. The other anniversary logo was used as a base to the TREZ logo.

A tricky little mystery

Recently, it has been brought to my attention that Rockman EXE 5 had a wireless play option. I didn't believe it at first but after matching a couple of menu tile arrangements, the elusive screen showed up. Apparently, in the Protoman version, you were supposed to be able to choose between Link Cable and a Wireless Adapter. I thought this was normally possible since I had a Wireless adapter before BN5 and I thought I remembered doing local battles with it. As it turns out, it's a removed feature since apparently all the menus are still in Japanese and the Host and Client screens don't seem to be working properly. I'm getting my hopes up that this menu is still accessible in the game. Otherwise, it will make a great entry to The Cutting Room Floor for which I'm planning on writing more articles for.

Easy Bevels in Illustrator (Tutorial)

All right, here is the Adobe Illustrator tutorial I said I would make. The goal is to create accurate, shiny, vector bevels on text in Illustrator. I mean nice, enhancing bevels used on a good design, not blotchy, over-beveling done on bad designs. I've thought about the process and it's actually quite simple. Perhaps there already exists another tutorial out there on the exact same thing, but I've reached the conclusion in my own way with little to no help from others.

The final product:

You will need:
Adobe Illustrator (I'm using CS4)
A simplistic, squared font
Basic knowledge of tools

Ready to start the tutorial? Full tutorial after the break.

Watched X-Men: First Class

Well, I guess the summer movie season started already. I just finished watching X-Men: First Class. I just seem to have an interest with these comic-to-movie adaptions. Having not read any of the comics or recalling the first 3 movies, I still enjoyed the movie. Slightly over 2 hours long, I thought the story was very enjoyable. It was very suspenseful and involving right until the very end. I really liked the historical setting even if it didn't match the other established timelines at all. The storytelling and backstory were very interesting to me for some reason. I want to try and enjoy movies on a more intellectual level and this movie was a great fit. I would definitely watch this movie again, probably as an HBO rerun whenever the channel is available as a freebie.

Great start to the summer movie season. I'll probably go see 2 or 3 more movies between now and September.

New banner

Oh, there's a new banner on the blog, by the way. In case you didn't notice, the new banner is actually different from the old one. I kinda liked the layout of the old one, so the portraits and double-Megaman thing stayed. Since I'm excited about vector bevels, I made the blog's logo entirely in vector (excluding the metal texture). The background colors are also darker since I blended in some of my free backgrounds. Also, the Falzar Beast artwork has been replaced with my high-quality rip. I wish I had know how to get rid of the awful grain before making it a PNG because it looked bad. At least it didn't show up scaled down. Also, Blogger apparently allows the uploading of a Blog Icon now, so there's no point in using an HTML trick to get it. It doesn't seem to be working though.
Anyways, I will make the tutorial on the weekend. It's far too important to me.

Another MMSF3 save post

I very recently put up a Megaman Star Force 3 save yet here is another one. I had to spread apart the releases so they would be noticeable. Anyways, you can download the save where the game is just recently completed. I'm obviously much farther than that now, but my current progress isn't worth posting. I won't post another one until I get all the icons on the second file. That means a couple months at best.

But here, game complete.
http://www.mediafire.com/?7akrojxxkxc75vf
I must say, Hard Mode has been really fun. I don't trust that its difficulty is legitimate however, and I doubt the difficulty of enemies. So, the electric dragon viruses are silly-fast. There's no way anyone would purposely make an enemy that fast. In other words, they could have been made more difficult in other ways. The mummy viruses are also stupidly overpowered. Yes, I know it's supposed to be hard, but there should be no way a single enemy should be able to kill you with an endless combo. It's not a feature - it's a bug and it's annoying as hell. The only reason I didn't make a cheat was because it's only happened once and they're rarely alone, which is when they kill. As soon as I defeat Sirius in the game, I'm taking the cheat off since it's nearly impossible to win anything past that point (did I mention Apollo Flame is also completely broken and unwinnable?) Almost!

Scary local crime

I don't normally say this, but shit just got real. Biggest news yesterday was that a student from the Junior High I used to go to got stabbed to death across the street. That's some scary stuff. Thankfully nobody ever died when I went to school, and that goes for High School. It seems it was a result of gang warfare. I've always detested the prominent gang influence around these parts and now it's claimed a victim. He was only 12 years old. It's just tragic to watch. I never knew him, of course, but it's devastating and I'm still shocked to hear about it. I'm also concerned over the bad publicity this will get the school. Like being called "ghetto" and "cheap". I turned out all right. I had no control over everything else.

It's been all over the local news. Here some news posts with the developments from today.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/06/fatal-stabbing-of-12-year-old-may-be-linked-to-tagging-crew-rivalry.html
http://www.ocregister.com/news/police-304380-stabbing-sycamore.html

Upcoming Adobe Illustrator tutorial

A couple months ago I said I would write an Illustrator tutorial. Well I've finally figured out how to make shiny vector bevels in illustrator. They look quite nice as you can see.

It's kinda small (click to see the full version), but it's a specialized bevel that many fancy vector logos use, especially on games. No Photoshop tricks here. Getting a precise, gradating bevel is possible in Illustrator and I will write the tutorial soon.

Next MMSF3 savegame post

I was going to post this save before all the things from a couple weeks ago got out of hand. Anyways, I made a backup of my game's save when I got to the part before the Rogue minigame. So now both minigames can be accessed with the saves I provided. Also, remember this is my hard mode run.Weak enemies move as fast as their difficult counterpart and they have lots of HP. The HP part for viruses makes sense since I can't even imagine how pathetically weak they were before. The bump in difficulty makes the game much more enjoyable, especially at that part of the game.

Well here is the gamesave.
http://www.mediafire.com/?vootl01d5zimtd7

It's already a .SAV so it discards comments from the original Gameshark format. I forget exactly what save is what, so I may be mistaken.

My body is ready

I'm about to watch the Nintendo conference. My body is ready!!

Pumped for today!

E3 Day 1 was interesting, but I can't wait for today. I'm at school right now so I can't see the Nintendo conference live until I get home when it's over. I just know it's going to be very awesome. These things just have a feeling of greatness to them that I have to watch and see to understand. Then later today I can enjoy the new Rise Against songs that will came out on Rock Band DLC.
And then if I have time, I'll do some sort of homework. Today will just be too much fun.

Moving on...

I'm not leaving, but I also don't feel like leaving this blog closed forever. I regret everything I did, but it's time to move on now.