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| chazumaru 1204th Post
  
Red Carpet Executive Member
  
    
    
    
|  "Random GAMES! Thread #23: Who's your God now?" , posted Fri 4 Apr 07:18:  
> #22 (150 replies)
I am still wondering whether this is a belated April Fool or not.
I have spent of bit of time with the new generation's first genuine RPG : Kemco's Alpha Genesis on Wii U. Can you believe that Hudson is gone but Kemco is still around? Who would have predicted that in 1998?
Anyhow, I was not totally honest above as this game was not developed specifically for Wii U. It is the port of a smartphone game, and boy, it shows. There is a quaint charm to the PS1-level ambitions in the game's engine and mechanics, and much less of a charm in the possibly Famicom-level ambitions in the story and characterization. It's an interesting coincidence that this game comes out on Japanese eShop on the same day as GBA's Golden Sun, which is a more ambitious game in many ways (and technically more impressive than Alphadia Genesis anywhere except during battles, errrm).
This is apparently the sixth game in the series, so they must be doing something right. And even if that something is simply "releasing a simple oldschool RPG experience on smartphone" because nobody more talented is tapping that market (without the urge of micro-transactions and social features that such an audience is certainly not requesting), well, it's not like the Wii U has an embarrassment of riches in that genre outside of Squeni's VC output.
I wonder if anyone anywhere at any moment has ever uttered the words "I really hope they port Alphadia V on my favorite game system".
はじめてじゃないのさ、いつでも一緒なら、さ・わ・や・か・ＴＡＳ～ＴＹ☆
[this message was edited by chazumaru on Sun 13 Apr 05:10] |
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| karasu 1361th Post
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| "Re(1):Last Guardian" , posted Sat 5 Apr 01:44
quote:
(I would unabashedly defend at least Sonic CD and Sonic 2 as great games) and the fanart oddities are probably (?!) only a fraction of the internet that's disproportionally easy to see, it is good to see her in print. Virtually.
That was a pretty interesting article! I agree with Maou about how it's a little unkind, but I also feel like Sonic is, like Megaman, a focus of a weird kind of fan attention that demands both constant new games but at the same time exactly the same games that got made in the 90's with only enough innovation that it's clear you're not playing a literal one to one identical game to, say, Sonic 2. Somehow Mario escaped this oddness in a big way, and I've always wondered what it is that Nintendo did right, while a lot of what Sega did was wrong (at least as far as fan perception goes, since I think many newer Sonic games are quite good, myself-- or even just from a marketing perspective).
As far as the subculture stuff goes, I've always sort of viewed Sonic as accidentally being the focus of things like that, much like just about any other character or mascot out there. Is his particular usage any greater than any other character?
In other news, Masato Masuda, the creator of Fire Pro Wrestling, has died at a weirdly young 48, as reported by Suda51. Super Fire Pro Wrestling was one of my very first imports, way back in the day, so I've had a little place in my gaming heart for the series over the years. Was he really only 48? That would have made him absurdly young when the series first started!
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| Ishmael 4857th Post
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| "Re(1):Hyper Dragon Ball Z" , posted Mon 7 Apr 08:25
quote:
That was a pretty interesting article! I agree with Maou about how it's a little unkind, but I also feel like Sonic is, like Megaman, a focus of a weird kind of fan attention that demands both constant new games but at the same time exactly the same games that got made in the 90's with only enough innovation that it's clear you're not playing a literal one to one identical game to, say, Sonic 2. Somehow Mario escaped this oddness in a big way, and I've always wondered what it is that Nintendo did right, while a lot of what Sega did was wrong (at least as far as fan perception goes, since I think many newer Sonic games are quite good, myself-- or even just from a marketing perspective).
I remember reading once that Nintendo wanted Mario to be "the Mickey Mouse of the 1980's." That's a silly line but it does sum up Nintendo's view that Mario should be a mascot first and a character second. Mario's the personification of the Nintendo brand so the fact that he's never had any motivation beyond jumping over barrels hasn't hurt his staying power. It would be like worrying about the complex personalities of a character that appears on a box of breakfast cereal or post-death Colonel Sanders; the only reason they exist is to sell a product. My guess is that Mario has managed to avoid generating a weird personality cult because Nintendo has worked hard not to develop the character since the NES days.
Sonic, in contrast, could be the focus of many interesting articles in psychology, sociology and marketing journals. From his cartoon backstory that ended up attracting people who are into anthropomorphism to being in the awkward position of being a mascot for a console franchise that no longer exists, things just seem to go wrong for Sonic. Having several clunky games that look like they came out of a deviantart submission (Shadow with a gun or an entire game where Sonic turns into a werewolf) probably didn't help matters.
I still can't even make a guess as to what the deal is with Megaman fans.
quote:
This is so perfect it fills me with sadness. It's only a fan "concept" running on Mugen but some of the characters are apparently playable on the engine (check the comments under the video).
That's neat but they might as well call it Street Combat 2 if they are going to use English voice. If Goku's voice doesn't sound like cracking glass it's not Dragon Ball!
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| Baines 404th Post
Gold Customer
| "Re(2):Last Guardian" , posted Mon 7 Apr 11:12:
quote:
Somehow Mario escaped this oddness in a big way, and I've always wondered what it is that Nintendo did right, while a lot of what Sega did was wrong (at least as far as fan perception goes, since I think many newer Sonic games are quite good, myself-- or even just from a marketing perspective).
Mario had a lot of variety from the start. From Donkey Kong to Mario Bros to Super Mario Bros, he was in completely different types of action games. Then you have the US Super Mario Bros 2, shaking things up again. His jump to 3D went smoothly enough that gameplay differences (Mario punches and kicks enemies now?) were accepted.
Nintendo put Mario in other games, as well. Dr. Mario, Mario Party, Mario Golf, Super Mario RPG... Some had nothing really to do with Mario other than mascot branding, like Mario Paint. Even games like Mario Is Missing showed that Mario could be in anything doing anything. Even his friends got spin-off games or rebrandings of existing properties.
Mario wasn't tied to one type of game, or one type of style. Mario was everything. Mario largely just meant "Nintendo".
Sonic was tied to one type of game early on, and a particular style and attitude. Sonic meant things like "cool," "speed," and "faster than Mario/Nintendo." That was how Sonic was seen and how Sonic was marketed. But "cool" can quickly go cold, "faster than Mario" doesn't necessarily mean much when people like most Mario games, and "speed" was a limiting and eventually troubling factor in game design. Sonic was defined by high speed and running fast, but that limits what you can do in games, and meant camera and design troubles when Sonic made the jump to 3D. Sonic also got locked into an animal theme when it came to new characters. Not crippling, but another limitation that Mario didn't suffer.
And when Sonic did change, it only fractured the audience. Where people knew to accept anything of Mario (even if they didn't necessarily like something), Sonic didn't have that luxury. Sonic's troubled jump to 3D caused one group of fans to like his 3D world while others preferred his 2D world. (Why didn't Mario see the same degree of split? Mario 64 was largely seen as a good game even by those who preferred 2D Mario. Sonic Adventure was seen as a flawed game even by those who liked 3D Sonic.) Sonic's TV shows each had their own world and design, with their own fans. Find 20 Sonic fans, and you'll find 20 people with 20 different opinions on how to fix Sonic.
Everyone has their idea of what Sonic is. Sega's problem is that those ideas vary too much, and are often contradictory.
(I'd say that Nintendo's handling of Mario rubbed off onto its other properties as well. The first two Zelda games were rather different from each other, before the series' formula was set. Nintendo could probably get away with throwing Link into pretty much anything now, if they weren't so stuck on the formula. Nintendo probably could have gotten away with making F-Zero a Metroid spin-off with Samus in Captain Falcon's role. In part because of how Mario is Nintendo, other characters are themselves more than just their main perceived genre.)
EDIT: As for Capcom and Mega Man, Capcom hates its fans. Capcom hates all its fans of anything that isn't a million-seller franchise, but Capcom in particular hates Mega Man fans. Probably because Mega Man fans are so vocal about how that franchise is treated, versus something like the Dino Crisis fan base. That's the only explanation that I can see for why Capcom treats its fan bases they way that it does. It isn't just business. Some of it is outright trolling of fans.
[this message was edited by Baines on Mon 7 Apr 11:19] |
| chazumaru 1192th Post
Red Carpet Premium Member+
| "Re(4):Last Guardian of Sonic Heroes" , posted Tue 8 Apr 16:23
I think it's a pretty bad column. I gave it a few days to see if my opinion would change, but the author does nothing interesting with the premise and it leaves me to think this article is just a shallow jab at those Sonic fans weirdos a.k.a. a good excuse to throw out some links towards creepy pictures. The kind of superficial and controversial bit you would find on Kotaku or Cracked, but disguised as a critical piece on the Sonic character to help swallow the pill as a serious article from The Guardian.
It seems Sonic Generations sold less than Colors, and Sonic Lost World sold less than Sonic Generations. So, considering the sales of the most recent games, I agree the franchise has lost some appeal recently. But the article's claims are not substantiated by any kind of data; the only exception is the comment about a terrible youtube video, which baffles me as it explains that reaching 135,000 views shows nobody really cares about Sonic. Was that the logical conclusion? Were we supposed to expect K-pop numbers?
Are all those mobile games with Sonic unpopular? Especially with kids? Are most fans of Sonic over 25? We won't know here, and it would not explain the huge success of the Wii and DS games. When I played Sonic Colors, which I did not enjoy but receive both critical support and consumers' attention, I realised there was an entire generation of young consumers for whom the Sonic franchise was a different experience than people who grew up with the original games on Mega Drive. By the way, I am very interested in unpopular opinions, but only when they are supported by strong arguments. The paragraph carelessly explaining why maybe the series was never good! does not hold up a second to scrutiny.
Even if the only justification of the article is to point out the creepy nature of some Sonic fans, I see a missed opportunity. It's actually fascinating that so many fetishes and weird "deviant" behaviours are linked to Sonic. How come? What's the trigger or connection? Was there something about the super popular cartoon(s) of the 90s/00s that helped stimulate the sexual education of those kids? You won't find out in this article, since the research apparently limited itself to googling "sonic weird disturbing" for 10 minutes before the teacher asks to see your homework. Nah, this is a terrible article. But I see it has reached 99 comments and we talk about it in a place as remote as MMC, so mission accomplished for an Upworthy reject, I suppose.
The Guardian actually has some good pieces rather frequently, notably by Rich Stanton of Eurogamer. The person in charge of the game stuff in Metro (an tabloid-oriented free newspaper) is also surprisingly insightful if you acknowledge their mainstream orientation and consider the limited space available to justify their opinion.
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This korean MMO has an amazing character editor.
はじめてじゃないのさ、いつでも一緒なら、さ・わ・や・か・ＴＡＳ～ＴＹ☆
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| karasu 1363th Post
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| "Re(7):SMASH BROS!" , posted Fri 11 Apr 01:00
quote:
Oh my, I prematurely "killed" Yokoi in my mind with the Virtual Boy tragedy---I'd forgotten he still had time after that! Most importantly for...
Wonderswaaaan <3
Please buy me a (Wonder)SwanCrystal. I bet this is one of the only places on the net where we could (and should) start an enthusiastic WonderSwan thread.
Now this is a conversation I can really get into, despite knowing alarmingly little about the actual device! Maybe I'll have to scare one up the next time I'm in Tokyo, if only for this item of wonder. Oh! And Final Lap Special! And Guilty Gear Petit!
On the subject of Virtual Boy, I never found it to quite as horrible as everyone else thought it was, since its worst characteristic (to me) was its lack of a substantial library, which was directly related to its lack of popularity. Or was it the other way around? Still, I wish I had made the call to snap one up years ago when one of the long-deceased US competitors with Gamestop (Babbage's maybe?) had a special deal for the console and its entire game library for something ludicrous like $99.
Oh, and Maou, you didn't care for GB Super Mario Land 1? I always thought of it as the sort of odd exception that SMB2US also was-- a rare example of a 2d Mario game that didn't hew precisely to the standard physics and novelist template that most others did. I'm sure it feels positively prehistoric when played today, but I have fond memories of it nevertheless.
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| Spoon 2584th Post
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| "Re(4):SMASH BROS!" , posted Fri 11 Apr 06:40
quote:
NO ITEMS FOX ONLY FINAL DESTINATION
A thing which has written about and discussed before is that Smash was like this symbol of the difference between console/not-arcade versus fighters with an arcade heritage: the hardcore Smash community has a bit of a god complex with respect to the game, because they were given the power from the outset to adjust and tweak the parameters of the game, and no amount of System Direction on the Dreamcast could alter the fact that such customization of the game didn't exist for everybody in the arcade.
As a result, the competitive Smash community comes from worldview where the definition of competitive Smash is theirs alone to decide, even to the exclusion of the game's development team, with the ultimate expression of that being Project M.
The arcade players have some similarities, but the core difference is that no matter how many house rules were instituted (e.g. throws are cheap and after a throw you have to let the other guy throw you back), you ultimately had to take or leave the game as it is; you couldn't tweak much at all about the games beyond the damage setting/timer/round count. Changes were based on new versions coming out (with Capcom getting into balance patches/expansion pack only relatively recently), so there really has been a take it or leave it mentality.
I like to think that because choosing to play Smash requires so much more deliberate choice (you have to pick the stage for it, you have to disable all the items, etc.), just initiating "serious" Smash play has an extra layer of formality to it. Then again, I'm going to contradict myself and say that there have been plenty of times with SF or Guilty Gear where me and my friends have had to declare "mains" or "full respect" in order to make it clear that we're going to go full-out with the best we have for the sake of winning, as opposed to messing around and trying out new stuff/silly stuff with winning being only being half considered... but that definitely wasn't something that happened until after we were more competitive. I like to think that because the game itself isn't being changed, that layer of formality isn't quite the same, so the separation between hyper serious play and not so hyper serious play is different.
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| Baines 407th Post
Gold Customer
| "Re(5):SMASH BROS!" , posted Fri 11 Apr 21:20
quote:
The arcade players have some similarities, but the core difference is that no matter how many house rules were instituted (e.g. throws are cheap and after a throw you have to let the other guy throw you back), you ultimately had to take or leave the game as it is; you couldn't tweak much at all about the games beyond the damage setting/timer/round count.
Smash also has the issue that the more people played it, the more balance issues they found. But by that point, they'd already been implementing play restrictions, so they just kept doing it as new issues arose. (Or, as some arcade fighter fans used to dismiss house rules and the idea of Smash ever being a "serious" fighter, the Smash community had gone down the slippery slope of changing the game to suit their desires.)
There is a distinction between "serious" and "hyper serious" arcade fighter play, though. Maybe it has faded as arcades died, but I certainly felt it in arcades during the genre's heyday. I remember arguing for years that an elitist/exclusionary attitude shown on placed like SRK was going to gradually kill fighting games, because "serious" players were driving away new players.
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| Gojira 3038th Post
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| "Masoge" , posted Mon 14 Apr 09:30:
It's so weird. Kagero: Dark Side Princess aka Deception IV came out a few weeks ago and after the decent yet lacking Trapt I was expecting kind of an easy side game to blow through on my way to the next thing in my backlog, but holy BALLS did I underestimate it badly. I have now logged well over 100 hours and I still haven't completed the mission mode.
This is probably the most competently-developed version of Kagero I've ever played, without question. Changing the cumbersome three-slot gameplay to a multi-trap combo is much more in-tune with the way that you would always end up using traps in the past games. It feels very natural and simple and not being limited to a specific category of traps (for example you can have nothing but ceiling traps if you want) increases the variety of combo ideas as well. In addition it adds the concept of abilities so you can heal yourself, stun enemies, automatically roll when you're about to be hit, or just use them as another trap slot.
That sounds like it might be broken, but in addition to making the game play smoother, they made it harder as well. Like MUCH harder. Where in the past enemies would have looked like they were running in slow motion and swinging a sword like it weighed 15 tons, now even the heavy enemies can run and attack fast. They added new enemies with guns who are really hard to avoid once they're in range. Instead of just running a straight path, enemies will try to surround you, and some enemies will even become aware of traps if you try to re-use the same one over and over. Having armored enemies adds to the challenge too, since certain traps don't work on them even in combos until you break their armor. All in all it's a significant upgrade in challenge and as a result, catching them in trap combos is all the more satisfying.
My only real complaint is the story mode, which is kind of cheaply done and severely lacking in save points for the length of its chapters (something that gets extra frustrating when you're trying to do daemon requests). The story itself is kind of throwaway, but the enemy characters are campy tropes which ends up adding a bit to the appeal.
So if you've enjoyed Kagero/ Deception in the past I'd highly recommend this one. Would I recommend the game to people who are not fans of the series? Well, it's very last-gen-ish and a lot of people aren't going to get past that, but I think if you like finding long elaborate combos in certain fighting games, you might find a similar appeal here.
[this message was edited by Gojira on Mon 14 Apr 09:37] |
| chazumaru 1205th Post
Red Carpet Executive Member
| "Re: Fire Emblem" , posted Wed 16 Apr 01:04
It's been a while now since I played the game, but I can give you advice on the pairing/romance system which, in case you know nothing about the game and haven't spoiled yourself, is mechanically very important in this game.
There are three ways to approach the romance/buddy system in FE:A. I suspect most players actually go through all three phases, and in that order.
1. You let things flow naturally. You just try to win battles, and it so happens that some characters will fall in love as they spend time next to each other.
2. As you progress through the game and get to know the characters better, you might start rooting for some potential couples. So now you adapt battle strategies in order to increase the bond between specific characters, for plot-driven reasons.
3. Once you ran out of characters you had any emotional investment in, or when you start realizing that the romance level has a very strong effect on your army's efficiency, you'll approach it in a new, purely scientific way. You want THIS guy and THAT girl to go to bed together. Not because it makes sense according to their personalities but because, 70 years age difference be damned, the result of their matching will get you critical hits, good defense and unique stat combinations. (I am being purposefully a little vague on how romance affects the game, in case you started FE:A on a whim and do not know how much this will influence your progress plot-wise.)
With this in mind, if your goal is to have an easy time, my strong recommendation would be to jump directly to step #3. Even though you might not get why this is important right away, consider which combinations of characters would make for a good mix of competencies. Typical example is coupling a strong warrior with a magician, or a fast character with a resistant one etc.
In this episode, it pays a lot to keep characters next to each other, mainly because of the romance/buddy system which plays a very important part in defense.
Also, with efficiency in mind, I strongly recommend pairing your protagonist/avatar with the main character Chrom (which means your avatar needs to be female and quite possibly called "Brigitte", but why would you go for any other option?).
And obviously, picking casual mode (in which you can revive fallen comrades) makes life much easier, even if I think it takes away some of the charm behind FE. I believe this option is independent from the difficulty level.
Paratrooping (having a pegasus knight or dragon knight quickly drop characters at the other end of the map) is very efficient in this game. It's a surefire way to beat the final map! So take care of boosting flying troops.
Also, don't hesitate to restart a new career/class once you maxed out a character's promotion (there is a specific item that allows doing that). They keep their previous abilities. This is very important to develop your protagonist/avatar and to make sure you always have competent healers in your party.
And those pop-up missions from Spotpass/Streetpass never stop. So don't feel obligated to play them all.
Also, the DLC missions are quite entertaining and provide you with strong guest characters from previous games, but three DLC missions in particular are made with "cheating" in mind. One of them will give you tons of money, the other tons of XP, and I forgot what the third one gives (items?).
Since you paid for them, DLC chapters are the only ones you can replay at will. Which means you can easily abuse the three "cheating" missions. They are actually quite well designed because some enemies will be downright invincible when you face them early on; obviously those enemies will reward the most money/XP etc.
(You only unlock the DLC area after a certain chapter.)
Have you played other FE games before? Many techniques from previous games still apply.
はじめてじゃないのさ、いつでも一緒なら、さ・わ・や・か・ＴＡＳ～ＴＹ☆
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| chazumaru 1208th Post
Red Carpet Executive Member
| "Re(2):Re: Fire Emblem" , posted Wed 16 Apr 02:19:
Well it's hard for me to detail without spoiling too much, but in your case, I am pretty sure:
1. I already told you about the SPOILER part at length in the past.
2. You already forgot about it because your cache only has room for so many Sengoku Basara generals.
So, here is what you forgot: [SPOILER] the most important part of romantic pairings, compared to the regular buddy system, is that romantic pairings will determine the stats of the children you get later on in the game. Some children will get really powerful if they receive complementary competences. For example, the child of two magicians who acquired very different magic abilities will be the most complete magic user in the game, while the child of a mage and a knight will be very difficult to kill. [/SPOILER]
Besides that, the buddy/romance affinity is purely based on characters being next to each other on the field. I cannot remember if a better affinity score allows characters to assist each other from further away, but it will for sure strongly influence the efficiency of the character's support (on defense and offense).
In those Non-Spoiler situations, it does not really matter whether the classes are complementary. Or at least, it does not matter more than it already matters for the sake of your strategy (ex. you might want to pair up a weak character with a tank that can absorb all the damage).
Also, while a character can only reach the "S" affinity rank with one other character (of the opposite sex*), they can reach the A rank with anyone else. So the same character can support many others during the same enemy turn.
*which really confused when I mistook one androgynous character's gender for about five battles.
はじめてじゃないのさ、いつでも一緒なら、さ・わ・や・か・ＴＡＳ～ＴＹ☆
[this message was edited by chazumaru on Wed 16 Apr 03:55] |
| badoor 368th Post
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Silver Customer
| "Re(4):Re: Fire Emblem" , posted Wed 16 Apr 18:42
Hello. Lets talk more about video games from last year.
Shin Megami Tensai IV :Out of all the currently running popular JRPGs, the MegaTen series always interested me the most, while at the same time intimidated me, which is why I have a lot of SMT games that are still shrink wrapped. But I finally delved into SMT 4. And I'm really liking it. Although I appreciate the focus & simplicity of Etrian Odyssey 4 more, SMT 4 still good in its own way. The standard RPG combat & dungeon delving is pretty standard stuff. But courting demons to join your party by giving them money or life or mana or answering weird questions or by vomiting, it's weird stuff that you won't find in other games. It also has SNK cameos (not really). I just wish the story is more interesting, even if I'm just 5-ish hours into it. And also some of the art for the enemies look down-right amateurish, like they were made in MS Paint (not the good MS Paint art, but bad ones). But it's my current go to game after I got my fill of Yumi's Odd Odyssey.
And now newer games:
New Yoshi's Island & Infamous Second Son: Man, I was a big fan of the previous iterations of each. But the new ones just aren't good. Infamous is more ok though. If you have a PS4 and don't have anything at all to play on it (or on any other system), then I guess it's fine. I still like Infamous 2 way more. New Yoshi's Island is just so dull. It technically is nay identical to the original in terms of mechanics. But It's amazing how soulless & not-fun it feels, even though I can't really point out any reason why. Yoshi's Island DS was way more exciting from what I remember. But maybe I tolerated things more back then.
Back on topic. I do want to check out the new Deception game, but I'm really hoping it's not as hard as I heard. Always been curious about this series but never tried it.
Also, I want to get back to Fire Emblem. But you know how it is with backlogs.
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| exodus 4328th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(2): wonderswan!" , posted Sat 19 Apr 07:50
quote:
I should have known that the 'swan would grab your attention! Actually, my strongest associations with the device are insertcredit in its heyday and the periodic fandom at the Cafe. I never had any friends in Japan or the US who had one (or remembered having one), but I always thought it was so neat. I'd ask you to tell me your favorite things about it, though you probably did on insertcredit at one point, but on the other hand, I think the archives are gone, so...tell me again~~
I'm just gonna keep talking about wonderswan then
some of my favorite games:
riviera - it came out on a bunch of other stuff, but I played it here first. It's real nice! it strips away a lot of the nonsense of RPGs in general, and isn't as complex as later sting games.
Kaze no Klonoa: Moonlight Museum - quite a decent klonoa game that actually makes good use of the vertical/horizontal changeups, with level design that is carefully curated around both.
Clocktower - look how creepy this is in black and white (especially toward the middle/end) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxy3sXOKB08
Gunpey - a very solid puzzler. and there's a version with tarepanda.
Rockman and Forte - not the best, but an interesting effort.
Macross true love song - the only dating sim I ever finished, mostly because it was also a tactics battle sim.
Rhyme Rider Kerorikan - my favorite rhythm game from nanaonsha (parappa).
Dicing Knight - hard to find, but a nice ARPG by doujin outfit platinedisponif.
One Piece Swan Colosseum. A quite decent smash bros type game by DIMPS.
Judgment Silversword - nice shooter from another doujin circle.
Star Hearts - ARPG from bandai, shame it didn't get more exposure.
Makaimura - the way they redid the art is great, and the wonderswan's soundchip has a real fun time with the music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRbG6q9-sP4
There's more I'm sure I'm forgetting, but those are some I like!
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| badoor 370th Post
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| "Re(3): wonderswan!" , posted Sun 20 Apr 21:26
quote:
Wonderswan! list by exodus
That's plenty of great games. I think Klonoa, the Nanaonsha rhythm game, and Judgement Sword are what's most interesting to me for now. I'm also interested in Riviera, but since I'm not fluent in Japanese, I'll probably get either the localized GBA or PSP ports.
Not to diverge the topic, but this reminds me of the WonderSwan's contemporary, the Neo Geo Pocket, which I've been playing recently. It's weird to compare how little 3rd party support the NGP had compared to the WonderSwan. But I'm sure it's both because of SNK's apparent lack of communication with outside parties (especially in the US), and because well, Bandai is just an infinitely bigger name in Japan than SNK.
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| Pollyanna 3641th Post
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| "Re(5):Guilty Design" , posted Tue 22 Apr 06:58
I'm kind of a religious Tales player, so I have to chime in here...
quote:
I actually stopped playing Eternia (actually called Destiny 2 in NA) way before finishing it as well. I had messed around with Tales of Phantasia and played Tales of Destiny and thought, huh this series is pretty cool!
Then Eternia probably killed my love for the series. Maybe it was more than just the character designs. It actually kept me from playing Tales of Symphonia, which is maybe kind of sad? That one seems to be a popular favorite.
And I haven't played a Tales game since (edit: I think I played Legendia for a certain amount of time for some reason... did not get me back on board). But really it's probably more that I just got tired of the formula. But I can understand why people like it.
Legendia is super awful.The soundtrack is amazing, but the game is genuinely terrible. I'm not even prefacing that with "in my opinion." It was made by a different team, so it's like...I don't even consider it a Tales game.
In my opinion Symphonia is hugely overrated. You aren't missing anything. I know a lot of people that loved Destiny but were "yuck" towards Eternia and dropped the series there. Those characters must really be grossly unappealing to people, because I can't imagine by what other merits people would judge Destiny as the better game.
If you want the Destiny characters in a good game, the ToD remake on PS2 is super excellent. I wish they would do a Vita release or something, so I could play the game without breaking out my PS2 again.
That might be close to a "flawless" Tales game, as most of the games are blessed with one or two brilliant elements and one or two really awful ones. Abyss, for example, has a super terrible soundtrack and some horrible pacing issues (not the story so much as just they don't like to let you fight anything sometimes), but is otherwise excellent. The two Vita Tales games are solid, but suffer from poor budgets. Vesperia is hugely fun to play, but disappointingly unambitious in its storytelling. Tales of Graces has absurd difficulty balance issues, but maybe comes out on top because you can change the difficulty any time. Xillia is almost singlehandedly ruined by bosses randomly not flinching when you hit them, but is otherwise great.
It's not that you even implied that you were looking for a Tales game to play or anything of the sort, but having spent several hundred hours (or more?) on the series, I felt an uncontrollable urge to vomit up something about it. I don't even recommend the games to people, partially, because I never know what issues the US releases might have.
I am undressed from 80’s style and recreated with modern sexy and beautiful style that amaze you and feel never been experienced world before.
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| chazumaru 1209th Post
Red Carpet Executive Member
| "Re(6):Wonder/Emblem" , posted Tue 22 Apr 19:25:
But WonderSwan had that weird little circle-thingy gizmo wonderfully called the "WonderCoin", thanks to Sammy and Guilty Gear Petit! It is currently resting in Cheap Ingenious Solutions' Heaven, on the same little cloud as the Nintendo DS thumbpad thumbstrap "thumb stylus".
(Obviously the WonderCoin was still shit compared to the fantastic NGP stick. Or compared to anything. Bonus points for trying, though!)
To be honest, I feel time has not been so kind to WonderSwan nostalgia, but I had two big WS periods. The first was around the launch of the console. I was in Japan when it got announced (in late summer 1998 if I recall correctly), roughly at the same time as the Neo Geo Pocket and the Game Boy Color. We were in the middle of the Pokémon-induced handheld revival and there was real excitement around me for all those parallel interpretations of the same basic experience. The different interfaces made those consoles stand-out in a way that I miss with consoles nowadays.
(I am somehow sad Wii U and Xbox One are not pushing the Gamepad and Kinect more, or more accurately, disappointed that most developers everywhere are stuck into the traditional and super boring interface we have been going through since the Dual Shock came to be. Like musicians stuck on composing with the same instruments, they can't complain that new generations are looking elsewhere.)
The next summer (1999), I came back to Japan and there was a really cool ad for Super Robot Taisen Compact on the back of JAL's in-flight magazine. I was really into SRW at the time because of SRW F and SRW F-Final on SegaSaturn. I remember my mom asking me if it would be worth buying one each for my brother and me; the console was incredibly cheap, especially with the favorable Yen conversion at the time, so buying two units was entirely conceivable even for a French middle-class family on a holiday trip. I believe that really helped the console get traction in Japan - I mean the price, not attractive and trend-setting French tourists.
However, by that time NGPC was already out(!) and it felt like a better choice, especially with the Dreamcast compatibility that somehow tricked me into thinking it was going to become something relevant. Ahem. So my mom bought my brother a NGPC on my expert advice, and I was asked to share that console with him - aaaaand I realize only now I downright highjacked the NGPC when we came back and he never really got a chance to play it following that summer trip. Another reason why I should always check my drinks for cyanide whenever I go back home.
I gave the WonderSwan a second chance in 2007. I was (happily) stuck in Kansai that summer, and somehow got on a black&white handheld binge. I am not sure if the whole thing started with buying cheap Game Boy games or with finding an Epoch GamePokeKon but I ended up buying pretty much every single handheld game I could lay my hands on, including the three different revisions of WonderSwan (monochrome, color and crystal). The Crystal loses some of the charm of the original design, in the same way that the Duo-R / Duo-RX is objectively the best choice but aesthetically a poor ersatz of the Duo experience.
In general, I think the line-up of WonderSwan is a bit disappointing compared to the console's actual sales in Japan (Vita has yet to reach them!). Quite logically from a business perspective, the WonderSwan relied a lot on Bandai's licensed software rather than original products making proper use of the really cool interface. Also, the rather weak refreshing rate of the screen meant the console fared better with sequential experiences (turn-based games, adventure games etc.) rather than the pure action sequences of arcade games. I find Kerorican extremely over-rated in that regard, compared to Parappa or later stuff like Rhythm Tengoku for example. But the Swan did have a few really cool games in the fields that it excelled at, namely turn-based games (thank you Squaresoft!) and vertical screen experiences. Gunpey Ex is still my favourite version of Gunpey and Judgement Silversword makes me very sad we did not get the perfect handheld port of Galaga that Namco could have delivered.
On that note, I noticed that Twitter Podcast Indie Game Entrepreneur Extraordinaire exodus-san did not mention Wonder Classic, which is probably the WonderSwan game I spent the most time playing after Gunpey Ex. Like pretty much every other golf game in existence, it's a clone of Nintendo's classic Golf game design, but a very competent one at that, and the first character you beat/unlock is none other than our dear virtual idol Reiko Nagase (who was right at the top of her fame in 1999). Thanks to the nature of golf's rules, it's a sport game that fits the WonderSwan much more than tennis or football/soccer would. Also: vertical screen golf! Very fitting display to check the design of the different holes, watch your long drives flying above the fairway or prepare your green approaches.
By the way, it was the 25th anniversary of Game Boy yesterday. You can celebrate any fashion you want. I did so with the custom skins of Puyo Puyo Tetris.
quote:
Now that I'm getting back into Fire Emblem Awakening, I was curious if someone could point out which DLC is actually worth getting. I was shocked to find out just how much there ended up being!
It's hard to convince me to shell out more money after I already bought a game, but once I get into a game's DLC, I usually get ALL THE DLC. I did so for Fire Emblem and for Final Fantasy Tthrthrthm. So it's difficult for me to recommend a specific DLC.
Maybe it depends what you want to achieve. The cheating DLC are very effective. The fan service DLC (ex. the mizugi episode) do their job pretty well. I suppose for the other DLC, it also depends which Fire Emblem games you are attached to, since most of them focus on a bonus character (and sometimes map) from a past episode.
はじめてじゃないのさ、いつでも一緒なら、さ・わ・や・か・ＴＡＳ～ＴＹ☆
[this message was edited by chazumaru on Tue 22 Apr 19:30] |
| Mosquiton 1982th Post
Gold Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Executive
| "Re(6):Guilty Design" , posted Wed 23 Apr 16:36
quote:
I'm kind of a religious Tales player, so I have to chime in here...
....I know a lot of people that loved Destiny but were "yuck" towards Eternia and dropped the series there. Those characters must really be grossly unappealing to people, because I can't imagine by what other merits people would judge Destiny as the better game.
I definitely felt guilty about it but what can you do? Actually just this week I was looking through one of my CD binders and saw the hideous faces of the cast, emblazoned on the front of the game discs, staring at me accusingly. I felt a chill, shuddered, and turned the page.
quote:
It's not that you even implied that you were looking for a Tales game to play or anything of the sort, but having spent several hundred hours (or more?) on the series, I felt an uncontrollable urge to vomit up something about it. I don't even recommend the games to people, partially, because I never know what issues the US releases might have.
You always tend to vomit up something interesting. If I ever get into Tales again, I'll definitely let you know.
/ / /
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| Pollyanna 3642th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(4):Daigyakutensaiban" , posted Wed 23 Apr 19:45
quote:
I've never played the Ace Attorney games (but I've always loved the art and memes). I had no idea the US versions were supposed to take place in the US! I guess this is why all the characters were given anglicized names too?
There's something people do that drives me crazy when it comes to English dubs in particular. It's this "Dubs suck, except [things I saw dubbed first or things I did not have access to the subbed version of]. Of course people feel that way. They don't want their experience to be invalidated, or seen as inferior. I'm ashamed to admit that I had the same response to the English version of Gyakuten Saiban when it was first announced. "This isn't my experience, so it's not good."
In retrospect though, the English adaptation was very successful. People love the script. They love American-centric references. They love the names. It's SO successful, that I've seen people say "The Japanese one took place in America, too" or "they changed some of the names, not all the characters are Japanese anyway." (That gets on my nerves a bit, but that's beside the point)
Although the English GS may not be an accurate translation of the names/dialogue in numerous cases, the adapted material is more or less an accurate translation of the intent. Obviously, if they kept the Japanese names, English speakers would be missing out on something important about the series. It would not be a successful adaptation even if it was technically more accurate.
Anyway, the point is, they're screwed on the new game. Or the players are, at least. They could use English names and pretend like it takes place on another planet or something, but the intent would be compromised. Or they could play it straight and let god knows how much crap get lost in translation.
On a side note, highly adaptive translations drive me crazy, because I'm always thinking "but what are they REALLY saying?" Most people seem to be more like "who cares what they said in the original if the English one is good?," which I think is a manifestation of the "I don't want to invalidate my own experience, because I can't translate it myself and this is the only thing I know." But hey. As long as they're happy.
Double side note...the English adaptation to Zero Escape was much more lively than the Japanese original. Playing with English text and Japanese voices satisfied my "What are they REALLY saying?" bug while allowing me to enjoy the arguably superior English script. That's a rare opportunity.
I am undressed from 80’s style and recreated with modern sexy and beautiful style that amaze you and feel never been experienced world before.
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| Iggy 9747th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(5):Daigyakutensaiban" , posted Wed 23 Apr 20:33
Polly's (extremely good, thanks for the thought-out POV) post reminded me of the opposite: playing a game in Japanese when the original was written in English.
AND THE TRANSLATION IS ALWAYS SO BAD.
I really believe Japan hasn't discovered translation yet. Or have such different expectations from ours that they actually want to receive an inferior experience, but it's ok as long as it screams "THIS WAS WRITTEN IN A FOREIGN, INFERIOR LANGUAGE SO PLEASE EXCUSE THE LAMENESS".
Cases in point:
* Donkey Kong games (either SFC or Wii/U). Terribly lame and uninspired level names, or left in English all in katakana which makes them unreadable. Or replaced by some other English in katakana, but with simple words that totally miss the pun/sound flat and dull.
* Every Platinum Game in existence. Thank you Based Kellam for everything you're doing there, at least English-speaking people can have a fun and witty (or purposely stupid) game, but Japanese people get... something... with... some kind of bland scenario and characters, I guess. I was replaying God Hand this week-end because I needed some manliness in my life, and the Japanese subtitle are just... there. Flat words just sitting there, saying things about more or less what the character says.
I actually wonder if Platinum would sell more in Japan if the script was not translated from Kellam, but re-written from scratch with some simple explanation to the writer "this is the good guy, he's going to kick the bad guy in the nuts, but first they're going to insult each other in a funny way. Make something up".
Basara 4, even with its less than inspired, insipid situations compared to the stellar stupidity of Basara 2, still creates effortlessly sparks of hilarious stupidity at the most unexpected, which means the most appropriate, moments, so it's not like Japanese people can't create or appreciate that kind of humor. Translation really is an art, and so is localization.
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| Pollyanna 3644th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(6):Daigyakutensaiban" , posted Wed 23 Apr 20:48
quote:
Polly's (extremely good, thanks for the thought-out POV) post reminded me of the opposite: playing a game in Japanese when the original was written in English.
AND THE TRANSLATION IS ALWAYS SO BAD.
Ohmygawd, yes. If a character is like...say...rhyming or making a reference or using slang or anything, it's always just the most mundane, straightforward translation possible.
It's like:
English:
I bet you like taking it in the butthole from gorillas behind the bus stop!
Japanese:
You are a homosexual.
English:
I thought I was flying, but it turns out I was dying and now I'm crying.
Japanese:
This is bad.
(okay, well, those examples suck in either language, but you get the idea)
It's like COME ON, JAPAN, I know your language isn't this primitive! As a westerner, I'm embarrassed! They must think we're terrible writers!
I am undressed from 80’s style and recreated with modern sexy and beautiful style that amaze you and feel never been experienced world before.
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| badoor 372th Post
PSN: BadoorSNK(forPSVITA:BadoorUSA)
XBL: BadoorSNK(ForWiiU/Steam:BadoorSNK)
Wii: 3DS:4253-3532-0341
Silver Customer
| "Re(7):Daigyakutensaiban" , posted Wed 23 Apr 22:52
I think people exaggerate the "Americanization" of the older Ace Attorney games, in most cases just to crack a joke about it (which I do sometimes). The games rarely overtly bring up the topic of what country they're in, just using generic terms like "The Country" or "Nation". I know some of the characters don't necessarily make that much sense in their design to be American, or at least feel more natural in a Japanese setting than a US one, specifically Maya Fey. But it never was jarring because Maya herself is supposed to be a fish-out-of-water type of character, who isn't supposed or expected to be going around solving crimes & assisting lawyers in court, whether it's in Japan or the USA. She also loves burgers but what's to keep her or any person anywhere in a globalized society from loving burgers anyway. Have you seen how many McDonalds are out there?
Again, I may be falling into Polly's "that's how I experienced it so it's the best case scenario" trap but I do feel like Capcom did a great job localizing Gyakuten Saiban. And with the 5th game, they did keep things that are inherently Japanese and cannot be "localized" in English as is in their Japanese name (like the 2nd case with the Tenma Taro monster).
That said, this will be a bigger issue with the new one since Meiji-era Japan has much less common cultural aspects than modern day America or the rest of the world. In any case, localization in general is a pretty interesting subject so I appreciate every discussion on the topic.
http://100daysofmegashock.wordpress.com/
http://badoorsnk.wordpress.com/
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| Iggy 9748th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(8):Daigyakutensaiban" , posted Wed 23 Apr 23:04
quote:
That said, this will be a bigger issue with the new one since Meiji-era Japan has much less common cultural aspects than modern day America or the rest of the world.
Plus, there may also be a case with annoying white foreigners not understanding anything to these Japanese things, eventually saying a couple of racist comments, if not scheming the demise of the country in order to colonize Japan.
That will be fun to adapt.
Another thing: apparently, the American version of GS1~5 is well done enough to allow the American player to "get" almost everything and have a pleasant experience.
I do wonder, however, how European players took it. I believe the game stayed in English? But still, it was a weird America that was utterly pointless and foreign anyway, so would it have made a huge difference to keep the game in Japan? Moreover, as Japanese sub-culture is much more commonly known, at least in France and Italy, wouldn't a real direct translation (except for the puns on the names) have been better received?
In that case, maybe translating the Meiji game directly without any adaptation will fare better for Europe...
I have absolutely no clue as I don't know anyone that would apply to, but if anyone has any first-hand info on the subject, I'm intrigued.
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| Iggy 9749th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(1):translation" , posted Thu 24 Apr 01:14
Yes, I was talking of all types of translations.
I don't understand how Japanese specialists of Proust can be so highly regarded when the few translations in Japanese I have read are shockingly bad, on the verge of nonsensical.
Their idea of translating Proust was to keep the grammar and order of words as close to the original as possible. It may be why Japanese specialists are so good: they actually have to spend days on any sentence in Japanese to even understand the meaning. But that's not Japanese, that's bizarro-Japench that nobody talks in real life.
That's what I wanted to say earlier: it's translated to make the original text as transparent to the reader as possible. The original text, not its meaning.
So instead of becoming a text that has on a native Japanese reader the same effect as it has on a native French reader, it becomes something only someone who has the original text in front of him can decipher. In a way, it's not different from the fan scanlations that keep all the "chan", the "kun", the "sensei", the "senpai" and the "keikaku" to make it sound more authentic.
And then, you have simply poor Eng=>Jap translators for whom understanding the source language is already such a huge accomplishment that you can't ask them to do any more efforts when they translate. The idea that for a translator, mastery of the target language is more important than that of the source language has yet to reach the Japanese shore.
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| karasu 1372th Post
PSN: robotchris
XBL: robotchris
Wii: n/a
Red Carpet Executive Member
| "Re(6):translation" , posted Fri 25 Apr 05:20
quote:
Ultimately we just need to let Working Designs of the 90s do all our localizations. that'll teach you all!
異議あり！
Yes, except if you ignore the occasionally goofy townsperson they created out of some dull "welcome to our town" guy in the original, their scripts fulfilled the exact function Iggy describes above: the spirit of the original is conveyed, and by people who are actually good writers. There's simply no question on the latter. I'd venture that people who played Lunar in English understand the game far better than people who played say Final Fantasy X.
異議あり indeed! I have a real soft spot for those guys, since I've always imagined that they existed in this golden age of translation, after the horror of the mid 90's early PS1 RPG localization and even worse the forced-Americanization of NES/SNES games from the 80's. Regardless of any imperfections in their work, they at least seemed to give a crap and to behave as though there were actually people in the US who didn't mind or even liked the Japanese cultural references. I mean really, are there still US consumers who won't buy a game if it has any shred of a Japanese locale? I suppose there might be roving bands of teenagers in the US midwest who don't yet know that Capcom (for example) is still a Japanese company.
I'm still surprised at things like the terrific (and HILARIOUS) mess of Jojo ASB's localization. I thought that they careful and well-done translation of games like Persona 3 and 4, without any attempt to Americanize them, had gotten us past that whole problem.
www.secret-arts.com
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| Maou 2648th Post
PSN: zonepharaoh
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Hotel Dusk non-cleared game inquisition" , posted Fri 25 Apr 06:51:
quote:
Now I'm really interested about one thing: how does the English localization/translation of Hotel Dusk and Last Window compare to the original Japanese script?
BEST GAME I STILL HAVEN'T BEATEN: Hotel Dusk
HEY SPOON four years later I still haven't finished Last Window (I did finish Wish Room/Hotel Dusk (it has a good ending (you should finish it))).
I remember talking about the English script once here, and when I thumbed through the English version on Gamefaqs one time, I was struck by how well-written it was, with a bit more noir than even the noir/shibui original. In a way, this makes sense, since the whole point of the game was to evoke an American-style noir environment despite that particular world and speech style never having existed in Japan. Thankfully, there seems to have been an American scriptwriter who was good enough at writing, and at recognizing the atmosphere what the Japanese writers were striving to convey, and to convey it more precisely than the original, almost.
You could liken this to the superior Birnbaum translations of Murakami Haruki, who from what I've glanced at makes the English version even more clipped and Hemingway-like than the originals---and like Wish Room, Murakami was in a sense going for a very 20th century American style in his work to begin with, so it works.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Fri 25 Apr 06:55] |
| Spoon 2595th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(1):Hotel Dusk non-cleared game inquisition" , posted Fri 25 Apr 10:47
quote:
Now I'm really interested about one thing: how does the English localization/translation of Hotel Dusk and Last Window compare to the original Japanese script?
BEST GAME I STILL HAVEN'T BEATEN: Hotel Dusk
HEY SPOON four years later I still haven't finished Last Window (I did finish Wish Room/Hotel Dusk (it has a good ending (you should finish it))).
I remember talking about the English script once here, and when I thumbed through the English version on Gamefaqs one time, I was struck by how well-written it was, with a bit more noir than even the noir/shibui original. In a way, this makes sense, since the whole point of the game was to evoke an American-style noir environment despite that particular world and speech style never having existed in Japan. Thankfully, there seems to have been an American scriptwriter who was good enough at writing, and at recognizing the atmosphere what the Japanese writers were striving to convey, and to convey it more precisely than the original, almost.
You could liken this to the superior Birnbaum translations of Murakami Haruki, who from what I've glanced at makes the English version even more clipped and Hemingway-like than the originals---and like Wish Room, Murakami was in a sense going for a very 20th century American style in his work to begin with, so it works.
I have just realized I made an incredible and embarrassing slip, because I HAVE beaten Hotel Dusk, but I HAVEN'T beaten Last Window.
I do remember there being discussion about the game here, but I guess I was more wondering how it is now that we should be long past the exhilaration of playing it and have enough perspective to look at it more coldly. Hotel Dusk in the English version does indeed have this great noir vibe to it, which it manages to do without being a total caricature of noir (which Max Payne famously did, in semi-serious fashion).
Sometimes I'm wondering just what it is that I'm missing in the Haruki Murakami english editions, because it seems like a good few famous Japanese works when rendered in English have this very spare style to them. Is it just the case they were written in such a minimalist way to begin with, or is it because the tradition of rendering them that way in English has stuck? Chinese has plenty of words that are so loaded with meaning that they can literally write fewer words, but it's because each word is a bigger blob of explicit and implicit meaning that that works, whereas in English going that route always hazards the danger of coming across as excessive, deliberate minimalism.
I remember reading The Master of Go in English and wondering if it was the case that the very austere prose of the story was a clever ploy to invite meditation or if it was just really dry.
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| Maou 2649th Post
PSN: zonepharaoh
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(2):Hotel Dusk non-cleared game inquisition" , posted Fri 25 Apr 11:58:
quote:
I HAVEN'T beaten Last Window.
Never fear, in the spirit of "I can't beat Airman," we can start a "I can't clear Last Window" group.
quote:
Hotel Dusk in the English version does indeed have this great noir vibe to it, which it manages to do without being a total caricature of noir (which Max Payne famously did, in semi-serious fashion).
Yeah, I still hold by the English script appearing to be a great ultra-realization of what the original writers were going for.
quote:
Sometimes I'm wondering just what it is that I'm missing in the Haruki Murakami english editions, because it seems like a good few famous Japanese works when rendered in English have this very spare style to them.
I suppose some classical writing veers between the wordy and the sparse, but Murakami's style is heavily informed by his love for iconic American literature greats like Fitzgerald and Hemingway, making him prone to clipped, witty dialogue. (He is the translator of record these days for Fitzgerald and even did Salinger, appropriately.) This is why having a skilled free-spirit linguist like Birnbaum works (disclaimer: family friend of a friend) as opposed to a regular university comparative literature type like Rubin doing it. Without this prompting, I've had American friends say they find Rubin's version of Murakami to be wordy and "un-Murakami-ish." More challenges for when translation must be written by good writers: is the translator enough of a literary hand to be able to recreate styles not his own?
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Fri 25 Apr 12:22] |
| Burning Ranger 1763th Post
Silver Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Executive
| "Re(1):Shining in the Dorkness" , posted Thu 1 May 11:42
quote:
Yes, except if you ignore the occasionally goofy townsperson they created out of some dull "welcome to our town" guy in the original, their scripts fulfilled the exact function Iggy describes above: the spirit of the original is conveyed, and by people who are actually good writers. There's simply no question on the latter.
haha, I wouldn't say "there's no question" re: them being good writers in my presence :3 they're fine, but "good" is a different story.
Anyway!!
Blade Arcus from Shining is getting a location test. a 2D fighter based on the shining force series. it looks like basically every other 3rd-tier fighting game out of japan these days.
But that one screen for some reason makes me think of The Rumblefish, so who knows! It couuuld be cool!?
I heard about this game. The only Shining game I've played is "Shining the Holy Ark," which I like. But there are apparently so many Shining games that I doubt any Holy Ark characters will make the cut. But that being said, this game looks mildly interesting, but I doubt it will get a decent US release...
So much to do so little time...
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| karasu 1375th Post
PSN: robotchris
XBL: robotchris
Wii: n/a
Red Carpet Executive Member
| "Re(3):Glorious leader!" , posted Tue 20 May 01:56
Ishmael, you've not surprisingly come to the right place! I too had some issues with my (albeit vanilla) 3DS at first, but now that I've drunk the kool-aid figured out some things about it I have much more love for the funny little device.
quote:
It's also a bit of an energy hog. While I played it a bit during the intercontinental leg of my flight I played it only sparingly because I knew the batteries would be exhausted long before the plane landed.
You may (pending resolution of issue #2 below) want to try turning the 3D slider to off. It didn't occur to me till someone suggested it that this is a major league drain on the battery. I never cared much for the 3D except in some select cases, so PROBLEM SOLVED. For me anyway.
quote:
It also turns out my 3DS is delicate and persnickety. I tried to recharge its rapidly draining batteries but it didn't like my convertor. Instead of simply not charging something fried out and now my 3DS won't charge at all. Is it a bad cord? Did the input break? How much will this cost to fix? Who knows! There are plenty of repair shops I could take the 3DS to but I have a lot of expenses I need to take care of in the near future and fixing a grumpy 3DS is near the bottom of that list. I was enjoying Fire Emblem but not that much. Perhaps it's because I bought the 3DS for one thing and it failed miserably at that job but this trip made me realize that the handheld market isn't shifting, it's already flipped.
I ran into this very problem while in Europe last year, although my system didn't get fried. I tried the same exact adaptor that I use for such things as my laptop, my iPhone, and my camera-- just a plug adaptor. It turns out that unlike every other small electronics manufacturer, and unlike its unsuccessful rival the Vita, a 3DS actually requires either a voltage convertor or a dedicated region-specific charger. In my case, plugging the 3DS into European power with just an adaptor didn't fry it, it just completely drained the battery. I went to a local Hungarian equivalent of Gamestop and bought a Nintendo-branded charger, and all was well. I didn't find out till later just how lucky I had been!
Anyway, it's after the fact, but hope all this helps.
www.secret-arts.com
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| Ishmael 4879th Post
PSN: Ishmael26b
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(4):Glorious leader!" , posted Tue 20 May 22:14
quote:
I ran into this very problem while in Europe last year, although my system didn't get fried. I tried the same exact adaptor that I use for such things as my laptop, my iPhone, and my camera-- just a plug adaptor. It turns out that unlike every other small electronics manufacturer, and unlike its unsuccessful rival the Vita, a 3DS actually requires either a voltage convertor or a dedicated region-specific charger. In my case, plugging the 3DS into European power with just an adaptor didn't fry it, it just completely drained the battery. I went to a local Hungarian equivalent of Gamestop and bought a Nintendo-branded charger, and all was well. I didn't find out till later just how lucky I had been!
Well, ain't that a pip! That's what I get for not doing my homework and assuming that the 3DS would charge like any other piece of electronics. Considering how often Nintendo acts as if they are operating in their own separate world I should have realized that their handheld would charge by a different set of rules as well.
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| badoor 373th Post
PSN: BadoorSNK(forPSVITA:BadoorUSA)
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Silver Customer
| "Transistor" , posted Fri 23 May 11:40
I picked up Transistor on PS4 (it's also on Steam). Strangely, I never played Bastion, the developer Supergiant's previous game. It's at that state of "I'm sure it's a cool game but it's not crossing that threshold of interest that makes me want to get it". I do have the soundtrack & it's pretty good. But something about Transistor's art, with the design of the main character and the world that really grabbed me. I heard they brought in a new artist for Transistor, and it really shows I feel. It looks like one of those "What if X first person shooter was an Isometric game" but real.
I also like the battle system. It's like Order Of Ecclesia mixed with FF XIII's ATB mixed with Gunstar Heroes. For one, there are no "regular attack and then strong Magic skills that need MP". Every skill can occupy any of the 4 slots. And the remaining reserve skills can be imbued to other skills to combine their features ala Gunstar Heroes. The only cost that stronger skills have on weaker ones is their activation and recovery time, and that reflects in the "turn-based/Time stop" mode that you can activate in battle as a chunk of time of the complete "ATB-style" bar. And once it's depleted, you need to run away and hide behind cover while waiting for it to cool down. It's a clever "Turn-based but not really" type of mechanic. And I think some enemies has that too.
One last detail I like, pressing R1 does this flourish move where the main character throws her sword & then grabs it. It seems like it's useless but it's a fun animation that looks cool and gives her a bit of character, which I feel is important when talking about silent protagonist (think Sonic tapping his foot or Chrono dancing). She also does some other "useless" things, like you can sing with L1 or sleep on a hammock or kick beach balls. I didn't expect this from what looked like a "serious" game. But it's a neat addition.
Anyway, I'm really enjoying Transistor. Also I'm gonna get Drakengard 3 real soon but haven't decided if I should wait to buy it on disc or just get the digital version.
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| Pollyanna 3648th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(7):Transistor" , posted Sun 25 May 19:41
quote:
Speaking of Drakengard 3, I've heard mixed things about it. Anybody playing it now and care to comment?
Mixed. Yes. I don't know your history with the series (and Nier) so I don't know your expectations for the game. I don't think even fans were expecting a particularly solid game, though.
I am hugely fond of it, though, and unlike Nier, which (in my opinion) really made you suffer to experience its amazing world/story/music, DoD3 seems to make an effort to be as painless as possible.
The frame rate is terrible, the camera sometimes borders on disastrous and it's a bit clunky at times, but not in a way that upsets the overall experience. The levels are very focused and just the right length, so even if there's not a lot in terms of extras and exploration, it's not boring or frustrating.
I think the best inclusion is the huge amount of dialogue that takes place in the levels themselves. The characters talk frequently and the script is quite clever (in English and Japanese). There's no sense of "I have to play through this crappy level to get to the awesome story," because it's going all the time. Even the generic soldiers have a tremendous amount of dialogue. To be fair, this opinion may change after I find out how many times you have to go through the game/how many annoying things you have to do to get all of the endings.
Also, although some of the animations are pretty poor, I think the cinemas look fine and they are plentiful enough.
As for if I recommend it or not, if you're in it for the story/music/world and understand that the game isn't going to be exceptional, you might just love it. If you're in it for the gameplay, then you're better off playing something else.
On a side note, I am very fond of the Japanese cast, as with the first two games, so the dual language DLC option is a huuuuuuuge plus for me. That's not necessarily any discredit to the English dub (I haven't heard it), but if I had to pick one series with really great Japanese tracks, it would be DoD. Also, delightfully, the LE came with a book containing the short stories written for the game. This is hugely preferable to a cloth map, but we still get stuck with one of those infernal soundtrack samplers. (Either give me the soundtrack or don't!)
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| karasu 1380th Post
PSN: robotchris
XBL: robotchris
Wii: n/a
Red Carpet Executive Member
| "Re(8):Transistor" , posted Mon 26 May 02:29
quote:
Mixed. Yes. I don't know your history with the series (and Nier) so I don't know your expectations for the game. I don't think even fans were expecting a particularly solid game, though.
Thanks for the impressions! I was secretly hoping you'd be the one to reply Polly, since our taste seems pretty similar.
And that said, I think I'm going to give it a shot. I have a complicated love/hate thing for Nier, but a large, rich part of the love is just how strange it all seems-- it's a game that I played in a few large chunks months apart since I'd play for a bit, feel like I couldn't go on, and then come back to it after actually spending time thinking about the game. It's weirdly alluring. If DoD3 is anywhere near as weird as Nier, I'll be happy.
Also, Yoko Taro is a damn weird person, and I feel like it's the weird folks in the Japanese game industry that I have to throw my money at. I still regret missing his GDC talk! At least Spoon was there representing the Cafe.
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| badoor 374th Post
PSN: BadoorSNK(forPSVITA:BadoorUSA)
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Wii: 3DS:4253-3532-0341
Silver Customer
| "Re(9):Transistor" , posted Mon 26 May 06:56
Thanks for the DoD3 impressions, Polly. It's about what I expected from (or what I hoped for) a Yoko Taro game made by the people who did Deadly Premonition. I really liked the English dub for NieR. And seemingly, some of the localizers who worked on that also did the dub for DoD3, which I heard was pretty good. So I'm probably going to go with the dub again. I just hope there's enough variety when replaying the game over and over for the different endings. For me, NieR did a good job with that by having you replay from the mid-point, rather than the start. But more importantly:
Spoiler (Highlight to view) -
For having expanded cutscenes throughtout the new game & also for translating the dialogue of the shades.
End of Spoiler
But to be honest, for the 3rd and 4th endings, I just watched them on YouTube. It seemed like those playthroughs were identical, aside from the endings, of course. I hope DoD3 expands on that by having new elements introduced in each playthrough. Though I'm probably OK with just watching the extra endings on YouTube again.
Speqaking of Yoko Taro's GDC talk, it's now available on the GDC Vault to stream for free
and what I read about it was sounds really intriguing.
Actually, on a different game, Transistor also has a similar idea, where a New Game+ has additional plot stuff thrown in. And if that's true, I'm not really liking that idea since the plot is really dry in my first playthrough. I wish they'd have filled story with some the plot elements from the New Game + here, rather than hold it for an artificial 2nd playthrough. But the game itself is lots of fun to play. And a New Game + with new abilities & enemies alone are a good enough incentive to replay.
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| Pollyanna 3650th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(9):Drag-On Nier" , posted Wed 4 Jun 06:46:
Mario Kart 8 is excellent, but we all knew that, I guess. The system update with quick start on the WiiU is nice as well. Nintendo exclusives have failed to sell systems for me in the past, but, somewhat tragically, they're really winning my favor with the WiiU.
quote:
If I only played one of Drakengard 3 or Nier, which should I play?
I only endorse Nier if monotony doesn't bother you. I found the game pretty insufferable. It has some outstanding "highs", but the game itself is pretty weak. DoD 3, on the other hand, has been a hugely enjoyable experience for me. It knows its limits and works well within them (minus the technical issues).
I might argue that you could enjoy Nier more watching it on Youtube, but again, depends on your tolerance for monotony.
EDIT:
quote:
I don't think anybody can question Monster Hunter as being the defining, iconic title of the PSP. But what would the runner-ups be? Peace Walker was an amazing game and did so many things so well, certainly one of the most memorable games for me on the machine. Half-Minute Hero is probably my actual favourite game on the machine, though.
I was trying to think of big name titles on the system. I certainly played mine to death, but my favorites were not necessarily "defining" for the console.
Square had a few good efforts on the system, with Dissidia, two high-budget Final Fantasy titles and a few respectable remakes (and others, not so respectable). I don't know how popular it was, but I hope LocoRoco isn't dead as a franchise. I want one on Vita.
Gosh, the system has such a history, it's hard for me to remember my favorites. Certainly Monster Hunter, both Half Minute Heroes, the recent 2-part Super Robot Wars, LocoRoco 2...I have a love/hate relationship with Type 0. Last Ranker was pretty good (I still listen to the soundtrack). Surely I'm forgetting something obvious...
I am undressed from 80’s style and recreated with modern sexy and beautiful style that amaze you and feel never been experienced world before.
[this message was edited by Pollyanna on Wed 4 Jun 08:04] |
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