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| karasu99 928th Post
  
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|  "Random News Thread Silent Spring Edition" , posted Thu 17 May 01:22  
The old thread was getting pretty overweight, so I thought a new one was in order. Plus, I didn't want the weird embarrassment of triple posting.
With that out of the way, looks like the Dreamcast is getting one more release. You'll notice that I didn't say 'one last release' since I could swear I said that years ago about some other game. The dude programming it is from NG:DEV.TEAM, who made the phenomenal Last Hope and some others I haven't played, but from what I can tell it doesn't look like NG:DEV.TEAM is actually publishing it. Oh, and wasn't there a NeoGeo version of Last Hope?
Best of all, the Kickstarter has funded already, insuring that the game will be released. This is exciting news, to me, anyway.
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| Maou 2353th Post
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| "Re(2):Megaman Marathon for charity" , posted Sat 19 May 12:57:
quote:
Hey, X3 is the only X game I actually like! Ha ha ha.
Oh, sorry! If it's a Rugal favorite I should reconsider, but...! The music, like X2, is of such poor quality compared with the high quality composition and synth of X1, and all the "secrets" and alternate bosses just felt like they were trying to find something that would work. The terrible terrible fight in the secret stage against a resurrected Vava/Vile where you just jump from one side of the room to another as he punches the wall in his armor and then slides uselessly across to the other side to do the same thing, all to the sad sad excuse for boss music, sort of typifies the dismal memory I have of X3 not being any fun at all. Maybe it's just me, though! quote:
No Rockman & Bass?
That would be fun! I like the inane boss music from that one, and Magic Man is charming! The teeth-gnashingly impossible "supertank" boss that keeps coming back to life would probably stop the marathon players in their tracks, though.
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 Sat 19 May 12:58] |
| Maou 2354th Post
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| "Icy Penguigo" , posted Sat 19 May 13:37:
quote:
Also, how can you NOT like the name "Gravity Beetbood"?
Well-played, but my boy Boomer Kuwanger has his number!
I don't know, musically at least there's just nothing in X3 with the rich 80's rock sound you'd find in say Storm Eagle's stage, nor of the gloriously frenetic level design and sense of space in that same level as you progress from airport to airship.
The best musical tracks all seem to match the level of design, now that I think of it: there's nothing in X3 as well-done as the verticality of Boomer Kuwanger's stage nor its lengthy music. The Doppler stages last about 60 sections to slummy music, and in contrast you have X1's first Sigma Stage, a long, exciting set-piece in three acts with this elegy-like music. Even the boss explosions and their sound effects are better! There's just such a gap between the two, it seems to me.
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 Sat 19 May 13:46] |
| Loona 568th Post
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| "Re(2):Icy Penguigo" , posted Mon 21 May 19:14
This doesn't quite fit in the non-gaming random thread, so it goes here: Udon bothered to translate and release a Captain Commando manga - depite the game being 18 years old, not having sequels, and at most getting 3 appearances in crossover games (and MvC2 barely counts since it was basically recycling MvC1 work).
It doesn't take itself too seriously, given the source material - think Batman x Iron Man x tokusatsu stuff (years ago I'd have said Sailor Moon, due to the way he introduces himself sometimes - nowadays Rom Stoll is more likely to come to mind, damn you /m/). I also love the schematics page: Captain Gauntlet, Captain Hands, Captain Brain, Captain Bones, etc...
I wonder how much of it is canon though - it states the events take place in Metro City in 2026 and that Ginzu from the Bushin Ryu clan, which IIRC is Guy's - considering Guy is part of the Captain Commando team attacks in NxC, it wouldn't surprise me, but maybe the NxC just liked the comic, there can't be that much CC material out there to draw plot from.
"Beat the machine that works in your head!" - Guano Apes "Open Your Eyes"
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| Loona 570th Post
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| "Re(4):Icy Penguigo" , posted Tue 22 May 02:37
quote:
I do remember Sho being the Bushinryu successor, but damned if I could name a source.
Maybe there was some Japan-only book or leaflet with info like that? There's a little omake comic at the end where the characters are answering questions, one of them referencing how Mack/Jehuty (despite his odd design, he's drawn to like like the coolest character, I think giving him a jacket in most scenes helped) is supposed to be the guardian of some grave, and the question is whose grave is it, so I figure that must be based on some factoid mentioned in whatever could have also mentioned Sho/Ginzu's ninja lineage.
There's something similar about Hoover/ Baby Head (I do hate this stupid western name.... at most it should be a nickname for his mech or something...) being able to speak hundreds of languages or so which must have a similar origin.
The comic also names the captain's civilian alter ego, something I have no idea if capcom themselves ever bothered to define.
I really should bother to read that NxC transcript at Gamefaqs, that's the most text any game must have had coming out of the Captain team's mouths, there could be clues there.
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The Metro City thing is new (well...) as far as I know, but that just lends to long-held fanon theory that the Baby was descended/cloned from a certain Mayor...
Even if the in-game maps don't match, they're so broad (well, at least Metro City's is) that maybe all landmarks are plausible by taking different paths, and taking into account a 40-year difference.
Mike Haggar wasn't known for his tech savvy, if the theory was about Dr Light or some Tron Bonne ancestor it might be easier to swallow... Hoover and Tron do have a team attack in NxC...
Now that I think about it, Captain and Bravoman probably should have been given a team attack in that game too, but I guess they already had other teams to work with. I do love Namco for bothering with at much as they did, especially all the obscure characters they dug up - hopefully there'll still be some interesting surprises in Project X Zone.
"Beat the machine that works in your head!" - Guano Apes "Open Your Eyes"
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| karasu99 933th Post
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| "Re(10):A cesspit of backtracking and lies!" , posted Wed 23 May 09:43
quote:
I would agree that they need to stop trying to live in the shadow of SOTN.
As much as I'm part of the problem (let's face it, as much as I may grouse, I'll by whatever they release) I have always agreed with this. SOTN was great precisely because it took the series in a completely different but completely awesome direction from the previous games, but a change would be great.
The problem is I'd love it to be 2D but I'm a little bit as a loss as to how they could change things up and still appeal to modern players.
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I was recently playing Monster World IV on Virtual Console and thought a "soft Metroidvania" (less focus on backtracking, more emphasis on action) would be the best bet for a new 2D Castlevania game. Even something as completely different as Kid Icarus Uprising, which walled-off segments after you've reached a checkpoint, basically forced players to move forward lest they try to restart the level. I felt that this aspect could really come in handy when trying to recreate the linear (but branching) nature of older Castlevania games in 3D without having to resort to endless backtracking.
That's a really good way of describing MWIV, and I think you're right about its potential as a style for a new Castlevania. I was thinking it would be good to revisit the style of Rondo of Blood, where it's still linear, but with branching paths, where maybe one path is cut off when another is chosen. Truthfully I'd be happy even to get a sequel to Ecclesia, which I guess isn't completely out of the realm of possibility.
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| Pollyanna 3228th Post
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| "Re(4):Re(10):A cesspit of DD" , posted Fri 25 May 02:41
quote:
I was thinking it would be good to revisit the style of Rondo of Blood, where it's still linear, but with branching paths, where maybe one path is cut off when another is chosen. Truthfully I'd be happy even to get a sequel to Ecclesia, which I guess isn't completely out of the realm of possibility.
Rondo is still my all-time favorite, but Ecclesia is totally #2. I've been reasonably satisfied with every "metroidvania", but Ecclesia was the first one that really hit a home run in my opinion. Pity they kind of stopped after they finally got everything right.
Hmmm...I kind of want to play Harmony of Despair now. It's a good quick fix for Castlevania withdrawal.
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Speaking of children, are smaller pawns weaker than bigger?
Larger characters can hold more, but get their stamina back slower.
There are so many things I like about this game, but the fact that most of your time is spent running running running to get from point A to point B sours the entire experience. I need a horse. Maybe there's a more viable teleporting option later? Anything!
I once threw one of my pawns into a fountain. He said "soaked to the bone!" but picked up a bunch of coins while he was in there. Man, I've got that guy whipped.
I wish the pawns would talk about DLC and suggest you buy some, just to rub it in your face THAT MUCH MORE. "Two dollars is but a trifling price!" "Surely, there are more quests to be found on the Playstation Network!" I would have to draw the line at "Have you played Street Figher X Tekken? I heard it's good!" though. That would just take me out of the experience.
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
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| Pollyanna 3232th Post
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| "Re(4):Megaten 4 3DS" , posted Wed 30 May 18:24:
quote:
Speaking of numeral titles, Latest Famitsu reveals Megaten IV 3DS. Guess we were wrong to assume Strange Journey was 4.
And speaking of numbered sequels, it drives me nuts when they do a sequel on a lower-spec system than its predecessor. (KOF 14 will be back on Neo-Geo!)
Still, I realize that Persona is the money maker now and doing a lower-budget SMT on a popular system is a safe (and probably smart) decision. I just hope it isn't an excuse to use the same damned sprites. A sequel they really put their heart into on any system is great, but going lower-spec AND recycling is no good. Still the 3DS has enough momentum now to warrant a little bit of optimism in terms of what they might be putting into the project.
Then again, I don't know why they would announce this so shortly after the Soul Hackers remake and compete with themselves.
Agh...if they have the same sprites, I'm gonna be so sad.
EDIT: On a 100% positive dungeon crawling note, I'm thrilled to see a sequel to Unchained Blades announced! With Uematsu's band doing the soundtrack! YEEEE!
I recommend the first game to any dungeon crawling, Lunar or Grandia fans with a slight masochistic streak, by the way! I think the English 3DS release is coming soon?
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
[this message was edited by Pollyanna on Wed 30 May 18:37] |
| Iggy 9337th Post
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| "Re(5):Megaten 4 3DS" , posted Thu 31 May 03:22
quote:
And speaking of numbered sequels, it drives me nuts when they do a sequel on a lower-spec system than its predecessor. (KOF 14 will be back on Neo-Geo!)
Is the 3DS really that weak? Would it be totally out of question for them to reuse the PS2 models? On the other hand, that might make it difficult to read on a tiny screen... Or maybe have the fight happen like in Sekaijû 4, enemies in 3D, allies off-screen, and regular DQ-like combat like in all games?
Hum...
My biggest gripe is that while Strange Journey was all cute and all, I didn't feel the need of it being on DS (2 screens, touch screen... It could have been on PS1). I'd be sad if the serious, numbered 4 ended up feeling like a cheap port...
On the other hand, if the game allows Mara-sama to jump out of the screen in augmented reality 3D, I'm probably...
... not going to finish that sentence.
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| sfried 784th Post
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| "Re(6):Megaten 4 3DS" , posted Thu 31 May 04:04:
quote:
Is the 3DS really that weak? Would it be totally out of question for them to reuse the PS2 models? On the other hand, that might make it difficult to read on a tiny screen... Or maybe have the fight happen like in Sekaijû 4, enemies in 3D, allies off-screen, and regular DQ-like combat like in all games?
Hum...
Once again, the 3DS is not weak. Play Resident Evil: Relevations or Kid Icarus: Uprising and you'll be surprised at what the system can pull off.
Sekaijû 4 actually has party members appear on-screen while giving commands (like its previous installments, and this is intentional). The very fact some people were nervous about them using polygon enemies shows that there is still love devoted towards great sprite art, abeit a devoted niche.
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My biggest gripe is that while Strange Journey was all cute and all, I didn't feel the need of it being on DS (2 screens, touch screen... It could have been on PS1). I'd be sad if the serious, numbered 4 ended up feeling like a cheap port...
Considering 1st person dungeon crawlers were largely successful on the DS it would make sense, and I do not feel SJ was a "cheap port". It it were on HD systems, I doubt the mainstream would take kindly to the fact that it is in (limited) 1st person view, and would've required more resources to create something to the scale that they would've wanted to convey.
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On the other hand, if the game allows Mara-sama to jump out of the screen in augmented reality 3D, I'm probably...
... not going to finish that sentence.
Well, as if Senran Kagura hasn't put shameless use of the 3D AR yet, I'm sure a Mara the size of Tetsujin 28 wouldn't be at all that surprising.
[this message was edited by sfried on Thu 31 May 04:07] |
| nobinobita 1067th Post
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| "Re(3):Re(10):Megaten 4 3DS" , posted Fri 1 Jun 10:41:
Hehe sorry to come off as a Negative Nelly. (Really! It's kind of embarrassing coming back to some of my posts sometimes)
In my mind the MegaTen games are insperable from Kaneko, in the same way Final Fantasy used to be inseparable from Amano.
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When I think about it, the biggest improvements to SMT and Persona don't seem directly attributed to Kaneko. He's still credited mostly with character and monster design, but the big huge improvements in interface, environment design, and general look and feel seem kind of divorced from him.
As far as I know, Kaneko usually does more than just character design. He's often the art director, and he's usually involved in coming up with the scenario itself.
Here's a quote of his from a great GamaSutra interview:
" I'm involved in the process from the very beginning, figuring out the scenario and all that."
From here:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=9291
quote:
I think Kaneko's artstyle, in general, has evolved over time too. Take these old designs from Soul Hackers, for instance, and compare them with these new ones for the 3DS remake. Of course, you can see some Masayuki Doi(Persona/Catherine artist?) influences in there as well with the shading. Given how every SMT had a distinct look I'm sure this won't be different, but at the same time I would give them some leeway to branch out.
That's a big part of what I look forward to with each new MegaTen. As you've pointed out, Kaneko's style has evolved greatly over time (way back in the day he was very Tetsuo Hara influenced!). I'm constantly looking forward to what he's going to do next.
My main concern with the teaser image on the website is just that I personally don't like how digital speed paintings look. They take a great deal of skill and they're super useful, I just don't like how they end up looking like collages. I doubt the final game will look anything like that though. It's probably there for texture to convey the feeling of a story still in development.
www.art-eater.com
[this message was edited by nobinobita on Fri 1 Jun 10:46] |
| Iggy 9340th Post
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| "MXNRCHYgrrrrrrrrr" , posted Sat 2 Jun 04:49
The demo of Max Anarchy is on the Japanese PSN.
I tried it, it's super fun, super silly, makes Power Stone feel clear and tactical, has a lot of people playing from around the world besides the Japaneseness, has full English available including menus, have you push buttons (possibly too many) until you have the (false) feeling that you're actually playing well when you're just punching through the wall, allow you to slap cyborgs and humiliate a transformer robot with Mathilda, and gets old after an hour.
But if the full version has enough variety, I could see myself repeating that hour every few days.
Oh, there's also a single campaign, and though the brawler part has a nice Finalfightesque feel to it, the writing is so horrible (think Vanquish, NOT Bayonetta) that I'd rather they hadn't bothered with it.
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| Pollyanna 3235th Post
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| "Re(1):Sword and Sworcery" , posted Sat 2 Jun 04:55:
quote:
Finally sat down and played this, after it was released on PC last month.
It's incredibly beautiful and the way the lush audio is matched to what is happening on screen is wonderful. It's quite short, and what gameplay is there might feel too thin, but the other way to look at it is that for less than $9 on Steam you get an awesome soundtrack and a gorgeously drawn and colored interactive experience to go with it.
I love it when people actually take recommendations, so it doesn't feel like you're just gushing to yourself on the internet, so I'll let you know that I purchased the new Humble Indie Bundle thanks to your mention of this game. I haven't played it yet, but when I do, my enjoyment or lack thereof will be completely attributed to you.
EDIT: I don't remember who, but someone recommended Sonic Generations on PC over console. I picked it up for $5 and delighted in 1080p loveliness. This is the Mario Galaxy of Sonic games, I want a sequel and the Chemical Plant theme on flute is too great.
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The demo of Max Anarchy is on the Japanese PSN.
Argh! Beat me to it by like, 5 minutes!
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MGSRRRRrrr is kind of cool.
Who knew that the new Metal Gear would be the new Bayonetta? Though yeah, the frame rate looks a little off.
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But my attention got caught by this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE0E46DumkA Maybe something new now that Gabriel resembles more Vlad, high hopes for gameplay changes involving vampire powers.
I found myself delightfully surprised by this trailer. They kind of "merged" his design with Dracula's very well! The first game was (just) good enough to warrant a trip through it's gorgeous environments, but I hope the sequel has a little more direction in terms of plot and progression.
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
[this message was edited by Pollyanna on Sat 2 Jun 10:25] |
| badoor 274th Post
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| "Re(3):MGSRR" , posted Sat 2 Jun 08:49:
quote:
Konami stuff
For a fiction that's not fantasy based, the Metal Gear universe is shaping up to be pretty well suited for an action game. Usually, the fantastical element allows creators to make up new creatures with varying sizes to fight. But here there's human goons, big regular enemies (Gekkos, military vehicles, and that thing from the 1st trailer), and of course huge bosses like Ray. I'm also glad to see there are stealth and platforming parts too. And Depeche Mode.
The new Kid Dracula trailer looks pretty sweet and I like that I can finally play as the big man. I'm more concerned about the 3DS one since it officially declares the death of IGA's Castlevania run, for better or worse(unless IGA continue's managing the Xbox Live/PSN side of Castlevania). There's barely any details but I hope its good.
EDIT: Sorry Nobi, I was just being facetious. I was talking about about Castlevania Lords of Shadows 2 since it technically has Dracula as the main playable character, I just called it the new Kid Dracula.
[this message was edited by badoor on Sat 2 Jun 19:24] |
| Pollyanna 3235th Post
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| "Re(8):MGSRR" , posted Sun 3 Jun 05:41
quote:
IMHO, it spits in the face of everything I love about CV. But your mileage may vary.
I have a distaste for a title being shopped out to another company and people buying it because they like the original title. By that token, it might even be BETTER if the new title is vastly different than the original, because it allows me to judge it by its own merits easier.
That being said, LoS was indeed a bad Castlevania, but I don't think it was a bad game.(In my opinion) Technical issues aside it was amazing to look at with a thankfully huge bonus gallery of environment designs. The soundtrack was suitably epic, the boss battles were fun enough, the challenge was about right and the battle system was good enough, even if the skills you learn were a bit lopsided (some were hugely overpowered and others were practically useless).
The biggest weak point in the game for me was a lack in direction. It reminds me of old games where every level is completely different and there's no sense of continuity between them. When you ask the question "why am I here?" the only answer is "to beat the bad guys". The problem is, LoS tried to put an overbearing narrative on top of this hodgepodge of locations and it came across as mostly nonsense. This sounds like "it was a good game with a bad plot", but there was a poor sense of progression that permeated the entire game.
This is a bit off subject, but since I mentioned Sonic Generations earlier, I'd like to say that it has an amazing sense of "wordless narrative" in its level design. Things happen in the environment that "tell a story" through the level. You have a "climax". There's a somewhat intangible sense of progression that drives you through each level and the game as a whole. LoS totally doesn't have that.
(On a side note, I probably have an inflated sense of how awesome Sonic Generations is because I skipped all the cinemas immediately.)
quote:
More pix of CVLOSDS: here
The game looks good, but it also looks close enough to Castlevania that my aforementioned bias is creeping in. Like "instead of having the people who make Castlevania make Castlevania, they're having someone else make Castlevania like the people who make Castlevania would make it." On the other hand, if I had never heard of Castlevania, at this point, I think the game looks good enough to possibly stand on its own merits.
Also, agreed about the designs.
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
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| chazumaru 871th Post
Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Re(5):Megaten 4 3DS" , posted Sun 3 Jun 07:49
quote:
And speaking of numbered sequels, it drives me nuts when they do a sequel on a lower-spec system than its predecessor.
What examples exist besides Game Boy sequels to NES games and DQIX?
It doesn't apply to Megaten since 3DS is more advanced than PS2 in many ways. However, Strange Journey used Etrian's engine so the big question is whether Megaten IV ports the Megaten III assets to 3DS or builds on the Etrian 3DS engine. Maybe it somehow does both (since Etrian 3DS has polygon models for monsters).
>>Speaking of PS2 assets
I think 3DS is really benefiting from being the third home of Japanese PS2 assets following PS2 and PSP. That alone might have helped a lot regarding the Monster Hunter decision.
>>Speaking of Etrian's engine
I would assume Soul Hackers is already using the Etrian 3DS engine. I also think it would have been smarter to release Soul Hackers after Megaten IV... Which leads me to:
quote:
Then again, I don't know why they would announce this so shortly after the Soul Hackers remake and compete with themselves.
Clearly Soul Hackers is much closer to completion than Megaten IV, so Atlus is thinking that announcing Megaten IV now is somehow helping Etrian 4 and Soul Hackers.
One possibility is that they are afraid their fans might sell their 3DS in order to get a Vita for P4G. Such behavior might damage the sales of EO4 and SH (and eventually SMT4). By announcing SMT4 now, they make sure that Atlus fans comit to 3DS. It might even be a hint at more support for 3DS in the future.
However, I don't think they fear so much about P4G competing with their own efforts. It seems there is a divide between the old-school Atlus fanbase and the current Persona fanbase. I think the divide has widen with the PSP/DS era. Atlus found a new audience on Nintendo machines with Etrian, which must have connected strongly with oldschool Atlus fans since the game is much closer to the early Megaten and Devil Summoner.
And obviously, Atlus found a new teenage audience with Soejima's Persona games, as demonstrated by the disappointing(?) sales of the Persona 1&2 remakes compared to the sales of P3P.
I think Atlus is hoping to completely merge the Etrian and original Megaten audiences in order to have two strong fanbases: one for Nintendo and one for Sony. This is pretty much what they were doing with Devil Summoner and Persona during the SS/PS1 era.
At a later point, if the 3DS is a clear winner against Vita, they might bring Persona handheld games to 3DS, the same way they brought Soul Hackers to PS1 once SegaSaturn was sailing away.
If you were reading Famitsu in the late 90s, you might remember that the Soul Hackers PS1 ad was already hinting at the existence of a speficic Persona audience. The ad spread over two pages. On one page, Atlus urged existing Megaten/DS fans (SFC/Saturn owners) to get the definitive version of Soul Hackers on PS1. On the other page, the ad explained that if you discovered the world of Atlus with Persona (on PS1), you would really enjoy this game as well. I think it goes beyond the issues of sales; Atlus sees Persona as a very important series to capture new fans among teenagers.
This is probably why they are being careful and slow before Persona 5, the game that will have to capture a new generation of teenage fans after 1+2 on PS1 and 3+4 on PS2. They need to make sure they understand where the biggest potential new fanbase is currently sitting, also taking into account the international fanbase.
So, if the announcement has nothing to do with P4G, it might be that Atlus fears not enough Atlus fans have transitioned from DS to 3DS, or that retailers have told Atlus they are worried fans might not have transitioned (which means the retailers will order less copies of Etrian 4).
By revealing the existence of SMT4, Atlus are now promoting three potential games for their fans to buy on the 3DS: Etrian 4, Soul Hackers and SMT4. This might help convince some fans to already plunge for 3DS with Etrian 4 and convince some retailers that the fanbase will be there when Etrian 4 comes in stores.
/My two cents.
無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は
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| sibarraz 435th Post
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| "Re(6):Megaten 4 3DS" , posted Sun 3 Jun 09:22
quote:
And speaking of numbered sequels, it drives me nuts when they do a sequel on a lower-spec system than its predecessor.
What examples exist besides Game Boy sequels to NES games and DQIX?
It doesn't apply to Megaten since 3DS is more advanced than PS2 in many ways. However, Strange Journey used Etrian's engine so the big question is whether Megaten IV ports the Megaten III assets to 3DS or builds on the Etrian 3DS engine. Maybe it somehow does both (since Etrian 3DS has polygon models for monsters).
>>Speaking of PS2 assets
I think 3DS is really benefiting from being the third home of Japanese PS2 assets following PS2 and PSP. That alone might have helped a lot regarding the Monster Hunter decision.
>>Speaking of Etrian's engine
I would assume Soul Hackers is already using the Etrian 3DS engine. I also think it would have been smarter to release Soul Hackers after Megaten IV... Which leads me to:
Then again, I don't know why they would announce this so shortly after the Soul Hackers remake and compete with themselves.
Clearly Soul Hackers is much closer to completion than Megaten IV, so Atlus is thinking that announcing Megaten IV now is somehow helping Etrian 4 and Soul Hackers.
One possibility is that they are afraid their fans might sell their 3DS in order to get a Vita for P4G. Such behavior might damage the sales of EO4 and SH (and eventually SMT4). By announcing SMT4 now, they make sure that Atlus f
-- Message too long, Autoquote has been Snipped --
Speaking of newer ''atlus rpg '' fans I found myself interested this last month in trying the persona series thanks to P4A
My biggest problem is that my time in college plus fighting games and other interests don't let me a lot of time to play all the personas, are necessary to play the 4 to understand the whole series or missing a masterpiece?
At least I got persona 1 for my psp and at first was fun, but the problem is that maybe I will son had to sell the console since I need the money
The one that I more interested is persona 4, and with a friend we were thinking on buying persona 3 fes for ps3 but 100 hours is a lot for me more considering that each game maybe has that amount of time.
So yeah, any advice? Which one should I play
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| Pollyanna 3236th Post
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(2):Re(10):Megaten 4 3DS" , posted Sun 3 Jun 12:46
Sort of sleepy. Sorry if I forgot something or none of this makes any sense.
quote:
What examples exist besides Game Boy sequels to NES games and DQIX?
You really got me thinking about this, and when it comes to numbered sequels, I think you're right. Excluding the yet-to-be-released MH4 and SMT4, we've got... Ys7? Parasite Eve 3 was on a portable system, but it was still a (technical) upgrade. Super Robot Wars Z was moved to PSP, but looks better anyway. Then you have games like Kingdom Hearts that are stuck in portable game non-sequel limbo and titles like Monster Hunter that beg for a real HD followup.
Still, I think I've been blinded by my bias against portable releases and said something wrong, all the same.
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I think 3DS is really benefiting from being the third home of Japanese PS2 assets following PS2 and PSP. That alone might have helped a lot regarding the Monster Hunter decision.
Ugh. I groan about every MH game not stepping forward enough, but I end up delightfully surprised each time. I think that good will might be running out, but we'll see once we get some more info on 4...
Capcom and Atlus are both quite good with their recycled assets.
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By revealing the existence of SMT4, Atlus are now promoting three potential games for their fans to buy on the 3DS: Etrian 4, Soul Hackers and SMT4. This might help convince some fans to already plunge for 3DS with Etrian 4 and convince some retailers that the fanbase will be there when Etrian 4 comes in stores.
I forgot that Etrian 4 was Atlus. This is a pretty sensible perspective.
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Persona 4 is universally seen as a much better game than Persona 3 in terms of system and interface. However, I heard Persona 3 Portable on PSP fixes a lot of issues people were complaining about in the PS2 version(s). I think someone here (Pollyanna?) confirmed such claims.
I've heard the same, but I haven't actually played P3P myself. The problems I had with the game stretch far beyond little gameplay annoyances.
80 Hours was my experience, with the "true" ending. I think I came in a little shorter than that. The game is too long. Not because it's 80 hours, but because it lacks the strength to support 80 hours. It doesn't take long before all the bosses are strong to all the elements and most of the cast has already finished their character development. Most of them have strong intros then just "hang out" for the rest of the game, vs Innocent Sin, which had the characters working out their problems to the very end.
If the game itself looks like something you want to spend hours and hours with, check it out, but otherwise, just watch the anime and save 65 hours of your life.
I have a lot of negative things to say about P4, but the characters have stuck with me (unlike P3), so I'm looking forward to the fighter for sure.
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
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| karasu99 940th Post
PSN: robotchris
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Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Re(10):LOS2: This time it's personal" , posted Tue 5 Jun 06:38
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I had read lots of critics saying that doesn't feel like a castlevania, and other thar said that the game is amazing
I am pretty sure not a single journalist has played the game except Nintendo Power. They had the worldwide exclusive deal. Everyone else will discover the game this weekend in LA. You should rather wait for E3 to get credible/reliable impressions.
Im refering to the game that kojima worked, not the one that will be released next year
Like Polly said is a good game, but don't expect a Castlevania one. It has strong points but the flavour and design are nothing like the original series. It stands alone as a gothic-dark medieval action game (think about a god of war with combo and magic to unlock via exp.points) and it's pretty well done. I like it, despite the fact I hate it's called Castlevania and don't consider it as part of the series but more a spinoff (or a game "inspired by") with eastern wibe.
I'm pretty soft on the game myself. I originally loved it as a game but not so much as a Castlevania. Then I felt it wasn't particularly fun for most of the game, so I started to dislike it. Then I beat it and realized I liked it for storytelling and a few of the boss battles, but not for the general fighting, but that overall I pretty much enjoyed it. Like Polly says: just good enough to be interested in a sequel.
It's much better than the N64 and PS2 3D Castlevanias, and I think the developers clearly cared for the material, but as a 3D action 'platformer' (as far as I can recall there's not a whole lot of platforming, actually...) it's only average.
I think the trailer looks pretty nice. I'll probably buy it since: Hey, Castlevania! I can't help myself.
Actually, I haven't played the DLC at all for LOS1-- the punchline has been spoiled for me quite a while ago though. Does anyone recommend I check it out?
Say, I know Anarchy Reigns has been discussed a bit, but I finally got around to the demo this past weekend and LOVED it. I'm glad Platinum has really made something incredible again! Bayonetta is one of my favorite games of the past decade, but then I was let down by Vanquish, sadly. I've already played at least $20 worth of game in Anarchy Reigns' free demo, so I'm anxious to see how great the full game ends up being.
So does anyone know what the deal is with the release date being un-set? The great unwashed over at some off-brand boards seem to think that it had something to do with Sega's impending release of Jet Set Radio HD (and that once it gets released, the date will be set again for AR), but that doesn't make any sense. I'm sure someone here at the Cafe has some insight!
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| Pollyanna 3238th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(5):Re(10):Megaten 4 3DS" , posted Tue 5 Jun 07:05
quote:
Well the anime is a true reflex of the game? So I would get the true ending with it?
I heard that the anime wasn't that good, but well, saving the time from my life sounds better, specially with tons of other games that I had yet to play like mgs4 or sotc hd
I think they're saving the "true ending" (which is more like just...a continuation) for the upcoming movie. I wouldn't say the anime is exceptional, but it is very close to the game. I only watched 3 random episodes and they were all exactly like the game. If you're mostly just interested in getting into Person to increase your enjoyment of the fighter, you can watch a few episodes and see how you like it.
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It's much better than the N64 and PS2 3D Castlevanias
Apples to apples, this is very true.
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Anarchy Reigns
I'm hoping for a release date at E3. If not, I'll probably just import it. I didn't bother raving about the demo, because I love God Hand and I love Platinum so much that it's like...it goes without saying. Even playing the demo felt like a formality. I was excited to see how tricky some of the players on the multiplayer mode had gotten already. As I got my face pounded in I thought "thank you for showing me how great this game is". That's not even a joke.
What didn't you like about Vanquish? I admit that it didn't sing to me in particular (I wasn't interested in the characters or the world or anything), but I thought it was an outstanding action game.
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
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| karasu99 942th Post
PSN: robotchris
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Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Re(6):Re(10):Megaten 4 3DS" , posted Tue 5 Jun 07:34:
quote:
Anarchy Reigns
I'm hoping for a release date at E3. If not, I'll probably just import it. I didn't bother raving about the demo, because I love God Hand and I love Platinum so much that it's like...it goes without saying. Even playing the demo felt like a formality. I was excited to see how tricky some of the players on the multiplayer mode had gotten already. As I got my face pounded in I thought "thank you for showing me how great this game is". That's not even a joke.
I just can't remember being quite so delighted with a game in a long time. It just feels right to play, all around. It's got great environmental dangers, nice-lloking character designs AND models, the multiplayer is fun, and the single player is fun too. Best of all the fighting engine is just spot-on. You're probably right about an E3 announcement, but yeah, I'll definitely import too if it ends up being dated months off or not at all.
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What didn't you like about Vanquish? I admit that it didn't sing to me in particular (I wasn't interested in the characters or the world or anything), but I thought it was an outstanding action game.
Well, it looked great and the aesthetic was really cool, I thought, but I just found playing it to be frustrating. I should explain that I hardly ever play first or third person shooters at all, so things like targeting and using cover are completely foreign to me, so it's possible that if I gave it more time or energy I would like it more. I just got past the point of where the demo ended and found myself to be in way over my head difficulty and control wise, so I gave up. Normally I would have passed on a shooter like this, but I was fresh off playing Bayonetta through like 6 times, so I thought "it's Platinum, I'll love it, even if I don't like the genre".
I may play it again sometime, since I've played a few shooters since then with some degree of success, and maybe just swallow my pride and ratchet the difficulty back to easy or something.
May I ask what you enjoyed about it? As in, what made it an outstanding action game?
EDIT: The new Devil May Cry trailer really bugged me; it seems neither well written nor 'funny ironic', and I'm not sure who watches it and finds Dante or the masked dude with the 'anonymous voice' to be cool or engaging. If I do end up getting the game someday, here's hoping the cut scenes are skippable!
www.secret-arts.com
[this message was edited by karasu99 on Tue 5 Jun 08:36] |
| Pollyanna 3239th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(7):Re(10):Megaten 4 3DS" , posted Tue 5 Jun 09:01
quote:
The new Devil May Cry trailer really bugged me; it seems neither well written nor 'funny ironic', and I'm not sure who watches it and finds Dante or the masked dude with the 'anonymous voice' to be cool or engaging. If I do end up getting the game someday, here's hoping the cut scenes are skippable!
It was so embarrassing for me (and not in the usual DMC way, which is admittedly pretty embarrassing) that I had to turn the volume down for fear of anyone catching me watching it. The environments look pretty incredible, though, so I'm not writing the game off entirely.
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May I ask what you enjoyed about it? As in, what made it an outstanding action game?
If I had to pick the one thing I liked best about the game, it's that you have a sense of progression as a player outside of what the game presents. Uh...that sounds weird, but what I mean is that in most games these days, your character levels up. You get more and more cool moves and weapons as the game progresses. Vanquish isn't like that. Instead, you have a huge amount of options at your disposal from the get-go...you just don't know how to use them yet. As I went through the game, I found myself doing more and more cool moves and using more and more advanced strategies against the enemies, simply because I had more personal experience. The game encourages creative use of your resources in such a way that there's a natural progression for the player instead of a forced one. Getting a new weapon or move in a game is fun, but doing something new and cool because you figured it out is arguably more rewarding.
I don't mean to complain about the usual leveling system in games, it's just that I found this especially well-done. If you play through the game (or a stage) again, you'll have a completely different feel for it. You'll see solutions that were previously invisible in situations that were difficult before. The way that the stages are so nicely broken up also makes replaying enjoyable. It reminded me of a classic action game in that respect.
Anyway, I think the fact that the game throws all of its systems at you at once may be a contributing factor to your relative dislike for it. If you don't have any 3rd person shooter experience, you might not have progressed as quickly as you'd liked.
On a side note, there are plenty of things about Gears of War that ruined GoW for me, but I think Vanquish did the best job. (Although to be fair, GoW has fantastic multiplayer options, which Vanquish is 100% lacking in)
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
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| karasu99 943th Post
PSN: robotchris
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Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Re(7):Re(10):Megaten 4 3DS" , posted Tue 5 Jun 12:07:
quote:
Polly's Vanquish talk
I think you really hit my issue with the game on the head. Really early on in the game it became not impossible to progress, but hard enough that it was frustrating, so I eventually gave up.
But your point about getting better at the game makes perfect sense too-- after playing the demo a few times, I was able to breeze like crazy through the demo portions of the early game before I hit a wall.
Maybe I do need to revisit it. It's an absolutely gorgeous game, from the HUD design to the menus to the enemy designs.
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It's much better than the N64 and PS2 3D Castlevanias
Apples to apples, this is very true.
Sudden interjection! While I'd agree it's a "technically better" game, as it was certainly more fun to play and... well, better designed... I really don't even think of LoS as a Castlevania game at all.
Considering the lead apparently even looked like Kratos earlier in development and it was not at one point a Castlevania game....
Definitely, I agree wholeheartedly! LOS is a fun game, but it's clearly a weird and not exactly good fit for the franchise. You're right though, I should be clear: the N64 and PS2 games are better examples of the franchise, but LOS is a much better game taken simply as a game.
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The general "generic-ness" of it ended up really boring me... but I did everything in it anyway. Dunno if I'll bother with any more in the series yet; Maybe I will if they actually put some interesting things in it rather than jamming it full of "lycans" (I absolutely hate this term... just call them werewolves, for fuck's sake!) and boring ol' nosferatu type vamps again. C'mon, where's some of that fun enemy design of yesteryear? I think Juan had the privilege of getting to listen to me gripe my way through the game, if I remember. To be fair, I liked the Castle more than any of the other parts of the game; it featured all of the few parts I thought were actually interesting. I wish the whole game was there instead of Middle Earth.
Edit: Climbing around and QTEs are both quite boring.
No, no, I agree totally, on all counts! And I think the environments, the character models, and the designs only share a supernatural theme with the Castlevania franchise in general.
There were a few things I liked, like the griminess, the level-up engine, the basic feel of playing the game, and the basic separation of regions (this reminds me a lot of the themed levels of some of the older games). But none of these things contribute appreciably to this being a Castlevania game.
Oh, and QTEs and climbing around-- I thought the climbing parts were okay, but yow, QTEs are too often excuses for lazy game engine implementation, or forcing cinematics. I can't remember quite how bad it was in LOS although I suspect it wasn't fantastic.
www.secret-arts.com
[this message was edited by karasu99 on Tue 5 Jun 12:14] |
| karasu99 945th Post
PSN: robotchris
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Wii: n/a
Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Re(1):There's going to be a new Hokuto Musou!" , posted Wed 6 Jun 04:01:
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What a relief!
Now I just have to wait until they deny this one a disc release in the US too...
Well! That's unexpectedly great news! Hopefully they'll let you move a little bit faster than in the first game!
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It was so embarrassing for me (and not in the usual DMC way, which is admittedly pretty embarrassing) that I had to turn the volume down for fear of anyone catching me watching it. The environments look pretty incredible, though, so I'm not writing the game off entirely.
Some friends and I watched the trailer again last night and... wow, it's just cringe-inducing in so many ways! It wasn't even cheesy-funny.
I agree, the actual gameplay looks amazing so I may end up getting it, especially if there's a Japanese language option so I can fool myself into believing that the writing and voice acting ISN'T completely ridiculous. Who exactly are they targeting with the whole Dante character in this?
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Again, why not an "Igavania" with Hagiwara Tooru, who actually made the one "Igavania" that was impressive on its own merits, aside from the newest one from what I hear? Where did this guy go? I realize that after two Dracula X games, each a perfect example of their respective genres, you might feel like you had done all you wanted to do, but...
How many times can I edit one post because I lost my train of thought and missed commenting on something? I think it's pretty funny that while folks (like me) love the original CV games, those two are kind of the focal point, and were followed by not-exactly-awful-but-nothing-special portable sequels, so maybe you're right! As for Hagiwara Tooru, he seems like a ghostly figure, at least as far as English languages sources, go. Did he ever do anything else?
www.secret-arts.com
[this message was edited by karasu99 on Wed 6 Jun 04:36] |
| Pollyanna 3240th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(1):Agni's Philosophy" , posted Fri 8 Jun 08:00
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This real-time tech demo has me more intrigued and impressed than anything Square has done in a while.
Although this looks nice (Square has THAT in the bag at least), I feel like it's the start of a new, vicious cycle, where Square bites off more than they can chew and releases a pretty,but incomplete game. They need to shorten their development times and release a well-rounded game more than they need something conceptually and visually stunning.
On a positive note that gives me hope for their future, they've turned around Final Fantasy 14 quite splendidly. When it launched, it was easily the worst game I'd ever played and an outright insult to the people who bought it. It was at least a year away from being ready for beta and they were expecting people to pay for it. Since then, or rather, since it got its new director, every step has been a step in the right direction and the new content has not only been fun, but also feels like "Final Fantasy". I hope people are willing to give it a second chance when 2.0 comes out, because I honestly believe it'll be something special by then. Looking at their new screencaps, I can feel the developers desire to make it "worthy of being a numbered title."
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| Nekros 467th Post
Gold Customer
| "Re(3):Agni's Philosophy" , posted Sat 9 Jun 07:59
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That the incredible sleek city is only shown from a distance and at the very end, without ever being hinted at earlier in the trailer really fired my imagination.
A lot of themes present in FF7 (the last FF game I enjoyed in every aspect). I particulary appreciate the magic/science approach: the people of the slums use magic arts that -presumibly- are performed secretly and represents something that's forbidden. The ritual in fact is more reminiscent of the following of an arcane cult (the hoods and the secrecy) than the canon magic usage in the series. And it's used to summon a beast from a bunch of insects (btw, a manifestation of the demon Beelzebub in the "real" high magic rituals), both the process and the creature itself are creepier than the classic summoning in the series (green globes, fancy evocation circles, etc.). The technology is used to stop the wizards, the squad never uses magic or esp powers in any form but gunfire and mutant beasts (Parasite Eve quote I suppose). This remindend me A LOT of a darker FF7 setting: a world where magic is a forbidden art and science controls the knowledge. In FF7 Shinra never uses magic in favour of mechs, guns, b.o.w.s and Mako draining: even the soldiers are inbued with the mako energy and Jenova cells rather than use materia that contains magic essence.
It was a very intrguing and unique setting at the time and fused both aspects of sci-fi and epic fantasy, but in a way so gritty and gloomy and dirt as only a product of the 90s could have been. Another setting I loved as much as FF7's was the Panzer Dragoon one: again sci-fi crossed with a culture similar to the anciet Jews or the Imuhagh.
Ok, Agni's Philosophy has a glimpse on both, I can't ignore this.
On the name Agni: If I'm not wrong is the deity for sun, fire and lightning but in the demo is the name of the girl, not the summon. The word also means "fire" so it's ok with a FF protagonits. Usually they tend to have English names of elements or natural phenomena. Exceptions are Terra and Noctis; both from latin, and Tidus that is a way to say tide I presume*), so Agni for this girl is not a bad choice considering the India thing you mentioned.
*and also an ass of a character! :P Curious is that in the Japanese version is called Tiida, wich is Okinawa dialect for "sun".
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| Pollyanna 3244th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(6):Agni's Philosophy" , posted Mon 18 Jun 07:29
quote:
3. It finally dawned on me that instead of boring people by talking about Dragon's Dogma I could annoy them by posting screenshots instead.
I had something..uh..."fun" happen the other day. I got a pawn named "Zombie." Big guy, heavy armor. He kept complaining about how "he'd had enough fighting." I couldn't figure out why, but I was doing JUST TERRIBLE when he was on the team. Finally, a friend said, "hey, does Zombie have a weapon?." He didn't. He just walked around, avoiding conflict and occasionally complaining. He looked so tough, though! I'm torn. On one hand, I feel stupid for missing something so obvious, but on the other hand, I can't really blame myself for expecting that the pawns will be CAPABLE of fighting.
I'm glad you're enjoying the game a lot. It has too many frustrations for me to love it, but when it's good, it's really good.
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| Iggy 9341th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(1):Random News Thread Silent Spring Editio" , posted Tue 19 Jun 08:24
Speaking of importing, Tokyo Jungle is just not very good: full of bugs, very repetitive, one tiny map, all the animals play along the same two archetypes (no gimmick like the elephant using its trunk, the kangaroo jumping super high... They will just play almost like the deer and the chicken).
That is, until you notice the game is never meant to be realistic, but is instead a very old school arcade game: one tiny map, survive as long as possible while the environment becomes more and more hostile, follow the random events that give you extra stats when you follow them... I just played 3 hours straight just with the first animals, and after the initial disappointment (not too sharp: my expectations were very low from the start), I started enjoying far too much for my own good.
But god what have they been doing for the last two years, I just do not know. The game looks the same as in 2010. And I can tell you they definitely didn't spend that time on the debug.
I believe that like Max Anarchy, it's a great game to play in little, short sessions every now and then, you laugh, you unlock one or two new animals, then you forget about the game for a couple of days and you go back to it.
All in all, very few games allows you to kill stray cats with a deer, then run away from hungry dogs into a giant tiger that eat your brother while throwing you in a lake where an alligator tries to eat you alive until the dogs fall into the lake as well and the alligator attacks them allowing you to survive and run to shelter where you savagely mate with a flee-ridden low-level female.
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| karasu99 951th Post
PSN: robotchris
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Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Re(3):Anarchy Waits and waits" , posted Tue 19 Jun 09:00
quote:
So Sega of America doesn't want my money after all. Good to know. To be fair, I don't think Sega of America has wanted anybody's money since at least 1995, when they surprise-launched the Saturn with no games and then fought mightily to make sure that 89% of its fantastic library of games never left Japan. Some lunatic who wanted to "make money" appeared briefly and launched the Dreamcast with Soul Calibur, but he must have been promptly obliterated.
The poor, dumb bastard! Money? Hah!
Well, at least this silly delay will ensure that I give my money to Sega of Japan instead; at least I feel like those guys have at least some of our best interests in mind.
Wow, but Q1 2013? Part of me wants to believe it's just a dumb joke. At that point, why even bother releasing it?
In other 2013 news, I've been seeing tons of ads on television of for the upcoming God of War game, that's coming out real soon-- as in March 2013, only 9 months from now. They're super effective ads too-- no images of the game are shown, and a disclaimer even states that the box art is preliminary and may change, BUT they sure do spend some time telling the viewer about the DLC pack you'll get if you preorder. Is the game being designed around said DLC? Not that God of War games are typically 'designed', but... you know what I mean 
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| Pollyanna 3245th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(4):Anarchy Waits and waits" , posted Tue 19 Jun 11:34
quote:
Has any reason been given as to why the US version of Max Anarchy has been delayed?
I was going to say "Well, there are a lot of fighting games coming out", which just barely made sense, but MA would still come out faster than them, so that makes even less sense. I can only assume they don't want to compete with...something.
Speaking of which, I don't know how Capcom expects players to show any continued interest in SFxT, but I'm curious to see if they'll pull something in terms of system changes.
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If there's anyone out there giving awards for video game lighting DD should take top prize.
Sometimes I like being in the dark just to be in the dark. I'm a big fan of the soundtrack and the battle animations as well. Very "Monster Hunter." Actually, I hope they can take a lot from this game for future MH titles. The way that the fights unravel has a sort of "narrative" to it. It's never just "hit this until it's dead." That's the way I felt when I first played MH, though it's become sort of mundane now. DD brings back that feeling...and a wonderful feeling of "adventure".
But damn do I ever hate long treks (in just about any game). That's a massive pet peeve of mine, so I can only enjoy DD so much. I have to tell myself that grunt enemies are the best way to level my job and that I'm not actually wasting time.
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Speaking of importing, Tokyo Jungle is just not very good: full of bugs, very repetitive, one tiny map, all the animals play along the same two archetypes (no gimmick like the elephant using its trunk, the kangaroo jumping super high... They will just play almost like the deer and the chicken).
I think this is going to be a cheaper DL title internationally (?)...which sounds like a good place for it. Your endorsement (or lack thereof) makes it sound like it's worth playing, but not importing.
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
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| Nekros 469th Post
Gold Customer
| "Re(5):Anarchy Waits and waits" , posted Tue 19 Jun 17:42
quote:
Speaking of which, I don't know how Capcom expects players to show any continued interest in SFxT, but I'm curious to see if they'll pull something in terms of system changes.
With exception of the mission mode, the offline modes are quite boring. The online if not filled with bugs, could be fine, but I think was going too optimistic in the beginning with this title. Gameplay with gems is simply stupid, too advantages for some characters (Hugo, shotos, Kazuya), link moves are a good thing but requires too much on reflexes than actual timing. Also disappointed by the soundtrack, a game like this has to be filled with good remixes. Overall I can't say it's a bad game, I think Capcom's are not my kind of fighters anymore. I enjoyed spending two hours on online Virtua Fighter 5 FS more that my total 6 hours on SFxT.
Side note: I played Zero2 and Vampire Savior a couple of nights ago, they actually play like NOTHING of the modern Capcom fighters. They feel more cohesive and harmonic, I can't say otherwise.
By the way, about Ono's health: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-06-11-the-rise-and-collapse-of-yoshinori-ono He simply burned himslef out because of Capcom, apparently.
PS: Tokyo Jungle is not conceived as a DD title; in Japan it got a retail release.
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| Iggy 9343th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(5):Anarchy Waits and waits" , posted Tue 19 Jun 19:23:
I think Ishmael is right with the D3 idea... It's really the same kind of guilty pleasure.
And wow about the 4Go computer. You'd think with the money Sony spent on the marketing plan, they'd have invested at least some of it on better hardware, especially if the team was very small...
quote:
I think this is going to be a cheaper DL title internationally (?)...which sounds like a good place for it.
While it's definitely for the best, as this game is really just an old-school scoring type arcade game, releasing it via DL will rob the US of the per-shop exclusive DLC. While it's usually more annoying than anything else, this time, asking yourself "should I buy it in this shop to play as the Alligator, or that shop to play as the kangaroo, or that shop to play as the sabre-toothed tiger?" was part of the fun.
(It is quite cheap in Japan as well, I got mine for 3900 yens? So it's already almost priced like a Simple Series).
Oh, and back to Max Anarchy: Inaba just said they had no information on why the game was pushed back; as far as they're concerned, the development ended, the game will be released in Japan at the set date, and there are no talk about altering the content for the western release in any way. And since the Japanese version will have native customisable EFIS (no German, for a reason) and Bayo as a preorder...
I'm more worried that the game being pushed back will limit the player base too much, and playing an online game only with Japanese players or importers is not going to allow much play...
[this message was edited by Iggy on Tue 19 Jun 19:44] |
| karasu99 952th Post
PSN: robotchris
XBL: robotchris
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Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Re(6):Anarchy Waits and waits" , posted Wed 20 Jun 12:40
quote:
Oh, and back to Max Anarchy: Inaba just said they had no information on why the game was pushed back; as far as they're concerned, the development ended, the game will be released in Japan at the set date, and there are no talk about altering the content for the western release in any way. And since the Japanese version will have native customisable EFIS (no German, for a reason) and Bayo as a preorder...
It's pretty funny that almost all of the quotes from Platinum have essentially been "We have no idea why it was delayed, the game is finished. Oh and by the way, the Japanese version is region free on X360 and PS3 and has English menus." I'm not sure I've seen a developer other than Cave pretty much telling everyone to go buy the import version.
I'm torn, honestly. It's expensive to import these days, so I'll have to give it some thought as to whether or not I'll import it, as good as it is. Maybe if they confirm that the Bayonetta DLC will be a pack-in code for preorders or something. Dunno.
www.secret-arts.com
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| Pollyanna 3246th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(1):Random Lollipop Chainsaw" , posted Sat 23 Jun 16:01
quote:
Lollipop Chainsaw
I usually preorder a game if I want it at all, but after Shadows of the Damned and No More Heroes 2, I felt like I'd be better of waiting for the price to drop. I don't consider relative shortness to be a bad thing (better than stretching a game too thin), but that does encourage me to wait for a sale, when I already have other games to play, and I'm highly unlikely to play Lollipop Chainsaw more than once.
Anyway, thanks for the write up. I hope Suda can make a 100% awesome game someday, rather than more 66.6% awesome ones, tainted by budget or polish issues.
quote:
3DS LL/XL
The bigger screen is exciting, and the size isn't a deterrent, since it's not like I'd ever be putting the thing in my pocket anyway. My concern is that the 3DS was built for a smaller screen and thus, looks best on a smaller screen. If there's any loss of sharpness in the transfer, then the original might still be the better choice. I'm sure there will be exhaustive comparisons made when it's released, any way around.
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
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| Maou 2363th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Ninja Burger in my taxi" , posted Sun 24 Jun 02:54:
quote:
In other news Team Ninja declares that Ninja Burgers are off the menu.
Phew! Ishmael had me scared for a minute that my fast food venue of choice since 1999 had gone out of busines!
In seriousness, though, that's actually a very important article that points to a lot of the problems in big-budget Japanese design these days. It turns out that you will never succeed in making a Western shooter that is better than a Western shooter, so you're probably better bringing your own aesthetic and style (cultural or personal) to the table. People have forgotten since the first Xbox came out and American publishers actually started making good games on consoles instead of just PC's, but it turns out that for about three or four generations of consoles, tons of Americans bought games in spite of---or maybe because of---the Japanese style. quote:
Finally, my dream of driving a Japanese taxi (competitively) will be reality! Seriously though, how is it I aways want so badly to play the mini games in Ryu ga Gotoku games?
Why, because it is the One True Successor to dear beloved Shenmue! All I want to do is buy gachapon capsule toys and go to the arcade all day (in the game). My group's biggest collective regret was that no matter how many times we exchanged it, we could never get a copy of Shenmue with a working Disc 3 and thus never got to join the ranks of the truly competitive forklift racers.
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 Sun 24 Jun 03:00] |
| Loona 595th Post
PSN: IkariLoona
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New Red Carpet Member
| "Re(1):MAX ANARCHY" , posted Mon 25 Jun 18:28:
quote:
The game emphasizes how ridiculously strong you are rather than how much pain you're causing other people.
That's an interesting distinction to make - can you elaborate?
Edit: Oh, right: To celebrate a decade online and being the most profitable Final Fantasy, FFXI is getting another expansion, complete with a new continent nad new Geomancer and Rune Fencer jobs (the latter finally using great swords as a primary weapon, an odd oversight so far). Vanafest also mentioned some features about the new expansion that makes it feel like Colonization, and some play-as-a-monster PvP mode.
Also, Hiromichi Tanaka is leaving SE, which has been something as a cause for celebration for many FFXI players, as the man's usually held responsible for some of the more grindy and frustration features of the game, not to mention the original form of XIV - which kinda fits his background as one of the people behind FF2 (where apparently getting your characters to spend battles hitting each other was an optimal strategy) and FF3 (huge final dungeon with no save points and a boss that requires a very specific party setup).
"Beat the machine that works in your head!" - Guano Apes "Open Your Eyes"
[this message was edited by Loona on Tue 26 Jun 00:08] |
| Pollyanna 3247th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(1):MAX ANARCHY" , posted Fri 29 Jun 09:18
quote:
IT FEELS LIKE A VIDEOGAME. XD XD XD
Recently, playing Sonic Generations gave me a similar experience. On one of the classic Sonic levels, I said "This is good videogames, dude."
Anyway, Max Anarchy is happily preordered. The wait has been long enough, and Platinum certainly seemed to deliver well enough to warrant the price.
quote:
Speaking of development and the SE links Loona supplied earlier, SE announced that they are going to avoid large scale in-house development after FFXIII-2
XIII-2 itself was partially outsourced. Square can't finish their games, so hopefully this will be a good turn for them.
I normally call BS when people talk about how far behind Japanese games are, but lately so many games have been shipped in a "good enough" state that it's embarrassing. I hate this self-defacing "oh, we're so many years behind the west" combined with the stupidly arrogant release of an unfinished game.
quote:
Dragon's Dogma again
I still think this game deserves many of the nasty things reviewers have said about it, but beating one of the roaming dragons last night at a reasonably low level (30) became an instant "all time favorite video game moment." The monsters and characters in this game are so alive (when they're fighting)! It really makes for some outstanding boss battles. I hope Capcom can bring this exact experience to another game, preferably with multiplayer.
Real pity about the world, though. Since your hero can't talk whatsoever and the pawns never interact with anyone but you, pretty much all the characters in the game don't have anyone to talk to. They can kind of talk AT you or talk at the air, but it's kind of hard to develop anything interesting that way. It's like Dragon Quest 1 or something. I don't know if Capcom stupidly thought western games were actually like this or if they were just plain stupid.
A fantastic side-effect of this sloppiness is that the women of the world all treat my 14 year old girl character like an attractive adult man.
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
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| Ishmael 4406th Post
PSN: Ishmael26b
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| "Re(3):MAX ANARCHY" , posted Tue 3 Jul 22:13
quote:
Real pity about the world, though. Since your hero can't talk whatsoever and the pawns never interact with anyone but you, pretty much all the characters in the game don't have anyone to talk to. They can kind of talk AT you or talk at the air, but it's kind of hard to develop anything interesting that way. It's like Dragon Quest 1 or something. I don't know if Capcom stupidly thought western games were actually like this or if they were just plain stupid.
Demon's Souls also had a mute protagonist and only a few characters you could interact with; just curious, but do you feel that approach was more successful in DS than it is in DD?
quote:
A fantastic side-effect of this sloppiness is that the women of the world all treat my 14 year old girl character like an attractive adult man.
I had been wondering what would happen if you picked a female lead. It seems that DD, like most games, managed to totally half-ass it. Now I want to switch the bodies on my pawn and main character just to see if anyone in the game notices the difference.
quote:
There's also this puzzling thing from Namco, not to be confused with this one.
It looks like this game is going to feature mollusks, dried fruit and aquariums. I have no idea what is going on but I want to play it already.
In adaptation news, Gackt is going to play Nobunaga. Sure, why not?
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| Loona 597th Post
PSN: IkariLoona
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New Red Carpet Member
| "Re(4):Icy Penguigo" , posted Wed 4 Jul 02:19
quote:
Wow, thanks for posting that link! Captain Commando is so old and so niche, that I never thought its manga would ever get an official English translation.
In my wildest dreams it raises the odds of them ever taking on an SNK license, at least those are more recent and had sequels - I'm yet to see an actual reasoning behind this... experiment?... Least I could do was spread the word about it to keep it going.
It's an interesting read and provides some nice (though probably non-canon) background on the characters.
Actually just about everything there checks out, after some investigation - most of it seems based on the arcade flyers for the game, further backed up by the text in NxC (which came out much later than the manga, but emphasizes things like Ginzu and Guy sharing a style), and while those don't cover the Metro City setting specifically, the actual game does feature Haggar busts, and the connection is declared in the Captain's profile in the new Udon MvC series book.
As far as I can tell the manga only really invented a couple of female characters and a real name and day job for the Captain, and made up and tweaked relationships and worldviews for the antagonists.
"Beat the machine that works in your head!" - Guano Apes "Open Your Eyes"
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| Pollyanna 3248th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(4):MAX ANARCHY" , posted Wed 4 Jul 08:17
quote:
Demon's Souls also had a mute protagonist and only a few characters you could interact with; just curious, but do you feel that approach was more successful in DS than it is in DD?
Demon/Dark Souls had fewer characters and much less talking altogether. Also, you weren't surrounded by 3 extremely chatty partners to contrast yourself with. It was also lacking the (tragically rare) high-quality cinemas where your character makes realistic expressions, but never has a word to say. I don't like comparing the two games, because they hamper my enjoyment of each other. But to answer the question, I think Demons' Souls (or at least Dark Souls) is just more successful overall compared to DD, which seems a bit confused here and there. On the other hand, though, the fantastic way that you interact with your environment in DD vs the way you kind of float over everything in DS has killed my enthusiasm for the DS update. Even if I say "DS is more successful overall", DD's high points are very VERY high for me.
On the subject of DD, it was considerate of them to let you recruit pawns that are much higher level than you so you don't have to keep getting new ones as you level. Unfortunately, I've had some very expensive pawns throw themselves off of cliffs lately. It sucks to grow attached to your teammates, only to have them leap out of your healing range and out of your price range.
And on a side note, thank you for taking Basil on such a grand adventure. That covered the tab of one of my tragic losses. I have since switched him over to sword and shield, because the archer classes seem to have a bunch of skills that are aimed at actual players, not AI.
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
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| Pollyanna 3257th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(10):MINIMUM ANARCHY" , posted Sun 15 Jul 09:05
quote:
It's fairly solid, for sure, but the variety kind of bothers me. Since I look at this game somewhat as a fighter I was really hoping to see a wider variety of styles between characters.
The game is very deep for a beat' em up, but pretty shallow for a fighter. I feel like it has "width" more than "depth". I like that it's easy to jump characters, but yeah, maybe a few more "trick" ones would be nice.
But that's why I say the online is important. As a strictly single player experience, the game offers enough to get your money's worth, but it doesn't turn into that 200+ hour sort of thing you really devote yourself to without enough people to play with.
I don't want to sound like I'm complaining though, because it's an issue of "yes, it's amazing, but what if it was EVERYTHING?"
And the soundtrack is remarkably perfect. I would never listen to this music on its own, but I wouldn't put anything else in the game. It brought up the question "What if it was your job to rap about science for beat 'em up games?"
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
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| Mosquiton 1822th Post
Silver Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Executive
| "Re(2):Re(10):MINIMUM ANARCHY" , posted Sun 15 Jul 15:43
quote:
The game is very deep for a beat' em up, but pretty shallow for a fighter. I feel like it has "width" more than "depth". I like that it's easy to jump characters, but yeah, maybe a few more "trick" ones would be nice.
So there's nobody that would really be considered a "Trap" character, I imagine.
quote:
As a strictly single player experience, the game offers enough to get your money's worth, but it doesn't turn into that 200+ hour sort of thing you really devote yourself to without enough people to play with.
I'm actually curious how close the single-player is to a musou-style game... and is it quality or quantity that provide the value here?
quote:
And the soundtrack is remarkably perfect... It brought up the question "What if it was your job to rap about science for beat 'em up games?"
Something else it has in common with Mad World I guess, although that was more like "rapping about Haloween". I had the same thoughts with that game. While I was playing it, "Hah this is actually a pretty cool soundtrack." Afterwards, "Actually maybe it's best if I didn't listen to the words too closely."
/ / /
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| Pollyanna 3260th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(3):Re(10):MINIMUM ANARCHY" , posted Sun 15 Jul 20:37:
quote:
I'm actually curious how close the single-player is to a musou-style game... and is it quality or quantity that provide the value here?
It's quite different. You have an "overhead map" sort of area where you can run around a lot and fight hordes of guys, then "missions" you can enter from different points on the map. The missions vary wildly, from beating 5 boss-like characters, to races, or shooting things with a gun, or riding on a helicopter or whatever. Whether you kill guys on the "map" or complete missions you get "points" that eventually unlock the next story mission, which includes a cinema (or several) and usually some sort of boss fight.
I disagree with Iggy's description as you don't really have any stages with waves of thugs that you move through to progress. You have the option to stick around on the map and beat guys as much as you like, though and some missions will be like "kill as many guys as you can in 5 minutes" or something.
The system is a little tighter than Musou games as it's also suitable for PvP and the missions provide a very focused challenge with an emphasis on perfecting your game for a higher score.
In the game's favor, let me say that I never spent more than 5 minutes roaming around on the map and never had to repeat a mission more than once to get enough points to progress the plot. "Getting points" isn't like a grind or anything.
I don't know how to evaluate "quality", but I think you can work up your expertise at the game a little better than a Musou game which tend to require very little from their players. It's a little more like God Hand or Guardian Heroes in terms of depth (well, maybe less than those).
But in terms of the big sprawling tearing up 100s of dudes factor, Musou games give you a lot more. Also, despite its huge wealth of online multiplayer options, I don't believe you can play Anarchy multiplayer in person (?).
I would say the game has a good ratio of quality/quantity vs the musou games that give you tons and tons of the same stuff to do, but work well as a sort of stress relief. As a disclaimer, Kaizoku Musou is nothing like that, as it has relatively little multiplayer beat 'em up content and a very focused story mode. I'm using something like Dynasty Warriors 7 as my Musou example, as most games in the series are like that. (For the record, I enjoyed both Kaizoku Musou and Dynasty 7 tremendously)
As an added note, the survival mode you unlock (in Anarchy) by collecting 500 points on the webpage is lots of fun. It's like an incredibly difficult boss rush you can play with a team.
EDIT:
Ah, I thought of a comparison. After the story mode, you're more likely to continue playing AR to get better scores, "work on your game" or enjoy vs matches. In a Musou game, you're usually working through a super massive list of unlockables/items. The closest thing in AR are the skills that you can equip in multiplayer that you get from killing 100 dudes on each overhead map and playing whatever in multiplayer (more the latter than the former).
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
[this message was edited by Pollyanna on Sun 15 Jul 21:10] |
| Mosquiton 1826th Post
Silver Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Executive
| "Re(4):Re(10):MINIMUM ANARCHY" , posted Wed 18 Jul 08:23
Thanks for impressions guys. I should be able to maintain my moderate anticipation levels for this game... although the North American release caught a huge delay recently. :/
I'm a little worried though that THE TERRIBLE REIGN OF MAX ANARCHY won't quite live up to the games of the mid/late nineties with games like Guardian Heroes, Capcom's Aliens vs Predator and D&D games, Battle Circuit, and so on. A lot of room for mechanical depth that lets players express and challenge themselves with the way you beat up the enemy.
I can enjoy musou games in some capacity (it really helps to be playing coop, though) but I really like to have a bit more depth... at least it sounds like there's a little more to it here. Maximum Anarchy does have the multiplayer thing, as well.
My favorite beat'em up descendant in the longest time has actually been Dragon's Dogma, which picked up a few of the action genes from Devil May Cry. I'm really excited about the eventual follow-up to DraDog, actually. I hope they they focus more on the fighting (of course) and adventuring and less on the "questing" and typical, stilted, RPG walk-and-talk bullshit. Pawn system can stay. They can totally build on that.
/ / /
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| Spoon 2346th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(7):YAKUZAMAPPYFISH" , posted Sat 21 Jul 06:11
quote:
I pretty much think the same too-- it's probably a DLC release of TRF2. However, their notice says 'consideration on expansion of the title', so who knows.
I can only assume it didn't cost them too much to pick up Sega's portion of the copyrights so they decided to grab it.
That would be fantastic-- I only ever played TRF once (the PS2 version) but it was a beautiful game with a great feel to it. I've always wanted to try TRF2 but if I recall its arcade release was nonexistent outside of Japan.
The funny thing about TRF2 is that it has an English language option.
TRF has this very Flash/paper doll look to it that some people I know REALLY dislike. My brother said that when he looked at them jumping they looked like marionettes. TRF1 is a game that to me feels really weird, because it is so incredibly slow when the characters are far apart... it's like, SF2WW slow. When they get close there are spastic moments, much of it powered by Advance Attack and the lightning quick jabs/light kicks.
I think the first game is not bad but gets old fast. The second game is a much better game, though the second one benefits hugely from having more dissimilar cast members (Bazoo, Mito, and Sheryl are wonderful in that they don't all rely on the same "A/B C D advance attack A B C D special" combo that everybody except for Orville used in TRF1). It's also great that one of the most eclectic characters, Bazoo, is a strong character (as in tournament-winning) rather than merely being an underpowered weirdo.
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| Loona 612th Post
PSN: IkariLoona
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Red Carpet Regular Member
| "Re(7):YAKUZAMBLE FISH" , posted Wed 25 Jul 16:41
Of course Project X Zone would have Reiji and Xiaomu in it.
Also, Tron Bonne's in with Servbot(s'), which should be interesting in a game with X and Zero - I have only a rough notion of the Nega Man canon timelines, but Legends is the distant future to the whole series, with X being slightly less distant than the classic series, right? I wonder what interactions this might bring. Also, Tron and Devilotte in the same game, I wonder how often Gustaff'll get stolen.
But best of all is Bahn from Fighting Vipers being in - probably as an assist, as he's not paired with anyone (Jane would have been nice, so the same game would have Bruce Willis and Vasquez).
I still hope it's possible to have multiple assaults between teamed and solo characters like in NxC, Fighters Megamix's intro had a scene with Akira and Bahn's shoulder charges clashing, feels like something that would make sense to toss in as a reference.
"Beat the machine that works in your head!" - Guano Apes "Open Your Eyes"
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"Su perro" , posted Thu 31 May 01:14
"Re(4):MAX ANARCHY" , posted Thu 5 Jul 05:18
factor.
I know that 万 is 10k but I still get confused... Heck, I get messed up by western numbers already 
