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|  "Sega while you can" , posted Fri 8 Nov 22:01  
In a strange pre-2023 Konami-like attempt to avoid making money, Sega is delisting a ton of games from Steam and elsewhere. While all good soldiers have already joined me on the (Japanese) Mega Drive Mini 1 and 2 train and now have an arsenal of 100+ wonderful games, this is still an incredible loss of access...think of how much fun you would be having if you were playing any of these wonderful games! And grab them if you haven't!
Alien Soldier: Gunstar Heroes converted into maybe the world's hardest boss rush. It is so wild and creative!
Story of Thor/Legend of Oasis: almost Saturn-level graphics, such a gorgeous action RPG!
Crazy Taxi: heck yeahhh
Gunstar Heroes: the best run-and-gun sidescroller shooter ever made! It is never not fun! If you friends don't want to play it with you, they are not fun and you should get new friends ASAP!
Jet Set Radio: THE CONCEPT OF LOVE (before Xbox)
Landstalker: another bafflingly wonderful action RPG, even if the text sound effects are too bad!
Phantasy Star II: madly difficult now but an astoundingly grim, moving, and unique story, doing advanced and ambiguous things in RPG stories back when Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy were still crawling out of the proverbial primeval waters onto land!
Phantasy Star IV: almost Mega CD levels of cinematic ambition and such rocking fun music and world design!
Ristar the Shooting Star: it's quite a charming last-gen Mega Drive platform that may or may not be by old Sonic Team depending on who you ask. The boss music is the best thing Sega ever did!
Shining and the Darkness, Shining Force I, Shining Force II: just think, Sega once had two major wonderful RPG series running at the same time yet both perished by the DC era!
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．．．
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| "Re(2):Sega and Ristar while you can" , posted Sun 10 Nov 14:22:
quote:
What is the reason for these games getting delisted? Are they going into a new retro collection (Sega Senior Citizen Selection or some such) or does it have to do with expired licenses?
It's very strange! These are all first-party games so they don't have to pay anybody, and it can't be a strain on servers to host the infinitesimally small early games. I don't get it.
Edit: fixed my spelling, and while I'm at it, why not promote Ristar the Shooting Star, which in addition to being highly charming and adorable is secretly one of the very Mega Drive platformers and tons more fun and creative than Sonic 3 or Sonic and Knuckles, despite being from major portions of the same Sonic Team (I suspect).
Here, this infinite loop of the infinitely perfect boss music also showcases the infinitely clever bosses! You know, rare female composer** Sasaki Tomoko also scored Nights into Dreams!
**It's nice to remember that from waaaay back, in many of these wonderful soon-to-be-delisted games, Sega had major female leads. The somber, profound Phantasy Star II was directed and written in 1989 (!!) by Aoki Chieko, and her own protege, the dearly departed Kodama Rieko ("Phoenix Rie"), in turn directed Phantasy Star IV and later Magic Knight Rayearth, all in the 80s and early 90s!
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 10 Nov 15:12] |
| | "Remake of a beloved classic" , posted Tue 12 Nov 22:11
We are now in the era of endless nostalgia pandering, and we're now getting more and more remakes of old gems by new teams that were not involved in the original, but are mostly composed of fans of said classic. It's always a dangerous proposal, especially when the team starts working on the second game of the franchise (the most popular) and skips the first.
So it was with a lot of apprehension I approached Bloober's Silent Hill 2.
To be honest, I'm not as much of a fan of the original as some on the Internet. It's a very fine game! But the discourse around it quickly tired me, and I feel Siren is superior to it in most ways (I'm very very eager to play Slitterhead btw. It even has a nurse named Lisa, so we're already in "cult classic" territory there).
I have forgotten a lot about the original in the 20 years since, so I looked at the remake with relatively new eyes. I can't say for sure what's new and what's from the original, but in general, my expectations were exceeded in all areas! The level design remains very strong, the game is still very linear but with a few areas of relative freedom, the repeated environments (normal/cursed) are still novel enough to not feel like padding, the music and sound design are of course incredible (especially with headphones), and the scenario is... fine. It's fine. I know James if from an era when straight white males in video games could only have two emotions, "sad" or "angry", and it would take a few more years before they would be allowed to be quippy. But honestly? I don't remember Maria and Laura to be so annoying, and seeing James rolling with the flow instead of putting them in their place made me very annoyed. You're here to find your wife, stop accepting every side quest like you're a JRPG protagonist saving the world but also finding all 20 lost piglets!
On the elements that are unmistakenly from the remake, I found the new voice acting very good. It's still eery and out-of-place in a Lynchian way, but it feels more professional and less "school theatre" than what I remember of the original. James in particular is great.
The environment artists have made an amazing job. Everything looks great/gross, there is a progression in the... derelict-ness (?) of the places, and you feel like you're catching tetanus just by looking at the cursed environment.
The puzzles have been changed, and the game leaves a sort of ghostly manifestation where the old puzzles were. I'm ambivalent about it; is it supposed to push the idea that James is trapped in a loop and has flashbacks of the previous times? Eh. I find it unnecessary, but it's not distracting so OK.
Where the game really shines is in the new combat. Now I understand why the marketing spent so much time talking about it (even though it was a mistake at that stage). The issue of Silent Hill/Siren is that, in order to differenciate the game from the super soldiers of your average Bio Hazard, the game has to emphacize the lack of combat-readiness of the average protagonists. Unfortunately, this runs into two pitfalls: on one end, it makes fighting frustrating and boring (Silent Hill 1 and a few games with a female protagonist are eye-rolling like that. Rule of Rose I think?), or the usual videogame grammar allows the character to progress and become too strong towards the end, which shatters the illusion of the helpless protagonist (Siren 2 is here).
Siren 1 is probably the best game in terms of balance there, with a heavy emphasis on stealth, and a few select characters able to fight in their own ways so that it doesn't clash with their personality (Remember Miyata and his Holy Hammer of Destruction).
SH2 remake sticks to the original direction of forcing James into many fight scenarios, so stealth is not really an option. A few situations allow for Bio Hazard-like "running through the crowd until the next door and hope the enemies trip on their own pathfinding", but in general you'll be stuck in narrow corridors with no chance to escape.
The fights become sort of Punch-Out!!! duels, with very clear tells, attacks that can't be easily interrupted, and weighty attacks with a lot of intentionality and commitment. There is a step button, but despite the trends of gaming moving towards the Dark Souls fights since SH2's release, the remake doesn't become "roll through the crowd and backstab everyone": the invicibility of the step is very limited, the enemies have very strong tracking, so you either take them head-on or you run to kite them or lose them.
This really highlights how great the mannequins in particular are. They are hidden, they are gross (and sometimes hilarious, which provide some much needed levity) and you have to look for them everywhere even though they are some of the most unsettling designs. They have low health but deal tons of damage, so you have to get used to them. They're great. The combat is great.
Although my reaction may be because I don't use firearms except for bosses, so I take on everyone with the steel pipe. Maybe you don't play Punch Out!!! so often if you use the guns as intended (at the end of my game, James had enough ammunition to take on Raccoon City).
So, yeah, great surprise. Now I'm changing gear for a few weeks, and looking forward to continue into Slitterhead.
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| "Virtua Okami" , posted Fri 13 Dec 19:07
Eat your vegetables, it's time for a revival of two series that I seem to recall a lot of the Cafe considers "artistically interesting, but maybe not that fun!" That's right, a new Okami game and more news on the new Virtua Fighter in the same day! Unlike other art appreciators who are happy to like high-brow stuff even if they secret think it's not very interesting, the Cafe is counter-cultural enough to appreciate the art even while not particularly wanting to play these games, even if we know we should! Or maybe that was just me and everyone wanted Okami 2? Either way, I am glad to hear.
I had to pause for a bit to remember the history when I read the initially puzzling comment that the new Virtua will be by the Ryuu Ga Gotoku team. Let's see, without using wikipedia, my recollection is that Ryuu Ga Gotoku is basically a fragment of some of the old Shenmue team, which was a Suzuki Yuu thing and thus maybe an AM2 (AM3?!)-adjacent group and thus Virtua. So maybe it's the perfect successor? Or maybe I have mixed everyone up and we need re-gather the Daytona team to make a proper Virtua Fighter 6.
LET'S GO AWAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
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．．．
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| | "Re(3):Virtua Okami, alas for Falcom" , posted Tue 17 Dec 17:29
quote:
The only problems of the original Okami were Issun and that other guy that keeps making references to Viewtiful Joe. Remove them and the game is amazing and I could play it over and over again.
Which is why Kamiya being back to direct the game doesn't fill me with confidence. He loves that kind of stuff.
On the other hand, Kunitsugami was esthetically fantastic, and somehow I hope the young staff that worked on it will share a bit of their talent to make the game look gorgeous and novel (unless Kamiya only hires his buddies and no new staff).
Eh. We'll see.
I thought, "hmm, how is it that Devil May Cry 1 and 3, the games which Kamiya directed and whose template has been followed by so many of his later games, and which he loves and is one of his most loved works, doesn't have an annoying sidekick character, and yet that figures so strongly in his other games?"
And then it occurred to me:
Dante is the annoying sidekick character, but since there's no stern main character he gets a pass.
Elsewhere, the founder of Falcom has passed away.
I hope he continues bump-combating in the afterlife!
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| | "Team Ladybug's new game" , posted Sat 18 Jan 20:02
Blade Chimera, the metroidvania from 2D craftmen Team Ladybug, is out and is, to nobody's surprise, very good.
It has similar pros and cons to their other games: it's very pretty, it's a bit too linear for my tastes, it controls extremely well, and I feel like the gameplay gimmick works better than in their previous games. It's also just the perfect length, not too short, not too long, just perfect.
But the real reason to talk about it is that it has several classic fighting game references sprinkled all over. There is even an arcade game corridor, with at least Vampire Savior, Virtua Fighter, Metal Slug X, SF2' and SSF2X, and others. And just next to it, there's an enemy that can do Jedah's contract super to steal your soul and instakill.
How can I not love this game?
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| "Taito: Case of the Missing Estpolis/Lufia II" , posted Sun 9 Mar 14:57
And now we bring you:
Taito: The Case of the Missing Estpolis/Lufia II ~A Detective Story~
One of the more comforting aspects of our particular generation of gaming is that at approximately the mid-2000s, retro gaming became big as companies realized they could re-release their great old 1990s games for essentially forever even if they never approached those highs again, and downloadable software made it work on discount. There's probably some interesting sociology you can do about how people born in the 1980s are the first to so actively invest in their cultural-consumptive nostalgia on a broad scale, and how coming of age in the era when video games became deeper than arcade action meant that we never put away our toys to the extent of earlier eras.
But who cares about that? Functionally, we've been lucky to have about 80% of our favorite games regularly re-released in five or ten year intervals, so not too many gems get lost, even minor ones, and the past classics never feel far away. My god, even my/the entire Japanese internet's preferred Mega CD version of Lunar~Eternal Blue and 75% of the Mega CD's best entries finally resurfaced after thirty years on the Mega Drive Mini 2. I mean, we even got Live A Live (Live A Live!!!) remastered, and even translated into English! Even the Enix-era Quintet games weren't totally lost, where Square-Enix remade Actraiser, of all things! It is an astounding era.
BUT. What if the insane efforts on the abovementioned Mini to collect permissions from seiyuu and music producers and defunct companies after the fact to bring us the Captain Tsubasa Mega CD version (!!) made us forget about more obvious treasures, unavailable and yet hiding in plain sight?
I'm talking of course about Sega-owned Taito's glorious puzzle dungeon RPG Estpolis/Lufia II. You can occasionally find odes to it online, and I'd venture that most Super Famicom RPG fans at the time played this --and liked it--so it's not even an obscure treasure. So suddenly I realized that a charming little game I assumed was just "around" and that new generations of retro fans might even occasionally enjoy had...completely vanished! There was never even a Virtual Console version! I'm reminded of Nobi's comment one time about American cultural assumptions that "everyone" knows Looney Tunes suddenly wasn't true at all because they weren't on Youtube and thus mostly unknown to a newer generation.
It's important for the private eye to know about the missing person: and what a great person Estpolis II is! Here we have an incredibly brave and forward-thinking conceit: a prequel set around the legendary hero and heroine you control briefly in the original Estpolis as they sacrifice themselves to save the world from the Four Mad Gods who are terrorizing the land from atop a floating island, all set to the somber and beautiful music, Battle of the Island of the Void. Anyone who played more than five minutes of the first game knows how Estpolis II's story ends, yet here's a whole game devoted to a rare RPG hero and heroine, an adult couple who get married and have a child, and whose fates are already set! And it's full of marvelously fun Zelda-style dungeons; moronic, simple, yet loveable characters in a sweet little story; and often excellent songs.
Even if Taito is now almost entirely associated with arcade management, and occasional collections of its space shooter classics, it's still right here. Square could plunk Estpolis II on a download store tomorrow. You'd better believe I remember talking here (and thus have mentally stored together with intelligence files on all of you ) about a crummy DS remake that got laughed out of the room a decade ago, but aside from that, not a word. Does the collapse of the original developer, Neverland, somehow make this harder? Did Square not get those rights when it took control of Taito? It can't be that hard if the new Actraiser remake was possible, since that was also a case of a developer's publisher being absorbed into Square-Enix.
It's a detective story with an ambiguous ending: I know exactly where Estpolis II is, it's right around the corner in some form at Square-Enix HQ, yet like the finest ninja, it's hiding in plain sight. We know where all the constituent companies are. I'm pretty sure I haven't imagined all my 16-bit RPG-liking friends having played it! Maybe you have, too?
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．．．
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| "Case of the Missing Price Hike" , posted Sun 6 Apr 11:52
We return from the Case of the Missing Estpolis II to bring you:
The Case of the Missing Price Hike: 11,400 yen or Bust
Amidst the astoundingly stupid self-inflicted wounds of a tariff war, I'm seeing lots of English-language press on this driving up the cost of games, and especially board games for obvious mass production problems, and rightly so. But since I'd rather take a hadouken to the guts than think for another single minute about American politics, I'll instead mention how this reminds me incidentally how artificially low the cost of video games has been for nearly 25 years, regardless of self-generated disasters!
This is of course the right place to reminisce about how in 16-bit days you were presumably paying by the megabit unlike a CD, especially with larger and more ambitious RPGs in the late Mega Drive and Super Famicom era. Let's take three entries I consider the peak of their relevant hardware and series: I believe Phantasy Star IV on Mega Drive cost 9,600 yen in 1993, Lunar~Eternal Blue on Mega CD cost 9,800 yen in 1994 (on a CD, no less!), and I know for a fact (because it's written on the (awesomely designed) back of the box) that FFVI cost 11,400 yen (!!!), also in 1994. Holy s--t!
This is really easy to forget, because it's immediately followed by diving costs for the mostly CD-based 32-bit era. I have a vague recollection of Sony USA making an actual rule that PS1 games couldn't cost more than maybe 60 dollars, probably to make inroads against Nintendo and their expensive cartridge-licensing ways that unwisely persisted into the N64 days.
But what's weird is that this price essentially froze. I get that CDs are cheap storage, but I also know that production costs massively increased at the same time, and of course we know it's continued, with the rut of an ever-smaller and less ambitious field of "too big to fail" triple-A games. But why have prices stayed the same?
On one hand, this would not be that surprising if it were for Japan alone: up until very recently, most prices (and wages) have not increased in meaningful ways for decades. The psychological barrier to finally paying 200 yen for a drink in a vending machine is going to be big when it finally happens. Meanwhile, though, apparently US fast food now costs you nearly 20 dollars, so why have games stayed frozen at 1996 SCEA-mandated prices? The average game in the US even pre-inflation and pre-tariff catastrophe should probably have been about 100 dollars, and while I wonder if that would have actually had much of an effect on the execrable working conditions of most people in the fabulously-abusive US games industry, maybe it would have made it possible to have some creative space between indie games and mega-million AAA budgets?
MMCafe games-creating crew: can -you- solve this economic industry puzzle? Top mystery-solver Kyle Hyde is busy trying to avoid having his apartment and its last window demolished.
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．．．
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| "Re(1):Attn Maou: Hotel Dusk news and Lunar" , posted Wed 21 May 20:27
quote:
Somehow, palpatine Hotel Dusk has may returned.
!!!
The likely Switch 2 reappearance of my favorite-game-I've-only-played-once is the best news since Soul Calibur II also was announced. I don't usually do the oshi-katsu thing of buying excessive stuff related to things I'm a fan of, but I'm pretty sure I'll buy 5 copies of a Wish Room/Hotel Dusk reissue just to support these fine people.
LET US CELEBRATE by going to the best (only?) fansite on the net, replete with the excellent soundtrack.
Speaking of slightly obscure things I'm intensely devoted to, I can give at least a qualified recommendation on the multilingual new Lunar 1&2 remaster, based heavily on what language you speak. Here, we have the superior 32-bit remake version of Lunar 1, with the original Japanese voices and text, making it the best way to play the game in Japanese today. The best version of the even better sequel, Lunar 2, however, is far and away the Mega CD original, meaning you should play it in reverse order on Maoublogging favorite Mega Drive Mini 2 (Japanese version only), which of course you bought and I'll know if you didn't.
In the English remaster for both games, though, you're left with a much worse English dub and a slightly fiddled-with script, so the best option is probably to use Japanese audio and English text. It will be the worst way to play the best game, Lunar 2, because it's A) not on Mega CD and B) now has worse English acting.
...I guess what I'm saying is that to achieve the best dub and version combo in English, you should 1) acquire a Mega CD and play Lunar 2, then 2) play the Lunar 1 remake on PS1 (which was a grand production heavily influenced by Mega CD Lunar 2's improvements, whereas the remake of Lunar 2 was ironically low-budget and stupid Gonzo's second-stringers did a bunch of off-model animation).
Easy, right?
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．．．
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| "Re(3):Attn Maou: Hotel Dusk news and Lunar" , posted Thu 22 May 21:45
quote:
I read that, aside from the graphical and sound differences, the Mega CD version of Lunar 2 was extremely hard to the point of being frustrating
Nah, those peoples are lamers, the Mega CD verison was the first RPG I ever owned and beat, and if my dumb 13 year old self could do it without grinding, I promise you can, too! There's one infamously hard boss in this version who's easy in the remake, but the last boss is arguably even harder on Saturn/PS1! And you're from the Cafe anyway and will have no problem as a 16-bit RPG-liking person! It's no harder than, say, Final Fantasy V or so. Universally, people who played the MCD version will prefer it.
But I'm being crazy, of course. You'll still absolutely have a great time with the remaster and should play both games in Japanese audio immediately. The Lunar 2 remake may be unplayable for an insane devotee of the MCD original like me, but on its own merits it's still one of the best RPGs ever made. It's the same philosophical issue as, say, that pixel remaster of Final Fantasy VI where the sound effects are weird, the bosses don't explode, and the characters are all redrawn only pretty well, or that DS version of Chrono Trigger that really tried hard to recreate the SFC music but just isn't quite good enough: how do we judge an imperfect port of a perfect game? On their own merits, all three of these slightly compromised re-releases are still god-like.
Buuuut for your own interest if you're curious: because Mega CD Lunar 2 was such an enormous leap forward from its predecessor and frankly from most games at the time, with an hour of animation and voice at a time when this was unheard of, and a masterful story, most of its visual and system improvements were reverse-imported into the marvelous 32-bit Lunar 1 remake. But due to bad luck or Game Arts' fading star, the Lunar 2 remake was a much less lavish affair, and lots of little things are missing that make a difference if you played the Mega CD version:
-Tons of short scene-setting incidental cinemas for sub-characters are missing. There's about 30-some movies in this version and 60 in the original, even if overall length is the same.
-They somehow got stuck with animation studio Gonzo's second-stringers for the animation this time after their great work on the Lunar 1 remake. The "picture quality" is higher in the remake, but the faces are all off-model because they literally got worse outsourced animators. Behold the elegance of MCD Lunar 2's cinemas as it perfectly captures the designs of Kubooka Toshiyuki (Giant Robo OAV, Nadia, other Gainax work). Then compare this same scene in the remake. It's higher-res but unquestionably worse technically. This was a shame, when the remake of Lunar 1 was such a thrill because it brought Kubooka's art to live beautifully and on-model, like this.
-Ditto for the music. MCD Lunar 2 is Iwadare Noriyuki's best score, and while the sampling rate is low, the instrument quality is somehow better than on Saturn!? And on PS1 it just sounds like bad midi, especially on the violins.
-Lots of other little things, also ironically in the Lunar 1 remake after being taken from MCD Lunar 2, like displayed names for boss' attacks, or incidental and awesome side-characters who are missing, or less complex interesting dungeon design.
But again, you'll never notice if you're playing the first time, and will still have an earnest story of love and humanity, man's relationship to past history, and incredible character and NPC reactions that predated anything Tales ever did. Most people are floored when they notice that NPCs change their dialogue after every major story event, interacting with the changes in the world. It costs nothing budget-wise, but what a way to bring a world alive! The music is all marvelous and battles are fun and the characters are complex and interesting people.
OH, WISH ROOM! Please allow me to continue talking about my other favorite niche game since they both just came up, by noting my dream for a re-release of Wish Room/Hotel Dusk to feature the original character/dialogue art but layered on top of a PC-style point-and-click adventure RPG that you could move around more comfortably.
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．．．
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| | "Re(4):Attn Maou: Hotel Dusk news and Lunar" , posted Sat 24 May 22:22
Thank you for the explanation! I had already read that Lunar 1 had several differences between its Sega CD and the 32-bits versions, but I didn't know that Lunar 2 also had all these differences.
I looked at some images and video of them, and one thing I noticed is that, despite both games supposedly taking place in the same world, their respective world maps look quite different from each other; I don't know if that's a continuity error or if there's a plot reason, but in either case, these games still look very interesting. And I love the characters' sprites, too!
---
Just a quick subject change (that maybe won't be interesting to anyone here), but it seems that a Ys vs Trails in the Sky crossover game which was exclusive to Japan for many years will now be ported worldwide. Which is curious considering they're very different (Ys feeling sorta like a Legend of Zelda action game, while Trails is more of a turn-based RPG), but the crossover seems to be a "Power Stone 2-ish" fighting game, thus making it different from both individual series...
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| "Re(5):Attn Maou: Hotel Dusk news and Lunar" , posted Sat 24 May 23:35
I am glad you are interested! There has always been a small but loyal contingent of Lunar fans at the Cafe (well, me, Nobi, I think Phoenix, and maybe someone else), and I would love to see you join the team! These are some of my favorite stories and soundtracks.
The change from Mega CD to 32-bit Lunar 1 is so big (and so strongly influenced by Mega CD Lunar 2) that they are almost entirely separate games beyond the characters and basic story outline, so they don't suffer by direct comparison as much and it's easy to love both on their own terms. Scenario writer Shigema famously describes these as the same legend but told by a different storyteller. Because Lunar 2 remake has a smaller budget and changes almost nothing structurally from the lavish Mega CD version, everything it does change on the production or scenario side is extremely noticeable and almost never for the better. But even then, it's still one of the best stories and casts you'll ever see.
These are indeed two linked games, but with some 600 years in between, and some slightly changed ecosystems for story-related reasons. I think only Phantasy Star has attempted a similar scale of world history across multiple entries, proving again that Sega Does Continuity What Nintendon't...uh, or something. Still, two of the main cities persist, you can even find the ruins of the Lunar 1 final dungeon in a subtle spot in Lunar 2, and much of the basic culture is the same. Many people who play them in order find it delightful and moving to see distant reflections on Lunar 1 as they're exploring Lunar 2. By random chance, I played Lunar 2 first and it also works great: the main character is a ruins explorer fascinated by the distant past, so I enjoyed learning about Lunar 1's grand adventures in a golden age from books and ruins around the world just like he did, and finally experienced a "prequel" that didn't suck when I eventually played Lunar 1...since it was the original! Because I am crazy/a genius, I just made a friend on his Mega Drive Mini 2 start with Lunar 2 as well.
Meanwhile, I have always kind of been interested in Trails in the Sky! I never approached it because it seemed like it was already a spinoff of something else, and I couldn't tell if I was going to stumble midway into a 10-entry series or something. As long as a curious RPG hybrid is currently capable of producing Power Stone 2 the RPG, we have come to the right place.
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．．．
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| | "From Silent Hill to Too Kyo Games" , posted Fri 13 Jun 01:51
After the success of the SH2 remake, it seems that Konami will remake SH1 as well. And while some people are arguing that they should remake SH3 instead, I'm actually kinda glad with this decision; I love SH1's roster and locations (though I'll admit that SH3's Heather may be the best protagonist of the entire series).
Now, from one crazy world to another, Too Kyo Games has only recently released their magnum opus, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy - and yet they've already announced a new game that seems just as ambitious, titled Shuten Order, which will also be released this year (I suspect many players won't even have finished THL by the time this new game arrives). Interestingly, while The Hundred Line was announced as a "Danganronpa X Zero Escape" project, Shuten Order actually looks more like a "Danganronpa X Zero Escape" game than THL, due to the entire gameplay changing depending on which suspect the player chooses to investigate - the first and fourth suspects' routes seem to be close to Danganronpa (the investigation and trial parts for the former, the social links part for the latter), while the second and third's suspects' routes seem to be more inspired by Zero Escape (the escape room part for the former, the branching paths part for the latter).
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| | "Re(1):From Silent Hill to Too Kyo Games" , posted Fri 13 Jun 02:05
quote:
After the success of the SH2 remake, it seems that Konami will remake SH1 as well. And while some people are arguing that they should remake SH3 instead, I'm actually kinda glad with this decision; I love SH1's roster and locations (though I'll admit that SH3's Heather may be the best protagonist of the entire series).
Aw man I LOVE the original Silent Hill! I hope that gets a proper rerelease too! The way I feel about game makes is how I feel about movie remakes. If they're well done, great! But if people refuse to engage with the classic original cos it's "dated" and will only engage with a modernized version, often times they're really missing out! Silent Hill 1 has incredibly blocky graphics, and yet it packed so much MOOD into those limitations. And the haunting score still totally stands up. Is the gameplay a bit clunky? Sure, but it was back then too! But combat wasn't the point! The tone of the game, the unnerving mood, the feeling that you're willing to go through hell to save your beloved daughter, that still shines through!
All that said I hope they do a good job with the remake. There's actually a lot less pressure on the team to remake SH1 vs SH2.
I think it makes a ton of sense to remake SH1 first before 3.
Silent Hill 1 is the direct prequel to 3 after all!
Also 3 was a reaction/retreat of Silent Hill 2 in a lot of ways. I recall at the time people complained it was too similar to 2. But as others have estutely pointed out, that was very intentional. Silent Hill 2 is very much a game from a standard male perspective. Silent Hill 3 is very much about how those empty streets, dark subways, all those quiet waypoints are very different for a woman (a girl really!) walking alone at night. It hits different!
But it makes more sense to do the prequel first!
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| | "Re(2):From Silent Hill to Too Kyo Games" , posted Fri 13 Jun 02:37
quote:
Aw man I LOVE the original Silent Hill! I hope that gets a proper rerelease too! The way I feel about game makes is how I feel about movie remakes. If they're well done, great! But if people refuse to engage with the classic original cos it's "dated" and will only engage with a modernized version, often times they're really missing out! Silent Hill 1 has incredibly blocky graphics, and yet it packed so much MOOD into those limitations. And the haunting score still totally stands up. Is the gameplay a bit clunky? Sure, but it was back then too! But combat wasn't the point! The tone of the game, the unnerving mood, the feeling that you're willing to go through hell to save your beloved daughter, that still shines through!
All that said I hope they do a good job with the remake. There's actually a lot less pressure on the team to remake SH1 vs SH2.
I think it makes a ton of sense to remake SH1 first before 3.
Silent Hill 1 is the direct prequel to 3 after all!
Also 3 was a reaction/retreat of Silent Hill 2 in a lot of ways. I recall at the time people complained it was too similar to 2. But as others have estutely pointed out, that was very intentional. Silent Hill 2 is very much a game from a standard male perspective. Silent Hill 3 is very much about how those empty streets, dark subways, all those quiet waypoints are very different for a woman (a girl really!) walking alone at night. It hits different!
But it makes more sense to do the prequel first!
Good points!
I know this is silly, but one thing I dislike in SH3 is that half of the game doesn't even take place in Silent Hill. Then again, the upcoming Silent Hill f won't take place in Silent Hill at all, and it looks great...
(speaking of remakes, Persona 4 is going to get one, too)
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