Messages

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 324: Punky Hamster

« on: January 02, 2014, 11:34:59 AM »

Holy crap Jonny called it! :O

39:19 | Jonny (in response to James talking about the "The War of Hyrule" on the Zelda timeline):

"That's for the upcoming Zelda/Dynasty Warriors crossover."

Thanks for finding that. Now I'm downloading the old episode to hear it for myself.  Interesting to hear the "joke" in full context. lol

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TalkBack / Re: Zelda's Big Box of Books

« on: December 17, 2013, 05:44:33 PM »

I had this set pre-ordered since mid-August when I first saw the listing on Amazon.  It came in about two weeks ago, but I've not opened it yet. Instead, I wrapped it up and put it under my tree as a gift to myself.  

The kids don't know about it yet and I can't wait to see the look on my son's face when he sees what I have   lol

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 109: I Like to Screw with People

« on: November 06, 2013, 02:14:36 AM »

Is the RSS feed for this episode updating? I can't seem to find it on my feed.

Several days later, and I'm still not seeing this in my iTunes feed, either.    

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 98: Cross-Platform Play

« on: August 19, 2013, 09:49:31 AM »

The first thing that came to me when I heard the question: What item from a video game would I want in real life?

Portal Gun

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TalkBack / Re: Wii U eShop Bonus Credit Promotion Announced

« on: July 23, 2013, 12:13:42 AM »

Don't forget those that have deluxe systems get 10% back after making $50 in purchases, so for your $100 deposit, after spending it, you will have almost $120 worth in value (depending on your tax rate). I'm doing this.

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TalkBack / Re: Meet Up With Fellow Nintendo Fans at the E3 Best Buy Events

« on: June 12, 2013, 11:29:18 PM »

Like more than one playable station per store.

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TalkBack / Re: Meet Up With Fellow Nintendo Fans at the E3 Best Buy Events

« on: June 12, 2013, 02:16:58 PM »

I normally would go to the Saturday one, since it doesn't conflict with my work, but since I'm graduating that afternoon, the Best Buy event got trumped.

So, I'm going to try to make it to the Overland Park, KS event this afternoon.

I'll be taking a few kids with me so I can try to get some videos of gameplay (hope the video requirements aren't as picky as those at E3).

I told them to expect long lines since it's the only Best Buy in the area doing this, but considering when Video Games Live had to cancel a show almost 3 years ago because they only sold 6 rows of seats, there may be so few people in KC that care about this the lines won't be so bad and we can go through more than once.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 85: Make Your Legs Shake

« on: May 17, 2013, 05:57:45 PM »

I bought this hard drive back in June after it was known that the Wii U will use external hard drives when I saw it on sale for $99.  Amazon now sells it for about $120.
Fantom Drives FDD2000U Diamond 2TB External Hard Drive USB 2.0
I've had no issues with it.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 85: Make Your Legs Shake

« on: May 17, 2013, 01:32:49 PM »

To the little Zack who said he's never heard of Y's games before:  Shame on you for not listening to RFN, were they've done a 2-part Retroactive last month on Books 1 and 2.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 335: Performance Review Paradox

« on: May 09, 2013, 12:34:50 PM »

I've gotten behind on my podcast listening the last few weeks.  I finally got around to this one yesterday.

Your discussion about reviewing old games reminded me of when I reviewed "Intellivision Lives!" for DS over 2 years ago.  I chose to not review the games for what they are, since they've been longer than most of your listeners.  Instead I talked about how the emulation held up over what I remembered from playing the games on the original system all those years ago.

Some of the games were fine, others were literally broken as a result and unplayable.

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Downloads - May 5, 2013

« on: May 02, 2013, 03:13:17 PM »

Tank! Tank! Tank! is a poor attempt at a freemium model game. You don't have access to Story Mode, and you only have access to 3 out of 4 of the multiplayer modes.  I don't know how much it cost to unlock them, but considering the game doesn't tell me this until I've made a character name and took two pictures of my face to be used in the game before telling me I can't play it.  I just deleted it. 

Just like Zen Pinball 2, the DLC on Wii U is too much of a pain to deal with for microtransactions.

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TalkBack / Re: Satoru Iwata Named CEO of Nintendo of America

« on: April 24, 2013, 11:52:14 AM »

My gut tells me nothing will change.
My head tells me this is a stupid move and Iwata is taking off far more than he can chew.
My heart dreams that this will mean we'll get more localized releases, more VC games, and more happiness.
My gut's likely on the money, my head is probably not far off, and my heart is full of ****.

Beautfully written. I don't think I could have worded that any better, myself.   I'm in complete agreement with your gut, head, and heart.
Main reason why I think nothing will change, is that NCL (as far as I know) still has NoA and other regions on a short leash.  Removing one person from the chain of command isn't going to make things any different.  There's just one less person to go through from Iwata to Reggie, to whatever comes out of his mouth.

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TalkBack / Re: Satoru Iwata Named CEO of Nintendo of America

« on: April 24, 2013, 08:58:10 AM »

Shows you what I know ... I didn't know that there was anyone above Reggie in NoA.  So when I read the headline, I thought Reggie was out (or it was April 1st).  But this makes a little more sense now that I've read the article.

Makes you wonder what the "critics" will say about this call, when they're not sure if Iwata's a good person to be running NCL, either. 

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 81: Another Dimension

« on: April 14, 2013, 09:22:27 PM »

Yeah. It was fun to hear you talk about developers that have done good things now, but 10 years ago, on their first major project, not sure how things would turn out for them.
 
And there was mention of Too Human, which was delayed again, which ended up not coming out for 4-5 years after this, or so?

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 81: Another Dimension

« on: April 14, 2013, 03:46:16 PM »

I have to pick on Neal for this statement that he made back in 2003:

Starting at 15:35 ...

I love me some Batman. I kind of liked that Super Nintendo game that was pretty cool, but there are three good Batman games out of 30.  I don't think the odds of us getting a good Batman game in the future  is likely.

YAY for Rocksteady Games!

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 79: PAX Director's Cut

« on: April 02, 2013, 01:26:27 PM »

Listening to the Nintendoaire now.  Looks like that next year everyone will come with some sort of prop and it will look more like Let's Make a Deal instead of Millionaire.

I wish that we had video to see the number of hands coming up in the "Ask the audience" option. Sounds like it was pretty humorous.

I liked the reaction of the crowd when you started playing the Ducktails music.

I need to make it to a PAX sometime, but being in Kansas, makes it expensive to go to one coast or the other.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)

« on: March 16, 2013, 09:37:52 AM »

I assume enemies give less XP in general since for me it cost thousands to get levels towards the cap. But apparently the cap on the Turbo is really high (if there even is one) so if you really want to you could grind to the point of one-shotting bosses.

Most enemies early on give 2 or 3 XP per kill, then scale down as you level up to 1 XP per kill.   I've not noticed what kind of XP that I'm getting from enemies in the tower.

I just looked.  At L21, the first creature that I found on L9 gave me 12 XP per kill.  I currently have 3355 XP and need to get to 3500XP to hit the next level.

Should I have the silver armor before attacking the boss on L8?  Or am I current on my gear at this point?
 
EDIT: I did some grinding in L9 until I was L25.  At that level, the mobs that gave 12XP per kill started to give me 3 XP per kill, with the next level needing 400XP to get, so leveling started getting slower.  I then tried to beat the L8 boss, and it was easier.  My hits started doing more damage (probably closer to my 5% estimate vs. the 2% that I was getting at L21), and I could take more hits (maybe 8-10 hits instead of just 3).
I guess I'm just used to how games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest scale, where there is little difference between levels, but in a game like this, 2 levels can be a significant difference.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)

« on: March 15, 2013, 10:33:23 PM »

OK, if that's the Turbografx-CD version I don't really know about it, I didn't realise it was so different from Ys Eternal/Complete/Chronicles. But you most likely need to level up more. When I played, some enemies would utterly destroy me until I gained one or two levels, and then I would own them.

Yeah. This is the Turbo CD version.  This weekend, I'll grind a few more levels to see if that helps.  I think I'm within 100 XP of the next level, so shouldn't take too long.  It's only 300-400 XP between levels at this point.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)

« on: March 15, 2013, 07:05:05 PM »

And I don't get your issue with the F8 boss if you haven't beaten it yet, are you under level 10 or missing some silver equipment? It took me maybe 3 tries when I did it and it was 100% my fault for standing right in the blades.

I don't recall exactly what level that I'm at.  I have 103 hit points if that helps.
I have the Silver Sword and Shield (but not the armor.  I had it at one point, but wasn't able to recover it yet after losing it the first time I hit L6).
Seems that I have to hit it 35-50 times to kill it (my estimation of 5% per hit was quite high) and I die in 3 hits.  So if I'm doing something wrong, I don't see it.

Are you playing the DS version? Normally HP rises in increments of 20, so a max HP of 103 would be impossible. And I was level 10 (max level) even before I beat the vampire boss so I had 255 HP. If regular enemies are tough to beat maybe you are underleveled. I found it really easy to level up even though it required a small amount of grinding.

I'm playing the Wii VC version of the game, which seems to level up similar to how the DS version levels up in Book II based on the gamefaq guide that I was reading.
EDIT: OK. I looked again, and it seems to be a little different.  But when I got to 100HP, I leveled up once, and only gained 3 more instead of the 5 that I was earning.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)

« on: March 15, 2013, 05:58:25 PM »

And I don't get your issue with the F8 boss if you haven't beaten it yet, are you under level 10 or missing some silver equipment? It took me maybe 3 tries when I did it and it was 100% my fault for standing right in the blades.

I don't recall exactly what level that I'm at.  I have 103 hit points if that helps.
I have the Silver Sword and Shield (but not the armor.  I had it at one point, but wasn't able to recover it yet after losing it the first time I hit L6).
Seems that I have to hit it 35-50 times to kill it (my estimation of 5% per hit was quite high) and I die in 3 hits.  So if I'm doing something wrong, I don't see it.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)

« on: March 15, 2013, 04:31:08 PM »

Does the Power Ring change how much damage you deal vs the vampire? I tried it and it didn't seem to make a difference. I still beat it in the end but the difficulty curve there is kind of obnoxious. Gets better in the tower I guess.

  I think the effect of the rings don't matter on boss fights.  They only matter against the trash enemies.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: RFN RetroActive #26: Ys Book I&II (Official Discussion)

« on: March 15, 2013, 12:05:46 AM »

I bought the Wii VC version of this when it was new, and never really got into it.  I started over last night almost beat the second boss to get the third book, then resumed this evening to finish the boss in the mines and start my way up the tower.

I'm currently stuck on the boss on L8.  None of the rings seems to have any effect when fighting this boss, so it seems to be an endurance event .... can I play for 5-10 minutes without getting hit? Even with the silver sword equipped, hitting him only does about 5% damage where if I get hit once, I take about a 35% hit.

I've been following a guide from gamefaqs with maps to help me along, and this is what the guide has to say about this boss:

This boss battle is actually quite simple to get through. ... It is a quick and easy battle, but the blades will cause a lot of damage, so be careful not to get hit by them!

I read that and thought "F-you guide".

I think this is my stop point.  It's one thing to die a lot while you learn things to get better for next time.  But there is nothing to learn here.  It's just a case of "don't get hit for 5 minutes", which is easier said than done.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 73: Subtle Like Sting

« on: February 19, 2013, 09:46:50 PM »

Based on my research, this should be compatible with GameBoy Printer. I don't own one, so I cannot verify. Your mileage may vary...  http://www.rakuten.com/prod/pm-taxi-receipt-thermal-roll-paper-1-5-x-40ft-10-pack-white/216676387.html

As for "my story", the only thing I can think of is related to Final Fantasy VI:

I was an "orchestra/band" geek in high school, graduating in '92.  I participated in four musicals paying either cello or acoustic bass depending on the year.

I stopped playing instruments after high school, but was still interested in VG music in the games that I was playing.Fall of my third year in college, FFVI is released.  I've been a FF fan since the first game, so I pick this game up and start playing.When I got about eight hours in, hitting the opera house scene where Celes takes the place of Maria and you participate in the play, I found that section very entertaining, unexpected game play, and the content hitting close to home.It just stuck out as one of my favorite VG moments and onside red that song in the opera my favorite VG game song if or several years after that.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 324: Punky Hamster

« on: February 06, 2013, 02:12:54 AM »

On the topic of Wii U VC being able to read Wii VC save states ...


If the "Wii mode" of Wii U works like a virtual machine running within the system, when that virtual machine is turned off, the main system may not have access to the virtual NAND memory of that other system.


So getting a Wii U version of a VC game you already own on Wii and copied over, it wouldn't be like your save state was deleted, but a new save state was created.  The Wii VC save state would still exist in Wii mode.  At least, that's how I'm thinking that this will work.  I'll find out when Super Metroid or other VC games get released that I owned on Wii.

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TalkBack / Re: Balloon Fight Impressions

« on: February 02, 2013, 12:25:17 PM »

Not having the game, the post above yours seems to indicate that you would need 3 controllers to have 2 players.  I think that is an odd design especially when controllers cost $40+.

Maybe, but at this stage, the majority of the people who are interested in Virtual Console would be those who bought Virtual Console on the Wii, so would have 2-4 (or more) Wii Remotes lying around anyway.  (I had 5, myself).