Topic: Episode 301: Mechanical Sphincters

[Pandareus]

On the heels of our mega-blowout Wii episode, one of the crew reports on a huge video game party featuring all the multiplayer greats.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/31295

This week's show is quite simple, as we recover from 300 by serving up a beefy serving of New Business. Guillaume knocks out the first half all by himself, as our editor hadn't reported on his gaming exploits in a few weeks. During that time, he hosted a big group of Negative World buddies in Montreal, basically for the purpose of playing games together. So you'll hear his party game anecdotes for Disaster: Day of Crisis (it's basically The Room or Troll 2 of video games), Wario Ware: Mega Party Game$, the homebrew hit Super Mario War, Fortune Street, Big Brain Academy, and the connectivity duo of Pac-Man vs. and Zelda: Four Swords Adventures.

The rest of us haven't been nearly as active, but we still scrounge up a good set of games to discuss. Jon has a fun Sony sampler with R-Types, R-Type: Delta, and the brand new Sound Shapes. Jonny wraps up Penny Arcade Adventures: Episode 3 and also gushes over Deus Ex: Human Revolution. James brings us back around to Nintendo territory with his final updates on Tales of the Abyss and Pandora's Tower.

We've had to delay RetroActive thanks to various vacations and system losses, but we'll catch up to it soon -- this means you've still got time to submit your comments! And we'll definitely return to Listener Mail soon, so please send in your hot ideas and burning questions for that as well.

[Crimm]

I...may have gone overboard on the now playing segment. I have no regrets.

[Fiendlord_Timmay]

it's basically The Room or Troll 2 of video games

Whoa, now! I thought that kind of comparison was reserved for the likes of E.T. 2600 and Superman 64.

Also, haven't listened yet, but I'm glad to hear that Jonny liked DE:HR. Ever since I played it, I've been wanting to compare our opinions. We seem to have very similar tastes, so I always pay extra attention to his recommendations.

[broodwars]

I...may have gone overboard on the now playing segment. I have no regrets.

Yeah, I wouldn't have any idea what that's like.  Not at all...*whistles nervously* 

[KDR_11k]

I played a bit of DXHR recently (had been ignoring that game on my HDD for a while now) and I already got stuck on the first mission. You die in two hits, health takes about a minute to regenerate fully and aiming is so sticky that it's difficult enough to line a shot up when you're not under fire, when you can't go out of cover for more than two nanoseconds it's practically impossible to shoot anything. Ammo is extremely rare as well (I carry like three clips combined between all of the guns I picked up) so you can't even use automatic fire to make up for the aiming difficulty. In short I get murdered in no time in the room I'm in.


R-Type 2 is a regular sequel. In addition to completely different levels and enemies it has more powerups and the double charged shot (charging the bar up twice unleashes a huge pattern of charge shots that usually clear most of the screen). The Turbo Grafx thing was that R-Type 1 got split into two games on the TG16 which together form the original arcade game. R-Type 2 was the basis for Super R-Type on the SNES, the infamous "no checkpoints" port.
There's a remake of R-Type 1 and 2 on XBox Live Arcade by the name of R-Type Dimensions, if it's not gone yet it'll probably be soon due to the Irem collapse or whatever is going on there. It has the old arcade graphics as well as a modernized 3D HD set and lets you toggle between them with one button press.
I had R-Type 1 and 2 on the original Game Boy, those ports had fewer levels (6 for R-Type 1, 5 for R-Type 2 whereas the arcade games have 8 and 6, respectively) and of course couldn't show as many enemies at once so they may have been slightly easier in places (especially the first boss in 1 since it glitched out when too many segments of its tail were in a horizontal line so you couldn't collide with it then).

[Pixelated Pixies]

Really interesting 'New Business' Gui. Though, It kind of made me feel bad about spending so much time complaining about there not being enough new releases on Wii and 3DS. Mayhaps I should dive back into my vault and pull out some of the weird and wonderful games that I never put sufficient time into. Unfortunately I don't have  a group of people to play Pacman Vs or Fortune Street with, but maybe I can finally get around to beating Alien Solider, Ironclad and...*Gulp*...The Last Ninja.

[Fiendlord_Timmay]

Only on RFN will you ever hear about Super Mario War. One of the many reasons this is my favorite podcast ever.

To Jonny's offhand comment about FF7 - Why is it impossible for ANYONE to like both FF6 and FF7? The gameplay design (i.e. the battle system, method of learning abilities, differentiation of characters, etc.) of the two games is actually very similar. The qualities I enjoy in FF6 are also present in FF7 and vice versa, so why is it that everyone else is so divided on the issue?

And man, I wish I could have jumped into the DE:HR discussion a few times... So many scattered thoughts I wanted to add in. Great discussion, though.

Oh, and one last thing: I know James is notorious for burning through games at inhuman speeds, but 51 hours for TotA?! My first playthrough took me 80 hours! I've played Abyss, Symphonia, and Vesperia through twice each, and Abyss has taken me the longest each time. I guess when dealing with RPGs of this length, your mileage may vary...

[Crimm]

It isn't like I skipped a bunch of optional content: only that one extra dungeon.

[broodwars]

To Jonny's offhand comment about FF7 - Why is it impossible for ANYONE to like both FF6 and FF7? The gameplay design (i.e. the battle system, method of learning abilities, differentiation of characters, etc.) of the two games is actually very similar. The qualities I enjoy in FF6 are also present in FF7 and vice versa, so why is it that everyone else is so divided on the issue?

Personally, I like both games for different reasons, but FF6 is the only game of the two I look back fondly on when I'm not playing it. 

FF7 gave us the extremely vocal FF7 fanbase, whose near-religious and frankly frightening obsession with that game (to the exclusion of all other FF games) made me hate any mention of that game for years.  These are the folks who whine every time a Final Fantasy is announced that isn't a Final Fantasy 7 remake, despite already being Square-Enix's favorite children with frequent character cameos in other games; a full-length animated sequel film; several animated OVAs; several prequel games; and a sequel game.  It's just never enough, and the constant whining from both them and the press over a FF7 remake just makes me despise that game's existence at times.  Well, that and all the worship and cosplay for the extremely shallow characters (particularly Aeris, who I was glad to be rid of in that scene) in that game.

I like the game just fine, but I despise the diehard FF7 fandom and that unfortunately tends to color my opinion of that game.

[NWR_Neal]

You totally misrepresented Zach's blog post in Now Playing. Don't y'all read the articles? Don't treat us writers like Playboy!

[Fiendlord_Timmay]

It isn't like I skipped a bunch of optional content: only that one extra dungeon.

I thought that was second playthrough exclusive anyway. But anyway, I guess I'm just slow... I did the catalyst weapons quest, but IIRC that was after I beat the game for the first time.

FF7 gave us the extremely vocal FF7 fanbase, whose near-religious and frankly frightening obsession with that game (to the exclusion of all other FF games) made me hate any mention of that game for years.

Oh, believe me I know. I frequent Gamefaqs (because I'm a masochist, apparently) and just a few days ago, I saw one of the many FF7 fanboys say that FF7 had better graphics than FF6 (because "3D >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 2D") and that Cloud was a deep and developed character...

Yeah, I don't defend the FF7 fanboys at all. But you gotta admit, the hipster-ish backlash to that is no better. I think it's unfortunate that the fanbase has tainted the reputation of the game, because it really is great.

Of course, I have my problems with 7. The translation is ****, sometimes neglecting to even tell you what your next objective is, or where to go to advance the plot. The graphics are so bad that they impact the gameplay -  mostly causing trouble when traversing the static, prerendered backgrounds and you can't tell where you can walk and where you can't. Also, the minigames got pretty excessive.

As it stands, FF6 is still my favorite in the series (specifically the Advance version with the superior translation), but FF7 is not far behind. My problems could mostly be remedied with a remake, and if that were to happen, I think I'd like the two about equally.

[Halbred]

You totally misrepresented Zach's blog post in Now Playing. Don't y'all read the articles? Don't treat us writers like Playboy!

Neal Ronaghan, you're my hero.

I actually came to this thread specifically to make that allegation. Had anyone READ my editorial, they would've seen that I ended up coming down hard on iOS games and that my "brief affair" (SEEWHATIDIDTHERE) made my marriage to handheld games more concrete.

[ejamer]

Don't y'all read the articles? Don't treat us writers like Playboy!

Unless you've got a grotto.

[Jonnyboy117]

James writes the outline/script for Now Playing. You may have noticed over the years that he has little regard for accuracy, truth, or fairness. But I will ask him to be more careful in the future. Sorry that we misrepresented your article.

[AnGer]

Everytime James talks about Pandora's Tower, I'm reminded of the fact that I should move my lazy butt and finish it.