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NWR Interactive => Podcast Discussion => Topic started by: Jonnyboy117 on February 05, 2012, 10:02:02 AM

Title: Episode 278: That's Lobsterist!
Post by: Jonnyboy117 on February 05, 2012, 10:02:02 AM

It's finally time for RetroActive. Plus: Resident Evil and other games!

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/29182/episode-278-thats-lobsterist

It's time for another cartoo-oo-oon! Or podcast. Let's call it a podcast. And this time around, we spend a good little ol' chunk of time on a certain game that was chosen by the listeners. But first, we got some new New Business that's new. Greg leads off with Resident Evil: Revelations, not to mention a little accessory called the Circle Pad Pro. He nearly beat the game before recording time, so expect an extensive discussion (but still spoiler-free). James has last year's hybrid open-world-adventure game, L.A. Noire, but he and Jonny disagree on it just a little. Jon's got his first impressions of Bastion, the awesome download title that draws comparisons to both Zelda and Torchlight. Jonny cinches the segment with a little Zelda: Four Swords multiplayer action and a look at Shadow of the Colossus HD.

Then it's finally time to jump into RetroActive #21. You voted, we played, and now you'll hear our sprawling discussion of Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. It was our first real experience with the franchise, except for James, who predictably brings an expert's perspective to enrich the feature. Armed with an arm-length list of forum quotes from the official thread, we look at this accessible Fire Emblem from as many angles as time allows. RetroActive is one of our most popular features, and this might be the best one yet! Let us know what you thought about this episode or anything else right here.

Title: Re: Episode 278: That's Lobsterist!
Post by: Pixelated Pixies on February 05, 2012, 06:57:35 PM

Awesome. It may be 12 at night and I may have to get up at 6 in the morning, but I need my RFN fix.

Title: Re: Episode 278: That's Lobsterist!
Post by: supergtt on February 06, 2012, 01:14:24 AM

that first guy in la noire that you can't shoot, you're supposed to shoot into the air and he stops.

Title: Re: Episode 278: That's Lobsterist!
Post by: Nbz on February 06, 2012, 06:46:00 AM

Without a doubt one of the best Retroactive discussions yet, even though John was unfortunately unable to voice himself due to those technical issues.


One thing that I think would have helped both Greg and Jonny is if they had chosen to play on easy instead of normal. As far as I can recall, there is actually no spike in difficulty between the 2 modes, but on easy the game tells you how to do things like have Support conversations, recruit enemy units and other game mechanics that it assumes you already know if you play on normal. So if you had gone with easy, the overall difficulty wouldn't have changed, but you would have been introduced to the game mechanics early on.

Title: Re: Episode 278: That's Lobsterist!
Post by: Hey Einstein! on February 06, 2012, 10:45:18 AM

Walking to work in the snow and I hear my first forum post read on my favourite gaming podcast - wahey! Thanks for another great show guys.

Title: Re: Episode 278: That's Lobsterist!
Post by: lolmonade on February 06, 2012, 11:42:28 AM

Maybe Lindy can provide a synopsis of his thoughts on the game? (if they aren't completely mirroring what was already spoken about in the feature, of course).

Title: Re: Episode 278: That's Lobsterist!
Post by: KDR_11k on February 06, 2012, 02:08:09 PM

I never intended to finish Fire Emblem, just have a convenient excuse to stop playing early. Didn't work out, I got bored so badly that I quit playing before I lost a single character.

Too bad the Rupee Fever referred to Four Swords, not Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland. I enjoyed Four Swords Adventures but a big part of that was the sheer feeling of power that came from controlling a whole phalanx of Links vs those huge killrooms.

The enemies in Revelaytons start flinching more the lower their health is, I used that flinching as an indicator when to count my shots. Also the scanner is fine IMO, so far the items haven't been hidden in arbitrary places but in areas where things could realistically be hidden (under furniture, behind boards leaning against the wall, in boxes on shelves, etc).

Quote from: lolmonade on February 06, 2012, 11:42:28 AM

Maybe Lindy can provide a synopsis of his thoughts on the game? (if they aren't completely mirroring what was already spoken about in the feature, of course).

"lol"

Title: Re: Episode 278: That's Lobsterist!
Post by: Crimm on February 06, 2012, 05:07:13 PM

Quote from: lolmonade on February 06, 2012, 11:42:28 AM

Maybe Lindy can provide a synopsis of his thoughts on the game? (if they aren't completely mirroring what was already spoken about in the feature, of course).

His positions were somewhere between Jonny and Greg. I'd say he was probably closer to Jonny.

Title: Re: Episode 278: That's Lobsterist!
Post by: Fiendlord_Timmay on February 06, 2012, 07:24:53 PM

Easily one of my favorite retroactives yet.

One of the things that wasn't mentioned was the branching promotion classes. No other FE game has that feature. I thought that the promotion paths were one of the most interesting parts of FE8. The trainee units in particular were very versatile, because they start essentially classless, and you get to promote them into whatever you want them to be.

This is in stark contrast to other FE games, where you know that every one of your knights will become a general, every one of your cavaliers will become a paladin, etc. It is one of the only FE games where it actually makes sense to train two units of the same class simultaneously, because you could promote them into two entirely different units with different strengths.

Also, FE7 is amazing. Don't get scared away by peoples' uncharitable descriptions of it. Sure it's hard, but it's also infinitely more engaging than FE8 (in my opinion anyway).

Overall, I felt the series was done justice with this discussion and it left me feeling very satisfied. Very well done, gentlemen.

Title: Re: Episode 278: That's Lobsterist!
Post by: Ceric on February 06, 2012, 10:41:38 PM

I thought they all had branching promotions and I thought they be more complicated in the others ones.  I'm disappointed to hear that.  Whats the point in having the items then...

Title: Re: Episode 278: That's Lobsterist!
Post by: Sarail on February 06, 2012, 11:35:23 PM

To promote earlier, of course. :)

Title: Re: Episode 278: That's Lobsterist!
Post by: Halbred on February 07, 2012, 12:40:54 AM

My god. Guys, you HAVE to stop nominating strategy RPG's. Because they always win, and I always hate them. LOL

Title: Re: Episode 278: That's Lobsterist!
Post by: gojira on February 07, 2012, 11:39:44 PM

I'm really looking forward to Resident Evil.  I love the old school ones.  I'm sure it helped that I played them when they came out though.

When it comes to Fire Emblem, I also do not understand the people who say you have to restart if you lose any character.  Overall the game gives you more characters than you can use on any given mission.  That being said I restarted a lot on my play throughs of the series.  I'll keep going if I lose some characters, but I don't like letting my favorites die.  And unfortunately I always have a weak spot for Pegasi. 

Title: Re: Episode 278: That's Lobsterist!
Post by: noname2200 on February 08, 2012, 05:55:30 PM

Hats off to Greg yet again for his technical wizardry. A fourth of the Retroactive crew is missing, and I wouldn't even know it.

Also, I loved Four Swords on the GBA, but then I only got to play it with four players, so having only two might change things.

Title: Re: Episode 278: That's Lobsterist!
Post by: KDR_11k on February 10, 2012, 12:25:05 PM

I think people restart often because of the uncertainty. You don't know what the future will bring and whether that character that died will be necessary later on. Since leaving a character dead is a permanent thing there would be no way to recover from a screwup like lacking a critical character or ending up with too few of them.

Title: Re: Episode 278: That's Lobsterist!
Post by: NWR_Lindy on February 10, 2012, 09:52:56 PM

I apologize for not making this RetroActive...my part of the segment was eliminated due to technical difficulties.

I really like Sacred Stones, much more than I thought I would.  I figured I "knew" all there was to know about Fire Emblem, having assumed that it was merely a fantasy version of Advance Wars (which I never really got into, despite really trying).  However, I wound up enjoying how it eased the player into its various mechanics, with the mechanics themselves not being overly complex (pretty much rock-paper-scissors).  I found the endless walls of story text fairly tedious, though.

The option of rescuing a character and taking them out of harm's way is awesome, as is the fact that you get a Pegasus Knight right at the start.  It gets you thinking in a long-range, strategic fashion right out of the gate, rather than pigeonholing you into a "find the choke point and stay there" mentality.  You're pretty much presented with the majority of your play options really early, which is nice.

Overall a great game.  For me, a total Fire Emblem noob, it was a great introduction to the series.  I had played a tiny pit of Path of Radiance and was completely uninterested, so this was a nice surprise.