Messages

10101

General Gaming / Re: Final Fantasy

« on: October 16, 2009, 04:09:24 AM »

A co-worker lent me FFVIII but I've yet to start playing it. I only played a little of VII and he seemed convinced that I'd like VIII because of my love for Chrono Trigger.

Any thought's on it before I dive in from people who played it?

Yes: it sucks.  Don't play it.  I haven't the foggiest idea why he'd think that you'd like FF 8 if you liked Chrono Trigger, because they are completely opposite experiences.

FF 8's problem is that it's just boring, with an emphasis on grinding magic from enemies and "draw points" to increase the stats of your characters.  The story is...confusing, often stupid, and not particularly interesting.  The game does have a couple really good RPG set pieces, though: such as the introductory sequence and the Garden battle around the middle of the game.  The love story would be more interesting if any of the characters were likeable, though at least Quistis shows some life once in a while.  But as for the others, well... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWPQ6t4uQXw .    The graphics are quite good, though, and the music is very well-done.

10102

TalkBack / Re: Pokepark Wii Announced

« on: October 16, 2009, 03:52:45 AM »

I think it's because Pokemon is supposed to be a social game where you're encouraged to trade with others and that just doesn't work well with home console games.

How would we know?  Nintendo's never tried it, and they have their beloved Friend Code system already in place for something like this.  If they couldn't manage a "social" environment with the system they put in place with the Wii, they only have themselves to blame for implementing such a lousy online service.

10103

General Gaming / Re: Final Fantasy

« on: October 16, 2009, 03:48:56 AM »

There was little, if any, filler and the game kept a constant momentum.

I object to that after having given up after traversing a narrow path with no interesting features for over an hour because there was a random encounter every three steps and at some point I got so tired of that "match attack to enemy" combat system that I just escaped from every battle only to be left underlevelled at a boss that has a 15 minute introduction cutscene if you skip every line of dialog as fast as possible.

I was referring more to the story momentum than general gameplay, which leans towards the slow and strategic side.  Still, yes the random encounter rate is on the high side, but considering it was just as bad if not worse in the pre-FF VII days it didn't bother me too much.  As for the combat system, I appreciated the highly-strategic side of it since it gives every character a purpose in battle if you choose to use them: Wakka to hit flying enemies; Lulu to hit flying enemies and those with high physical resistance; Tidus for Time magic and general-purpose offense; Yuna for White magic and heavy offense with her Aeons; Rikku for stealing; and Kimarhi and Auron for heavily-armored enemies.  It's not the fastest battle system in execution, but I like it.

10104

General Gaming / Re: Final Fantasy

« on: October 16, 2009, 02:32:46 AM »

As I said in another topic, FF X is my favorite in the series, followed by probably FF VI and then FF VII.  I just thought that FF X had the best story in the series, as not only is Yuna's story well-told but all her companions actually have stories that complement hers.  Yes, Tidus is annoying early on and the game is very linear until near the end, but I found that the trade-off for that linearity is that the story got solid focus.  There was little, if any, filler and the game kept a constant momentum.  I also find Spira as a world incredibly interesting and beautiful, like it has a history.  Pity FF X-2 had to take everything I liked about FF X and chuck it out a window.

I actually prefer the Sci-Fi RPG setting these days, so I'm especially looking forward to FF XIII.  After all, just about every other JRPG these days is using the traditional fantasy setting in some form or fashion so it's a good change of pace.  I know it's a low bar to clear, but at the very least it can't possibly be worse than FF XII, which had an interesting world that had nothing interesting happen in it.

As for FF IX, GP, I will say this: Zidane is awesome, but he's wasted on that game.  It's a solid game, but it just felt incredibly bland to me.  Especially after playing FF X, the game world just felt incredibly artificial and contrived like it was assembled from some traditional RPG cookbook.  FF IX also suffers from an abundance of useless and/or filler characters, as only Zidane; Dagger; Vivi; and Eiko actually matter in the story.  You could cut Quina; Amarant; and Freya out of the story and miss nothing, not that there's much to cut since those 3 are barely even in the game.  Granted, FF VI had this problem even worse, but at least that game didn't try and pretend that its extraneous characters mattered.  Steiner's amusing, but his one-note gag gets old fast.  I also found the plot rather loose and not terribly interesting.  It's not a bad game by any means, but it's nothing special either.   And after all these years, those PS1-era 3D graphics are ugly as sin (IMO, Chrono Cross is the only good-looking 3D PS1 game, and that game has a host of its own issues).

10105

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Wii Sales Thread

« on: October 16, 2009, 01:53:41 AM »

RE4 is action horror, not survival horror. To its credit, it's the best action horror game ever made.

Dead Space begs to differ.

10106

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Epic Mickey - Wii Exclusive

« on: October 15, 2009, 11:07:20 PM »

What the hell? Any comparison to Psychonauts can only be a good thing at this point in time. Psychonauts is awesome.

As covered in another topic, I found Psychonauts to be spectacularly average, with particularly awful platforming.

10107

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Epic Mickey - Wii Exclusive

« on: October 15, 2009, 11:01:10 PM »

I just seen the GI scans online, and even though the game doesn't quite fit what I pictured based on the concept art, I still think it looks pretty good. The atmosphere is dark, the environments look nice but a little more colorful than what I expected. Mickey looks a little weird, closer to his original debut style, but Oswald & the Bunny Kids looks great in 3D.

if you want to know where you can see the scans too... LMGT4U

*looks at the scans*

And reality comes crashing down, as those screenshots look like...just about any cartoon platformer I've ever seen.  It particularly reminds me of Psychonauts, and that's not a good thing.  Some of the artwork is very nice, some not.  I guess we'll just have to hope that the screenshots don't really tell the full story.

10108

Nintendo Gaming / Re: New Super Mario Bros. Wii

« on: October 15, 2009, 09:02:23 PM »

IGN has some new information up on the "Novice Mode" "Super Guides" in NSMBW: apparently, when you die more than 8 times in a given level a green "Super Guide" block appears at the beginning of the stage.  If the player hits it, Mario is swapped out for Luigi and Luigi plays through the level automatically.  Luigi only clears the level, though.  He does not reveal secrets.  There's also a special icon on the main menu if the player clears the game without triggering a Super Guide block.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/103/1035661p1.html

Luigi Dude posted about this a few pages back. Try and keep up.

Bite me.  It was a new story dated today on IGN and I didn't see anyone on the current page talking about the feature so I figured it hadn't broken yet.

10109

Nintendo Gaming / Re: New Super Mario Bros. Wii

« on: October 15, 2009, 08:44:45 PM »

IGN has some new information up on the "Novice Mode" "Super Guides" in NSMBW: apparently, when you die more than 8 times in a given level a green "Super Guide" block appears at the beginning of the stage.  If the player hits it, Mario is swapped out for Luigi and Luigi plays through the level automatically.  Luigi only clears the level, though.  He does not reveal secrets.  There's also a special icon on the main menu if the player clears the game without triggering a Super Guide block.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/103/1035661p1.html

10110

NWR Forums Discord / Re: We need a new forum name

« on: October 15, 2009, 08:38:32 PM »

We should just call it the "NWR Haunted Mansion".  Then we can use as the tagline "Welcome, foolish mortals!" 

10111

Nintendo Gaming / Re: The OFFICIAL Wii rumor thread *bring your own salt*

« on: October 15, 2009, 07:35:18 PM »

...but it sounds like this is going to have "shaders", which could conceivably make better graphics than the Wii.

Wii 2 is a portable system? Or, an even more interesting an idea: Wii2 is DS2 and it can act as both a hand-held and a TV console. I think similar ideas have been batted around in the past regarding a dual portable-console system.

God thats been my dream for the longest time. Even if it's still two seperate consoles (one home, one portable with its own games), the ability to use one to play the others games would be like a utopian age in video games in my opinion.

So in other words, what you've been dreaming of is the PS3 and PSP, with their "remote play" capabilities?  Granted, it's limited right now but it's a good start if you've into the kind of games both platforms offer.

This post was useless since i admitted as much at the end of my post...
But yeah, as you mentioned its limited now and unfortunately I don't have much interest in their game line-up. The last PSP game I heard about that I thought "man, i'd love to play that game; too bad I don't have a psp" was Maverick Hunter X...

Actually, what you mentioned was the PSP Go, which is a whole different beast from the normal PSP and PS3.

Well being disinterested in the PSP in general, i've very little knowledge on the pspGo aside from the fact its doesnt take UMD's anymore.

You can also program it to accept the Dualshock 3 as a controller, so you can play games using that (which must be rather awkward having to prop the handheld up somewhere and play while leaning close to see what's going on).

10112

NWR Forums Discord / Re: The Magical Thread of Disney

« on: October 15, 2009, 07:32:50 PM »

You don'r like the music from the Little Mermaid?!

Under the sea?!

Kiss the girl?!

Those are classic!

Hey, I'm not arguing that it's not good music.  I just don't care for it.

10113

TalkBack / Re: Pokepark Wii Announced

« on: October 15, 2009, 07:29:44 PM »

maybe you don't want a 3D Pokemon RPG, but people have been calling out for it for years.
It doesn't have to be a MMO style RPG, even if the series seems perfect for that style of play, but a 3D zelda-ish Pokemon RPG is has been asked for since the late N64 early GC days.

unless of course you are being sarcastic.

Because honestly, I've never even played a pokemon game before in my life, but I would buy a full 3D Pokemon RPG.

I was being sarcastic.    I've had it with Nintendo's utter laziness with the Pokemon franchise.  I'm fine with there being alternative interpretations of the franchise, but I can't believe we're on our 3rd 3D console now without an actual Pokemon RPG.  I know they're afraid that they'd actually have to put substantive effort into such a game, but c'mon there's no excuse now.

10114

Nintendo Gaming / Re: The OFFICIAL Wii rumor thread *bring your own salt*

« on: October 15, 2009, 07:19:44 PM »

...but it sounds like this is going to have "shaders", which could conceivably make better graphics than the Wii.

Wii 2 is a portable system? Or, an even more interesting an idea: Wii2 is DS2 and it can act as both a hand-held and a TV console. I think similar ideas have been batted around in the past regarding a dual portable-console system.

God thats been my dream for the longest time. Even if it's still two seperate consoles (one home, one portable with its own games), the ability to use one to play the others games would be like a utopian age in video games in my opinion.

So in other words, what you've been dreaming of is the PS3 and PSP, with their "remote play" capabilities?  Granted, it's limited right now but it's a good start if you've into the kind of games both platforms offer.

This post was useless since i admitted as much at the end of my post...
But yeah, as you mentioned its limited now and unfortunately I don't have much interest in their game line-up. The last PSP game I heard about that I thought "man, i'd love to play that game; too bad I don't have a psp" was Maverick Hunter X...

Actually, what you mentioned was the PSP Go, which is a whole different beast from the normal PSP and PS3.

10115

TalkBack / Re: Pokepark Wii Announced

« on: October 15, 2009, 07:17:10 PM »

According to Destructoid this is going to be another Pokemon minigame collection of sorts, with perhaps a bit of Pokemon Snap.  Good to know Nintendo listens to its fans, because no one wants a 3D Pokemon RPG.  Another minigame collection as well to add to the handful on the system.

10116

Nintendo Gaming / Re: The OFFICIAL Wii rumor thread *bring your own salt*

« on: October 15, 2009, 10:54:49 AM »

...but it sounds like this is going to have "shaders", which could conceivably make better graphics than the Wii.

Wii 2 is a portable system? Or, an even more interesting an idea: Wii2 is DS2 and it can act as both a hand-held and a TV console. I think similar ideas have been batted around in the past regarding a dual portable-console system.

God thats been my dream for the longest time. Even if it's still two seperate consoles (one home, one portable with its own games), the ability to use one to play the others games would be like a utopian age in video games in my opinion.

So in other words, what you've been dreaming of is the PS3 and PSP, with their "remote play" capabilities?  Granted, it's limited right now but it's a good start if you've into the kind of games both platforms offer.

10117

General Gaming / Re: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Official Best Single-Player Game Ever Thread

« on: October 15, 2009, 10:35:34 AM »

I've put in some good time with the game and gotten all the treasures, all the weapon-related trophies (including Survivor), and unlocked most of the stuff in the single-player store.  I still need to beat the game on Hard and Crushing, as well as completing one competitive and one cooperative multiplayer game.  I'm curious whether they'll count losing a cooperative game as "completing" it, considering you can "complete" a competitive multiplayer game and still lose.  In any case, this is looking like my first easy Platinum since Prince of Persia, assuming that Hard and Crushing are fairly manageable.

10118

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Epic Mickey - Wii Exclusive

« on: October 15, 2009, 07:36:17 AM »

It's tough having to rationalize hating disney and loving pixar isn't it? =P Maybe you should just give up.

Not really, considering I have no problem hating Activision and loving Blizzard (and the Pixar/Disney relationship isn't much different). 

I don't even hate Disney anyway, obviously.  I just find their modern animation division lacking in anything approaching quality or entertainment.  The upcoming The Princess and the Frog may change that, but I'm not holding out hope.  Even if it is good, it took a Pixar person to make that happen.   

10119

Nintendo Gaming / Re: The OFFICIAL Wii rumor thread *bring your own salt*

« on: October 14, 2009, 08:14:52 PM »

I agree, sales have no bearing on the amount of effort that was originally put into it, so if you are trying to decide on what is an "A" "B" or "C" quality effort, then you shouldn't have to wait until 1 month after release to do so.

Except that sales do have a bearing on the effort put into a game.  Game studios decide the budget of their projects (especially marketing) based on what kind of sales they can expect that project to return.  If the game is an old IP, they base the budget off the sales of the last installment and how much they can expect to grow those for the sequel.  If the game is a new IP, they base it off sales of similar-type games in the marketplace.

10120

NWR Forums Discord / Re: The Magical Thread of Disney

« on: October 14, 2009, 08:07:56 PM »

I was never a fan of The Little Mermaid (its just not my thing, especially the music), but the TV series was decent enough to sit through a few random episodes on late night TV when I'm bored.  The Aladdin TV series was pretty good as well, though not on the level of Darkwing Duck; Duck Tales; Gargoyles; etc.

I had a chance to watch Little Mermaid 2 via VHS a few years back (my mother had gotten a lot of old VHS tapes from a friend who was just dumping them off), and I thought it was stupid but nowhere near as bad as say...Return of Jafar.  The music, though...*shudders*.  The only good thing I can say about that movie's music is that it's nowhere near as bad as "Swim this way" from Kingdom Hearts 2.  *shudders again, more violently*  Speaking of that game, that un-used song used for the battle with Ursula in Kingdom Hearts 2 was actually pretty cool and well-integrated into the fight.

Suprisingly, I actually liked the direct-to-video Lion King 2.  The music was pretty decent and the story interesting even if it followed a pretty tired cliche.

10121

Nintendo Gaming / Re: The OFFICIAL Wii rumor thread *bring your own salt*

« on: October 14, 2009, 07:59:12 PM »

Should success and user reception even be part of the equation?  They don't come into play until after the game is released; many throw around the "triple-A" judgment on games prior to release, and it seems mostly indicative of the perceived work/progress/effort an upcoming game demonstrates.  "where are the triple-A games?"  "finally, this company looks like it providing a triple-A effort."

I doubt success can be part of the reasoning because many can point to some past games, consider them "A", and note how it flopped on the market.


Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wii Fit... double-A?  single-A?  B+extra credit?

Like I said, those were just generalities.  There are obviously exceptions, such as the Metroid franchise (which I don't think moved up from B to AAA status till Metroid Prime came out and made Metroid a system seller).  But if I had to label those games just using the 3 categories (I've never heard of a game just labeled an "A Grade"):

Wii Sports - AAA.  It is a system seller, without question.
Wii Play - B.  It is an extremely successful game on the Wii, but people don't buy the Wii to play it.  They buy it for Wii Sports.
Wii Fit - Probably AAA at this point.

10122

General Gaming / Re: PixlBit - Survival Horror Marathon for St. Jude

« on: October 14, 2009, 07:38:10 PM »

Hell, Dead Space is an excellent horror game.

Indeed, that too.  So many better options than Silent Hill 1.  I'd also point out that as bad as Silent Hill 1 looks on my TV played via PS3, I can't imagine how much worse it would look like on streaming internet video.

10123

Nintendo Gaming / Re: The OFFICIAL Wii rumor thread *bring your own salt*

« on: October 14, 2009, 07:32:47 PM »

Then what would an example of a "B" grade title be?

More successful titles (but not mega-hits), such as F-Zero; Kirby; Star Fox (in better days before that franchise got run into the ground); and Pikmin.

In general you can probably break the 3 categories down like this:

"C" Grade - Niche titles that sell to specific audiences, but aren't big money-makers.

"B" Grade - Very successful titles with good production values that sell to a wider audience, but don't have the sales to get the best production values and marketing attention.

"AAA" Grade - (for the platform) ultra-high production values, big marketing attention, very wide appeal, and extremely good sales.  System sellers.

10124

General Gaming / Re: PixlBit - Survival Horror Marathon for St. Jude

« on: October 14, 2009, 07:11:56 PM »

Please for the love of GOD play ED. It is such a great game that people need to witness.

Honestly, if we're going for straight-on horror possibly an even greater choice would probably be Condemned: Criminal Origins.  Just a lot of good horror titles to work with.

10125

Nintendo Gaming / Re: The OFFICIAL Wii rumor thread *bring your own salt*

« on: October 14, 2009, 07:09:39 PM »

What would an example of a  "C" grade title be?

From Nintendo?  Odama, Chibi Robo, at this point probably Star Fox, anything from Monolith Software...