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Episode 609: Anime Word Cloud

by James Jones, Greg Leahy, and Guillaume Veillette - February 10, 2019, 2:02 pm EST
Total comments: 8

Orphan, isekai, power-creep, friendship.

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Jon is off doing vague things, so this week it's just the trio of GG&J holding down the fort. James kicks-off New Business with a look at Wargroove, an open duplication of Advance Wars gameplay applied to a fantasy universe. Just like Golf Story, a team of indie developers saw a GBA-era series Nintendo has neglected, and filled that void. Sadly, James was never a big Advance Wars fan, and that doesn't change here. He's been using his time with Wargroove to test the Satisfye Pro Gaming Grip. Designed to add Pro Controller-like handles to an undocked Switch, James is still adapting to how it feels in his hands. Guillaume is the latest member of RFN to give Octopath Traveler a try. His opinion is more in-line with Greg than James. He likes the game's writing, gameplay and especially it's visuals; he finds the structure isn't conducive to good storytelling. Overcooked 2 keeps happening; this week he's been playing the Chinese New Year content pack, recently added to his favorite manic kitchen simulator. Greg got his hands on the demo of Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn, for 3DS. What makes it extra epic? Nobody knows. This is a lie, but I refuse to tell you. He then wraps-up New Business talking about the recent demise of the Wii Shop Channel. Rest in Peace, Mario collecting coins as a progress bar.

After the break, we take on some of your Listener Mail. This week we: calibrate our anime detectors, explain our lack of news-focus, focus on the Xbox Live news, and compare Tales of Vesperia to a game none of us have ever played. You can ask for such a well-informed opinion by sending us an email.

This episode was edited by Guillaume Veillette. The "Men of Leisure" theme song was produced exclusively for Radio Free Nintendo by Perry Burkum. Hear more at Perry's SoundCloud. The Radio Free Nintendo logo was produced by Connor Strickland. See more of his work at his website.

This episode's ending music is Outer Rings, from Kirby's Epic Yarn. It was selected by Greg. All rights reserved by Nintendo Co., Ltd.

Talkback

KDR_11kFebruary 11, 2019

So is the hotspring scene the starting or end point of the Anime Happens scale?

Kytim89February 11, 2019

Why is Johnny Metz no longer on the show?

Quote from: Kytim89

Why is Johnny Metz no longer on the show?

I'm not sure if this is trolling or a legit question...

To elaborate on James' point about games that have a "GBA-ish look", it's that a lot of GBA games would use brighter pastels that were easier to see without a backlight, with sprites that are either rather low detail and chunky, or consumate to their SNES counterparts, but obviously at a more zoomed-in and intimate scale. I personally just think that's a 'this is an indie game' sort of look. i'd lump celeste in that category too.

I'm more just happy that Chucklefish is showing that that Stardew Valley publishing money is being put into their internal projects to make them not as decidedly stiff looking as Starbound was. as much as I love the dickens out of Starbound's setting and find it's gameplay to be a far more zen-like experience than say... terraria, it feels like Wargroove on the whole is a far more focused game than that.

... which is to say, it is focused on outside of a few small liberties, filling this niche that feels comparable to Black Hole Rising but with a more fully featured editor (since the editor is the same tool they used to make the story mode), rather than how crazy fully featured Dual Strike on DS was. it effectively has a near identical roster of unit types if we take Md.Tank out and have a water based infantry unit. the real big diffrerence is that units are even more disposable in Wargroove considering the fact that you can't passively repair your units by just sitting them on a property, but rather have to pay to heal them. you also can't combine platoons as a cost-cutting measure to repairs. it's got juuuuuuuuuust enough there to not be the exact same game, but it's sooooo close. I also agree that Regna is a pretty annoying character by design. then again, considering the nature of what Regna is, it kinda makes sense?



Also, fun little fact for those of you who may actually read this post; The Floran are actually something lifted straight from Chucklefish's other first-party offering, the aforementioned Starbound. Nuru is even a character you encounter in that game as a space-faring hunter who decides she wants to help your character save the universe. I Guess after all that happened, she decided to take it easy and do some old-fashioned primitive hunting on an under-developed world!


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I started Octopath Traveler with Primrose and feel like I was immensely rewarded by both having the most compelling of the 8's story front and center to grab me, and having the best party member in my party at all times to get EXP and money when those resources were in high demand.

I also had a merchant around quite a bit to toss BP around a lot and really got into the extra classes who can give you a head start on having boosted attacks, and that speeds things along quite a bit for the mid to late game if you're the sort who's skilled enough to beat those optional super bosses. Said Super Bosses are where the likes of poison damage, because it's percentile, can often outpace the turn-to-turn damage your party is doing, especially if your focus is keeping the boss pinned down as much as possible. Leg Trap is invaluable in this regard as well.

Kytim89February 12, 2019

Quote from: Crimm

Quote from: Kytim89

Why is Johnny Metz no longer on the show?

I'm not sure if this is trolling or a legit question...

I have not kept up with the show for a long time, so I was just wondering.

Kytim89: Jonny's last episode was 439, if you wanted to check that out.

ClexYoshi: I'm probably wrong, but doesn't poison affect the enemy only when they act? I thought I noticed this, or at least, I didn't notice poison damage occur at other moments. Made me think poison was particularly useless when keeping a boss pinned down.

Gotcha, sorry for the confusion. To summarize the point Jonny made on the show Gui referenced: time. He had a number of other things going on and had to find the thing to take off his plate.

TOPHATANT123February 17, 2019

Did Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE not come up in the anime is happening segment?

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