EC2151

While voice acting for the non-link characters would be nice, I'd rather not play my Zelda game with everyone sounding like some generic anime character (which would undoubtedly happen if there were to be voices), so I'm ok with no VA.

You're gunna play POLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLE POSITTTTTTTTTTTIONNNNNNNNNNNNN

I wish I had a dollar every time I saw that Miyamoto image. In fact I remember when it was just complaining about the release of Twilight Princess with no mention of Skyward Sword.

there is a third option. Hi-Def graphics await you.

I feel that before Spoony made it "cool" to hate FFVIII and FFX, disliking those games and their stories WAS the minority view. Because they're fantastic games. Also, several of my friends on other forums absolutely love the hell out of everything Snatcher. I admire its VA and atmosphere (though I've never played it myself), and they swear by its captivating and entertaining story.

Ah yes, Deadly Premonition! You should get that of your own volition. So says Mr. Stewart. All jokes aside, it's probably one of the most bonkers, off-the-wall, but ultimately captivating and satisfying game narratives to come out in recent times. Francis York Morgan (just call him York) is one of my favorite game protagonists, who, along with Gene from God Hand and Travis Touchdown from No More Heroes, really stands head-above-shoulders the rest of the generic JRPG crowd in terms of likability and originality.

Eh, powerful stories? I mean, I like a good game story, but even the best FF plot is still a game plot. In general, game narratives can only go so far, I feel. But that doesn't mean there are plenty of game stories that aren't highly satisfying. If you want some satisfying narratives, I'll see what I can recommend: -Skies of Arcadia --Mainly because it's a light-hearted game, with distinctive, enjoyable characters, a fun ship-battle system, and all in all, its narrative encapsulates that bright, adventurous, and fun quality RPGs used to have before everyone tried to copy VII's darker approach. -Ace Attorney series --Also fun games, each and every one of them. Still contains that "fun" atmosphere I talked about, but at the same time, over the course of the first three games you really grow to care about the main cast, and root for them through their trials and tribulations (ha ha a pun trust me play the games and you'll get it). Highly recommended for adventure game fans. -Fallout 1 --Speaking of adventure games, this one will suck you into its post-apocalyptic world, with its charm, strong writing, and fun RPG mechanics. Definitely not some anime JRPG story to be found here! However, you might want something more "up-to-date"... -Fallout: New Vegas --Better than Fallout 3, I feel. It just feels like a much better experience, though it's hard to quantify that. Perhaps the setting and the characters are just a bit better in my eyes. The fact that the original crew of the first two Fallout games worked on New Vegas, as opposed to folks who developed Fallout 3. It's a great game, driving story, and great voice-acting, so it's definitely worth a run-through. -Hotel Dusk: Secret of Room 215 (DS) --It is more or less a visual novel with puzzles thrown in, but gosh damn, what a novel. It's almost like an old-fashioned detective story/page turner, with lots of great characters, a great mystery, and it literally drives you along into playing this game. If you can also pick up the sequel (only released in Europe), you'll probably be in for just as good of a treat. But play the original if you can.

I've heard things about MUSHA, but I don't have a Japanese Mega-Drive, and I all ready spend too much money on my saturn, ha ha. I STILL haven't bought DoDonPachi, mainly because my reasoning is 1) What if DonPachi is more fun 2) There is a relatively cheap Gun Frontier, but I'm not sure if it's worth it 3) There is a Cotton 2 which looks interesting 4) There is Shienryu which also looks good SO MANY CHOICES!!!! I want to convince my older brother to let me get Strania: The Stella Machina on his 360, but he's not to keen on the idea. He calls my games "those shitty Sega Saturn games that you like" which makes me laugh.

I work groundskeeping at my local college campus, and I'd just like to say that one of my co-workers, a 30-something-year-old guy from Alabama who has been gaming since the Commodore 64 era frequently brings up you guys when we talk about video-games during our lunch breaks. I just thought it'd be cool to mention that not only do you find gamers in the oddest spots, but even fans of EC!

Phew, that's good to know. I thought I got gipped! And you're right, because tracks 1 and 2 are all orchestral with quality instruments (not that the stuff on there isn't quality- I love 80s arcade synths!). I'm thinking of using my next paycheck to get DoDonPachi and Gun Frontier. Gun Frontier, because it's loads of fun, and DoDonPachi, because it seems that EVERY SINGLE SHMUP FAN IN EXISTENCE says that EVERY FAN OF SHMUPS needs to play that game. I liked DonPachi (despite only beating it on MAME via credit-feeding), so I'd assume it's more of the same but... better? With Gun Frontier, it's one of the few games that use checkpoints that doesn't piss me off (mainly because you don't go back to square one with your powerups and its feasible to get powered up again). Also, ZUNTATA is my favorite VGM group in existence, no doubt. Everything they used to make in the ol' days of the 90s-early 2000s was gold.

Forgive my double-post, but I have a question: My copy of Terra Diver/Soukyugurentai came in today, and I'm pretty excited (though I'm at my home and not my apartment, so I can't play it until tomorrow). I decided to pop in the Sega Saturn CD into my computer to get a taste of the music (especially after hearing good things about it), but it sounds rather different than what is on youtube and such. Now I don't know what the deal is but all the tracks on the CD sound like they're using the same instrument set as Darius II. You know, those 80s arcade synths. This is on my CD And the CD case I have is the one in the youtube picture. Now i haven't played the game yet, so it might be... I dunno what it might be but I'm a little concerned. Unless this is how the music is supposed to sound like in Soukyougurentai, and the orchestral/electronic stuff is in Otuyuko.

You know, I lurk on the shmup system11 forum, and I have checked out your project for a while, and I think it looks pretty cool (and the music is rad, ha ha). I've been playing a lot of Gun Frontier on MAME and I'm considering buying it for the Saturn, since i'm having so much fun with it. It's just not often that you play a game with such a fun idea (gold bandits have taken over a planet- you fly a colt-revolver with airplane wings and you have to take them down), and makes me wonder why more mainstream games these days go for the "refuge in audacity" approach.

I will say that all the music theory in the world didn't stop my first songs in FL from sounding like total absolute shit. All the same, until you learn how to use your program/method of choice, your music will sound rough (or in my case God-awful). I still don't know many things about FL, REAPER, or any of the trackers I use, but it goes a long way after my first crappy forays into those tools.

This type of movie could ONLY be good if it was made by Troma Films. But it's not. Thus it won't be good.

It's funny how, since buying my saturn, my definition of "reasonable price" has become "somewhere in the range of $40" x_x I know I haven't played much of the DonPachi series, but I kind of wished that they kept that same radio guy from DonPachi in all the other games. I don't care what you think about the gameplay, or the challenge, or the bullet patterns, that dude MADE the game what it was. OOOOHHWEEEE KID MULTI-ASSAULT TANK COMIN' UP JUST A FEW MORE SHOOOTTTSSS ENEMY HQ DEAD AHEAD KID YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO ALL RIGHT ROOKIE YOU'RE DOIN' PRETTY GOOD POWERRRR UP!

Small update. So yeah, R-Types and R-Type Delta. All three games are fucking hard as shit. Though I must admit R-Type Delta is much more fun than R-Type 1 and 2. That's not to say they're not fun. Just hard as shit. I can get to level 3 in R-Type before losing a continue, and fucking level 2 in R-Type Delta. I have continues, but I find those games so draining that I usually don't want to continue playing after using a continue. Ha ha. I came SO close to 1CCing Darius Gaiden today. I lost it at Great Thing, though I ended up killing him with a credit to spare. I feel that if it were another boss, I MIGHT have been able to pull it off. Then again, every final boss of D-Gaiden is a badass. Is it bad, shmuppers, that I used the auto-fire cheat to get this far? Usually I don't, but the bosses in Darius Gaiden take SO long to kill with the default firing speed, that the main reason you die is from attrition (because they live so long they live long enough to fuck you over with all their attacks). Hopefully I didn't commit a cardinal sin of STGs and use autofire... Lol like I give a shit It feels great that I can go into Darius Gaiden now, after almost a year, and beat the game in about 20 or so minutes. Feels really good. Maybe I'll run through Galactic Attack again to see if I've gotten better at that. I dunno though, RayForce IS (i feel) a much harder game. ---- Right now my Saturn STG wishlist looks like: -DonPachi (COME ON KID) -DoDonPachi* -Soukyugurentai* (I almost got this TWICE for really cheap on ebay but shiesters fucked me over in the last 30 seconds both times. FUCK) -Strikers 1945 (holy moly this game is fucking hard to survive in) -Shienryu* -Metal Slug* *Have never played I kind of wish these games weren't as expensive as fuck. I get paid tomorrow. If I were to get one of these games, which could any of you recommend? The ones with asterisks are the ones I have not played. Also, Gundemonium Collection came out on steam, and I'm hearing good things from the folks over at the shmups.system11 forums. Though I'm not sure if the game is totally my thing (outside of that fantasic Crimzon Clover game Schwaltz posted I'm not usually in to doujin shooters), but hey, 10 bucks for 3 games.

For me, it's usually "listening as much as possible, over and over again" It's more or less how I feel like I've absorbed some of ZUNTATA's (specifically OGR and Tamayo) style into my own pieces. I don't really look at orchestral transcriptions, but from time to time I do look at piano music from the "greats" (everyone from Bach to Grieg to Schoenberg to Steve Reich) and TRY to see what they're doing. Listening to a good symphony or two is always good too. Unlike ZUNTATA, I don't really "adopt" their styles (as if I could!) but it's always good to hear how the better composers have done instrumentation (what plays what and when, etc). Always useful to know. My own compositions reek of bastardized Romanticism, and like you I haven't seriously studied music in a good long while (though I play almost every day the piano), so it's usually just the methods I described above. If you are looking to increase musical literacy (as in, read more music), the only way forward is lots and lots of practice. If you are looking to increase your sound palette, listen to many diverse composers/bands/artists and broaden your mind (duuuuude).

the GBA soundchip was much different- it had (on top of the four GB channels- one pulse, two square, and one noise I believe), it had 2 or sampling channels on top of that (might be wrong on the number of sampling channels). Its sound is by and large different than what the GB could produce, in a sense.

Might I suggest some needed contributions? -Final Fantasy Adventure / Seiken Densetsu -Lufia: The Legend Returns (Great GBC music!) -Kirby's Dreamland / Dreamland 2 As a little selfish side note, I'd love to hear Johnathan Dunn's get some love. Dunn was a fantastic composer that was unfortunately stuck with Ocean of all game companies- his music is the only good thing about their games. Plus was some of the most bitchin' stuff on the gameboy chip.best of luck with the project!

So who wants to bet that this whole romance thing will just be a couple of scenes right at the beginning, be totally dropped for most of the game, and then just some tiny scene thrown in at the end like a hug? That's where Isee that going.

I never heard the original mix you posted, but I like this "improved" version. I think it, for the most part, very well done. The only things that really come out at me and need "fixing" is MAYBE some tweaking on the drums (don't trust my account though, since I am terrible at discerning good percussion!), and maybe a few more filter/humanizing tweaks to the lead instrument, particularly at 2:30 (for some reason I feel it sticks out more than it should). Other than that, though, I really like it!

well then what is the only thing you find people talking about Braid, outside of the occasional "I can't figure this puzzle out" thing? Is it its "innovative"* gameplay? Or is it "what does [X] mean or symbolize?" or "WHO WAS THE BOMB?" What do articles on the game HAVE to mention when talking about Braid? It shitty story, of course. *oh shit rewind this is fucking crazy!

SMB was all-right. Not the be-all end-all for fun platforming, but it was still fun and priced reasonably (at least when I picked it up for like $2, lol). Beat it and never felt like playing it again. Music was definitely the best part. Braid though I haaaaate. Now if you want to talk about an "indie" game I heap praise on, that'd be Jamestown. It ain't perfect by any means, but it's a short, fun, fast game that I keep on coming back to. I love a game that can feasibly take 20 minutes to beat in one go, but still keeps you replaying it. AND BEST OF ALL ITS STORY IS NOT A CENTRAL COMPONENT/"SELLING POINT" UNLIKE BRAID WHICH FUCKING SUCKS GHAHHGHGHH

Looks like someone else is a reader of Alex Kierkegaard. I kind of want to think this movie is a comedy, because it looks really funny. Especially with that artsy silhouette stuff. Man, it's art. It's kind of like "People who make bad games the movie"

This is a really great, almost "gypsy"/Eastern European take on the Blue Badger theme. Really great performance, and its full of style. I like it a lot! It's a simplistic theme, but this rendition almost gives a Ravellian (in the sense of Bolero) style to it, its constant repetition with slight additions.