Dr.Flintlock

Recently, I got around to borrowing Samurai 7 from a friend of mine (I go to him quite frequently. He spends roughly a quarter of his paycheck on bloody anime). Just finished it last night and I thought it was pretty good and definitely up there with some of my other favs. I've heard it takes a few liberties with the plot ot Akira Kurosawa's original film, and I won't lie that a lot of the charaterizations can be borderline cliche, but the overall feel of the series was pretty engrossing. Also, the mecha designs in that series are top-notch, combining a nice blend of steampunk inspired and feudalistic Japan influences. Only thing I didn't care much for was that said mechs did seem a little weak. I mean, sure when you're a crazy samurai who can perform superhuman feats, its not surprising that you could dismantle several of the large monstrosities, but towards the conclusion to the series, FARMERS were blowing them up too. Kinda makes you wonder why these giant robots were so dangerous to begin with... But the real draw of this series is in the character development and it kept me up 'til all hours watching. On top of that, I'm a huge fan of GONZO's work, so that may make me a bit biased. I've been into them since I first played Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Lunar 2 awhile back.

One thing about this game I found extremely interesting is that they chose to deliberately leave out an English dub. If you play this title, you're reading subtitles unless you understand Japanese well enough. This is something you don't see very often with games of this nature. Usually a dub is put together, even if its not that good, and people complain about the original dialogue being "better". So in this regard, the developers skipped all that nonsense, and just gave people who play this sort of game what they'd want from the get-go. Kind of a way to scare away more casual individuals, but what can you do? On that note however, I will say that the subtitles and the pacing of the spoken dialogue don't really match up. On particularly long cutscenes, I found myself skipping through the actual voiced stuff, just because I could read faster, and it seemed my protagonist liked to pause. after. every. word. Minor nitpick and definitely not a game-breaker.

Yeah, I don't really see it becoming mainstream, even if it does come stateside and get a decent following. Titles like this kind of remind me of Atlus titles. They'll have a solid niche audience, but that's about it. But I am happy to see that Square-Enix is doing more with certain franchises than spamming FF titles up the ass (Not that I have any issue with said titles, its just a little tiresome I think. No hate though). And yes, I know of Kingdom Hearts but that doesn't count.

I dunno, like I said earlier, I'd prefer a nastier version of the Death Egg over another Metal Sonic any day. After all, we've already seen Metal Sonic AS AN OVER THE TOP FINAL BOSS already... Now if we wanted to get serious, I say he makes an uber lumberjack bot like the minor boss from Mushroom Hill Zone 1

Yeah, and I would've gotten Disgaea 3 had it come out for the Wii, but nooooo

So I don't know if there's any other Lufia fans out here on OCR, but for me, the Lufia series is one of my favorite RPG sagas. I actually played Rise of the Sinistrals and Fortress of Doom before any sort of Final Fantasy title, so you could say these games popped the "RPG cherry" for me. Hell, I even liked the music so much, I got a tape recorder and recorded the music for later viewing, even finding MIDI samples to listen to at my convenience. Imagine my surprise upon realizing they're doing a legitimately new game in the series for the DS. Definitely a highlight for me as it looks like they're bringing up almost all the old characters from the original for this one. Some trailers are in order: Trailer 1 Trailer 2 Seems they may have made the combat into more of an Action RPG, which I'm personally not that much against. Kinda reminds me of the later interations to the Ys series like Ark of Napishtim an such. I do like the visuals much and I can't rate to hear some of the old music get an update. So overall, am I alone in my love for this series, or are there more Lufia fans out there?

Oh hell yes. I love this game something fierce. Its got some tight controls, slick visuals and a decent story that seems to compliment Japanese folklore rather well. I mostly like the fact that most actual fights only last maybe 20-30 seconds at most. Kinda makes you feel more lethal in that regard. Also, as I've played Odin Sphere, the sister title to this game, I love the bosses this game has to offer. They kinda look like concept art ripped from an artbook, which is certainly a major plus. I still haven't completed either of the storylines (I got caught up with Little King Story awhile back and now its way back on my backloggery), but I intend to finish it as soon as I get an opportunity to. Glad to see someone else appreciates this game. It kinda was a sleeper hit last yer. Although I think a lot of people were upset that it was only available on Wii.

Ehh, I remain cautiously optimistic about this so-called Sonic the Hedgehog 4 (I always thought Sonic and Knuckles was 4 technically). When Sega was interviewed about the title being episode 1, they explained its 1 in the way that Sonic 3 was the first episode to that story and Sonic and Knuckles was the 2nd episode. If that's the case, and each game is self-contained with new stages and such, I think I can support that. I imagine that's why you only play as Sonic in the first. They'll add tails and (maybe) knuckles in the later episodes. I don't care if it is episodic, as long as its standalone and not "expansions". And yes, Eggman isn't menacing at all, but then I always thought Robotnik was more of a Saturday morning cartoon evil genius than a genuinely malevolent one. So I think the new name works to an extent. But then again, I always felt his voice actors helped with that image. I have no issue with the visuals. I think they capture the retro feel of the older series and there's always the chance that things can be smoothed out. I really am getting tired of hearing people complain about it looking ugly though. We get a 2D sonic game and people still want to bitch to cry foul about Sonic needing to die. For a second, I thought I'd walked onto a Gamefaqs board. Ahem...

R is for Rival Schools

Sorry, missed this comment...I hope he either A) Gives it to a director who can handle this material a little more legitimately or Stays true to the source material of the manga or the anime and doesn't make it into a blockbuster that EVERYONE can enjoy. Because the truth is that the average movie watcher does not like the GitS series because of all the philosophical jargon and whatnot. Even though you either love or hate the Wachowzki Brothers, I always saw them as being the perfect directors for a GitS movie. Too bad they got tied up on Speed Racer first...

Referring to my Big O post (and all the pretty pictures posted by you guyses), I have to say its an anime you can probably appreciate more once you've watched some older film noir movies. At least, that's what allowed me to appreciate it more. Also, some of the episodes were just ridiculously awesome....and a little random.. For example, I'm pretty positive the "Christmas Special" was probably one of my all time favorite specials I've ever seen on any televised programming (Crazy scientist posing as Santa Claus allows for creation of GIANT MUTHAFUCKING Christmas tree. And when its done growing, it just....stops..and is shiny.) Plus the scene where Roger buys R. Dorothy a dress is priceless. Also, in other news, the Butler (his name escapes me) belongs on the list of greatest butlers of all time (Up there with Alfred and Lurch I believe). He wields a freaking .50 Cal (I think) for Christ's sakes. Also, eye patch ftw. On the topic of GitS: I started reading the original manga by Masamune Shirow a little while back and think its actually a little harder to read when you've been watching the anime. It really is a wholly different work on its own, especially with regards to The Major's characters. She's all vivacious, cute and stuff but still capable of kicking your ass. Just kinda...different is all. Oh and Batou is a klutz sometimes. Crazy.

For once the cake is not a lie Bappy Hirthday!!!

So I just happened to be listening to this in my car the other day and I forgot how amazing this actualy arrangement was. The little bits of vocals, the overall musicality of the piece is just top notch. On top of that, my girlfriend was in the car with me and while she's really not much of a video game fan, she recognized the music because her brother plays Civ IV for hours and was damn impressed. So thank you guys, for letting me bond with my girlfriend with video game remixes...for a change.

In regards to the challenge of people posting badnik concept art, I really hope someone does "Grounder" or "Egg Robo". These 2 simply have to make the cut, I believe. And on the topic of the sonic comics, I actually never read a ton, though I do remember picking up the Sonic and Knuckles adaptation years and years ago, and reading the ever living hell out of that thing.

So I know there's usually an unspoken law about not trading games in, but I did anyway and picked up Mass Effect 2 and No More Heroes 2 the other day. I've barely played the latter as I've been pretty busy with the former, but from what I can gather, its just as inane as the first one and a definite upgrade. I usually don't agree with journalistic reviews, but those retro-style mini games really do kickass, complete with awesome chiptune music. I won't lie though. I actually had to go online to remind myself who the dude was who died within the first 15 minutes of the game....Also, arcade game called BJ5 (ahem) is hilarious. Overall, I'll hopefully have something a little more thorough in the next few weeks. "I HAVE HIM!!!" That he is, my friend, that he is.

Soundtrack to the film Fantastic Mr. Fox, specifically, The Ballad of Davy Crockett by the Wellingtons.

I'm surprised you didn't do a shameless plug for Artoon there In any case, I picked it up and thoroughly enjoyed the hell out of it. Although I still can't beat some stages. If I may, I'd like to direct eveyrone's attention to games by Sting like Yggdra Union, Riviera: The Promised Land and Knights in the Nightmare. All fantastic titles with pretty steep learning curves (Hell, the latter is basically a shmup mixed with a Strategy RPG) but rewarding once you get the mechanics down. Also, even though this particular title may not be all that hidden anymore, I really can't recommend the Indie title Iji enough. Its free, its like Deus Ex as a sidescroller, its free, it has a great soundtrack, its free, it has multiple endings, its free . Oh and before I forget, any of the Klonoa titles= insta-win

Thanks. I'll see if I can see the second season eventually. I've been watching a lot of downer stuff lately and I think it would be nice to see something more comedic. Yeah, I've noticed this small bit of discipleship on the internetz. Best just to make them THINK that their show is holier than thou, than to tell them "the cake is a lie"