yangfeili

Anyone remember back when they changed the music between the FFVIII demo version and final version due to it supposedly sounding too much like the theme from The Rock?

The only FE game I ever fully played was FE7 on the GBA (the one simply called "Fire Emblem" in the US). Liked it a lot, got a lot of time out of it between Normal/Hard/Hector Hard mode. Started up Sacred Stones... and was very quickly turned off by the world map, unlimited skirmishes, etc. I liked the "never look back" linear structure of FE7, where I could safely assume that all missions had been balanced to be beatable so long as you managed your units/resources from previous missions appropriately. In FE8, I could never shake the vibe that because I was now allowed to grind, I was therefore expected to grind, but had no way of knowing just how much grinding I needed to do. Did I fail that mission because I need to grind more, or because my strategy sucks? (I should probably give it another chance, maybe it's not as bad as my initial impression and you can just plow through the missions as if the option to grind didn't exist.) But with all that in mind, I assume Conquest is probably the way to go for me? Or are there any preceding games in the series I should look into first?

My wife watches a lot of Chinese television, and there have been numerous occasions where I've heard VGM being used in shows. One in particular that jumps out at me was some reality show on mainstream CCTV that kept using bits of the Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack. I highly doubt they actually have the rights to use the music, since I also often hear them throwing around bits of the Star Wars soundtrack. But I could be wrong, maybe it's more common to draw on VGM/anime sources for music in Asia. (Once heard a bit of the Escaflowne soundtrack on an episode of Iron Chef.)

Weird timing... I bought Blue at release, casually played it a bit, and then never played another game in the series. I pulled it out again just last week after reading about Nuzlocke rules. I'm enjoying it now a lot more than I did when it first came out. I think at the time I found the quantity of Pokemon and Moves a bit too much to process, so it's been fun to come back and focus on maximizing a smaller subset of the available options. (Sort of like Four Job Fiesta for FFV.)

One of my scariest game experiences was actually with Thief: The Dark Project, which isn't even really a horror game. I went into the game thinking it was just a sort of generic medieval setting, and then in the second mission you run into a zombie. It's not even particularly disturbing as far as zombies go. There was just something about encountering a zombie when I was completely expecting there not to be zombies that twisted my brain.

Well, since this got necro'd, I'll just throw in a comment as well to say I've had this on my mp3 player ever since you released it. I rotate a lot of other stuff in and out, but Suburbia's got a permanent spot.

Contra, Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania. Mega Man if I'm feeling generous. Kids need to learn some frustration tolerance, not all this hand-holding self-gratification nonsense.

Oh, c'mon. Monk Red Mage Beastmaster Dragoon Beastmaster is probably the star of the show with careful use of !Catch/!Release for smashing bosses. But that still means I have to get through the dungeons alive with a party which has no real means of dealing significant damage to late-game enemies except for having the Red Mage break rods like crazy. There's going to be lots of running and careful use of !Control to get through regular encounters. I've actually got my Monk using !EqWhip for the chance of inflicting status effects since I'm reaching that point where unarmed starts to wimp out until you get the Kaiser Knuckles.

I got it rough. Started with Monk, followed by Red Mage. Red Mage would be great if I'd gotten a White or Black Mage in my first slot, but pretty awful as it is. I got Beastmaster as my third, so maybe now I can do something interesting. I can load up a good monster on each character to blow bosses away, but still need to figure out how to get to the bosses with my increasingly questionable party.

My understanding is that the Wind Crystal is always the non-Berserker slot, which means your last character (or rather, your first character) in a three Berserker run has to be Knight, Monk, Thief, Black Mage, White Mage, or Blue Mage.

I just signed up. It's not really my favorite game in the series, although I blame that on having played it after Final Fantasy Tactics (unless you count my aborted run waaaay back when I tried to play through it via emulator and a printed out copy of the at-the-time incomplete translation). I actually just did my second playthrough ever a few months ago, this time with a better understanding of the job system... which meant that I ended up completely breaking the difficulty. I didn't think I'd ever have much of a reason to come back to the game, but this sort of challenge should freshen things up.

I'm curious if BD is pretty much a superior version of 4WOL and renders it obsolete, or if I really should try to play both. Hmm, how so? I was looking at getting a 2DS rather than a 3DS, and hadn't heard anything about games looking weird on the 2DS. I was talking about this with my friend who is replaying FFT, while I replayed FFV. I stand by my anti-leveling-system stance. Points should be given in large chunks at fixed points in games (beating a boss, completing a major quest, etc.) with grinding therefore being completely impossible other than perhaps in the form of structured, interesting sidequests which give some bonus points. The difficulty can then be more carefully controlled since the developers know the min/max amount of points you could have at any point in the game (with difficulty settings likewise being easier to implement). It also encourages replayability since having a fixed number of points means that you must select a strategy/set of skills for each character on each playthrough rather than just having everyone master everything. Throw in a New Game + mode where all jobs are available from the start for some variety.

I jumped on late for this one, got it through the Humble Bundle. (It seems like every game I find interesting ends up in a Humble Bundle, so I've learned to just wait...). Got my first Easy victory on my 15th playthrough, using the Type B Zoltan ship. Had a number of almost-victories before that, until I figured out certain tricks for making the boss fight much, much easier... (CLOAK, CLOAK, CLOAK) After a few attempts which made me say "Wow, this is tough," my first Normal victory followed surprisingly quickly on playthrough 19 last night with the Type A Engi ship. By the end, every battle was a massacre: 1) Fire paired Ion Blast II at shield and weapon systems. 2) Deploy Anti-Ship II drone and (if enemy has missiles) Defense I drone. 3) Once shield and weapon systems are thoroughly ionized, switch out one of the Ion Blast II for Pike Beam. 4) Manually alternate shots from remaining Ion Blast II between shield and weapon systems while Pike Beam and Anti-Ship II drone take the enemy apart. Would love to see a sequel/expansion to this. Meanwhile, still got more ships to unlock and individual ship achievements to... achieve.

To take things on a slight tangent, I've always been a bit disappointed in how the typical RPG (particularly JRPGs) is always so centered around the combat system, with the story pretty much being resolved through piles of random encounters. Always thought it would be kind of neat to see an RPG where actual battles are infrequent, but when they do happen it's a major momentous event with a huge impact on the story. I know such games don't typically contain the absurd over-the-top violence this topic is about, but it still always bothered me a bit how RPGs become so constrained to combat-combat-combat when converted into video game form.

Falcom often did this sort of thing with their games. The Japanese special edition of Ys: Oath in Felghana, for example, came with several disks which included the different versions of the soundtrack from a few different systems. Thought it was weird at first, but after a while you really do start to appreciate the distinct sound of each piece of hardware.

Actually, I really miss how the early Mario games had simple turn-taking 2-player modes. Made the kids learn patience while their incompetent younger brother bumbled through a stage as Luigi. Seems like such an easy thing to implement without harming the single-player experience. Never really understood why they mostly dropped it after Super Mario World. That did indeed get me interested in the game just now... Echoes some thoughts I remember expressing in the past about why I was getting bored with the 3D Mario games. Especially the way the power-ups were set to be used in very specific contexts and locations rather than being open to the player to hold onto for as long as they could, as well as the difference between the "Get to the end of the stage" design philosophy and the "Run around in circles until you find the star" style.

Well, they got Mega Man finally. Still need representatives from: Castlevania Double Dragon Contra Ninja Gaiden Dragon Warrior Final Fantasy And then I'll consider it reasonably complete for classic third-party NES games. Snake fits in well already. (Sonic needs to go.)

I'd have to disagree on this point. Part of the fun of made-up worlds and cultures lies in learning and navigating the way they handle various social issues and constructs. I see no reason why every fictional world has to conform to the attitudes of the 21st century Western nations of Earth with regards to gender equality. The Elder Scrolls series would be more interesting if gender/race/other elements of identity played a more significant role in the way that social interactions and quests play out, and provide a much more interesting reason to play different characters than just "Now I want to play a guy who kills stuff with fireballs instead of with swords."

Bingo. This doesn't just go for FF specifically, but older generations of games VS newer generations of games in general. I find myself more and more playing old stuff I missed or indie games based on old design principles rather than the new big flashy hits for precisely the reason you described.

Weird timing on this... I just finished playing Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy (missed them when they originally came out) and replaying Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, and Mysteries of the Sith (old favorites). It seems like a lot of the newer Star Wars games all bear the taint of the prequels in terms of style anyway, so maybe this isn't as catastrophic a loss as it could have been. Just something about the older games that seems a little more tasteful and reserved. I liked Jedi more back before they turned into anime ninjas.

Hard to say for sure considering things like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_7100#Codename_Lawsuit

Eh, Nihon Falcom put out quite a few PC games that were designed first and foremost with a controller in mind, with keyboard + mouse more of an afterthought. When they tried to release Xanadu Next as a keyboard + mouse game, the fans demanded gamepad support (which was quickly provided in a patch). Admittedly, though, the Japanese PC scene is an odd creature.

The neat thing about those issues is the art by Katsuya Terada. He also did art for their Final Fantasy II coverage, and I believe he has some art in the manuals for Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Here's some Zelda stuff he did.

One thing I've wanted since Melee: Stock-stamina matches. You set the number of lives, and you set how much HP each life has. You can reduce an opponent's lives either by knocking him off the stage or depleting his HP. (Timed stamina matches with unlimited lives would also be good.) I think my friends and I would only play this mode if it existed. We've always liked stamina mode, but its "one life" nature means that it's always over way too quickly even with the HP maxed out.

Ehhh, that's just a little too recent for me, only one generation before the Wii. But I know that the whole "Mario VS Sonic" was too much of a big selling point for them to pass it up, so I don't really blame them for doing it.