yangfeili

I'm guessing that's part of the idea: that this is a creature capable of both endearing love and friendship, but also outbursts of terrifying and dangerous ferocity. I anticipate some heart-wrenching ending which plays on this.

They've tried to expand the Metroid universe a bit in the last few games, and I personally don't think it's gone all that great. I still cringe at the character designs for the other hunters, who look like they were pulled from Rise of the Robots. I've always appreciated Metroid's "less is more" approach to story and setting, which result in the feeling of a more expansive world filled with mystery. The irony is that when you over-develop a setting (as in the typical JRPG), it actually ends up feeling smaller because you know everything there is to know, you've seen everything there is to see, you've visited every place you can visit.

Almost sounds a bit like a hazily misremembered version of the Terminator 2 theme.

Maybe this is MGS5 and ZOE3, and they'll connect the series by having the Metal Gears evolve into Orbital Frames.

This topic came to mind when I started replaying Etrian Odyssey earlier tonight. Every time I hear the Pub theme: I think of this old Faye Wong song: http://www.karaoo.com/video/1485/王菲-Faye-Wong--可爱眼睛 Not so close that I'd call it stolen or anything, but there it is. (Actually, I understand that the Faye Wong song is itself a cover of something else.)

I don't see why everyone is freaking out about the "Will work for free" line. When I saw that, I just assumed that meant he was looking around for anyone working on little freeware projects who might want some music (I see posts all the time from people looking for music for their game), not that he was trying to enslave himself to some commercial project for no pay. I mean... don't most of the people here contribute remixes for free?

I can't help but think the effect would be better if keyboard cat videos were not explicitly labeled as such. You'd just be browsing around for funny blooper-style videos, and then bam keyboard cat randomly at the end.

I've always wanted the chance to really get into pen and paper RPGs, but all I've done is some Shadowrun years ago and a tiny bit of Vampire: The Masquerade that a guy at my college was running. And I guess one game of D&D back in grade school using some super old set that my friend got at a garage sale for a dollar. I guess part of the issue is that I seem to go into pen and paper RPGs with somewhat different expectations than most of the people I've played with. I'm interested in the games for their ability to do what video game RPGs can't do. Complex character interaction, elaborate freeform schemes and weird approaches to situations. To that end, I often create characters who really aren't geared towards combat (which has the odd side-effect of making combat VERY interesting). Like in one of the few Vampire sessions we did, we were sent on a mission to kill a guy. I completely blew away the GM by taking advantage of the circumstances of our encounter to convince the target we were actually trying to protect him, and we ended up delivering him alive to our employers for interrogation (followed by execution). But it seems most of the people I've played with got their idea of what an RPG is from JRPGs: they just want to make damage rolls and commit random encounter monster genocide for a few hours. I guess I just need to find a like-minded group to play with. :\

Yeah, I tracked down some kind of patch/tweaker which helped a little bit with the odd movement and the goofy atomic glow on objects. Had some other neat options like the ability to adjust the eye-zoom color.

Thief I and II are possibly my favorite games ever. Seriously. The third one was okay, but had some issues with level design, gameplay, and the somewhat wonky story. (I liked the general idea, it's just that the execution was a little off.) I'll definitely have my eye on this... MY MECHANICAL ROBOT ZOOMY EYE.

A while back I was trying to find videos of the fairly well-known Arai Akino, and somehow or another stumbled upon some stuff by the not-as-well-known Kakiage Nahoko, formerly of the Eccentric Opera. Since then, I've been pretty much listening to her various projects non-stop. They don't have a lot of my favorites up on youtube, but there's still some good ones: Solo: Film de l'Amour Eccentric Opera: Album with countertenor Nobuo Fujioka:

I'd rank Ys: Oath in Felghana pretty high. Just a few samples of its awesomeness: I kind of think it out-Castlevanias the recent Castlevania games. :\

Eh, they can change the battle all they want, but it doesn't amount to much as far I'm concerned. A real advance would be for the game to be more than just a battle system. You know, more like an actual RPG instead of just another random encounter monster genocide machine. As it is, the last several JRPGs I've played have been 50+ hours of a battle system that really only has enough to it to last for 20 hours without getting stale. (Except for Ys, but it's really a hardcore action-platformer thinly disguised as an RPG.)

My friends and I always used a weapon mod I made for the original Jedi Knight, where the Repeater fired Concussion Rifle shots. Needless to say, those were some very high frag-count matches. Storm Trooper Rifle + Sticky Rockets was also quite amusing.

This thread has reminded me that I've been waiting forever for Star Wars: Best of PC to get a price drop... and it still hasn't happenend, so I'm just going to go pick it up right now and get some Jedi Knight II going on.

Best definition I've seen: http://onlyagame.typepad.com/only_a_game/2007/08/game-literacy.html

For the most part, although I think you'd be pretty hard-pressed to find much of anything cute in Zelda II. Except maybe some of the artwork in the manual, but even that's not really so much cute as it is standard late 80s anime-esque. Now some of the artwork from the original Zelda is pretty darned cute, and I think it would be kind of neat to see them do another big cel-shaded game, but with that art-style rather than another with WW football head. It's . And quite well, I might add. (Well, okay, the third one was a bit wonky.)

Haha, I made that exact same joke to my friend the other day.

One of the first remixes I ever downloaded from here was "Feena Flow" from Ys... and all these years later it's still the only Ys remix on here. Ys, for crying out loud! And really the same goes for all of Falcom's games. The quality of the Gurumin soundtrack really surprised me... still no remixes yet, even though it got a US release. Even their really obscure games have awesome music! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5DPtoFlGd8

The standard turn-based, menu-based gameplay in both oldschool RPGs and current RPGs is pretty lame. But I still find the older games playable because they're short enough that the lameness of the gameplay doesn't become overwhelming, as it does in the modern bloated 50+ hour vaguely interactive anime episodes we've been getting. I had always imagined that JRPGs would take advantage of new technology to expand their gameplay beyond being nothing but a "battle system." That's just one small part of what makes a real RPG, not the single defining feature. But instead, all they've really done is take the same old games we've been playing since forever, made them a bit flashier, and stretched their already thin gameplay even thinner...

I think people are going a little overboard, although I know it's all well-intentioned. I wouldn't start freaking out until AFTER you've contacted them about it and then been told "Screw you, we're gonna make you pay it." More likely than not, you'll call, say "Hey, I got this wacky bill," and they'll say "Oops, sorry, we'll fix it." That's pretty much what happened when my previous university sent me a bill for a semester during which I did not attend: I rang them up, said WTF, and they told me to disregard it.

Symphony had its flaws (such as NO gameplay balance whatsoever), but there's one thing it did that I haven't seen any of its imitators do nearly as well: secrets. The GBA and DS games might have a secret room here and there with an item in it; SotN had entire optional secret REGIONS of the castle, often with their own extra boss.

Last time my friend was playing CT, we kept making up lyrics for the Robo song every time it started up. "Always TONIGHT, we'll be together..." Can't remember the rest, I just know there was some sort of breathy spoken monologue that started "Girl..."

Has anyone mentioned Windaria? Because I'm going to mention Windaria.

Ys III. Although the other games in the series are fantastic.