Stargem

Well, I guess I can give a short description of Naija, Phoenix, and the Wonder Project J folks. Naija: A young girl who lives in the ocean, she doesn't have a very clear memory of her origins, and on occaision wonders about herself. Eventually, she sets out to figure that out. Swimming throughout the ocean in search of answers, she eventually defeats a tortured and cannibalizing demi-god, swims in the sky, and goes deep within the abyss to enter the abandoned ruins of a sky city. She sees many things in her travels, all of them interesting to the eye. She eventually gets a friend and eventual husband in Lee, who is often silent but loving. They relate, because they both lost their true homes to a malicious yet lonely god. Phoenix Wright: A defense attorney, he defends his clients to the bitter end. He often finds himself neck-deep in difficult cases, often saved from utter defeat due to some detail occasionally from unexpected quarters. Cases often have a time limit of some kind, that forces Phoenix to be a bit odd in his cases. Pino & Josette: Both created by the aged and kind docter Gepetto, these two robots possess the J Circuit. It enables them to grow and have human emotions. Bordering human and robot, Pino and Josette are often troubled by racism against robots that the humans hold. When first placed into the care of the Watcher, they are not very well developed in any way. Dr. Gepetto has entrusted both of them to the Watcher, asking the Watcher make them more human and to be 'good' in some sense. So with the Patronage of the Watcher, both Pino and Josette eventually encounter the people who ultimately becomes their respective enemies. I am going to place links here to the pictures of each character I talked about, so here you go. Naija http://bit-blot.com/images/featured-0004.jpg Josette http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/n64/image/199321.html?box=14024 Pino http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/image/562916.html?box=15817 Phoenix Wright http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/ds/image/925589.html?box=83763

Whoops. I messed up with that one, considering that Harvest Moon isn't a action game. Will remove it.

The Six of Swords: How about Naija from Aquaria? She travels a fair bit, is from an action game, and the changes in scenery is quite soothing at times. Oh, and she eventually gets a friend in Lee, who is often underwater. The Two of Pentacles: Phoenix Wright, because he tends to juggle a lot of information and questions, sometimes getting help from SOMEWHERE. Not sure if it really counts as an puzzle game, though. The Three of Pentacles: One of the main characters from Wonder Project J1 & J2. The player teaches these characters all kinds of things, often through example. Stuff like sports or eating. In a way, the player is the patron of these characters, and their responses are attempts at keeping that patronage. The Five of Wands: Bomberman - you can't avoid being bombed unless you get knee-deep in it, while keeping your wits.

On the upside, making Mega Man 9 NOT the game that bridges the gap means that Capcom can experiment with the Classic series and not have too big expectations from the fanbase - if only to perfect their formula for the gap-ending title.

I have recently stumbled across what appears to be an yearly online expo, called Sonic Amateur Games Expo, that has apparantly been around for a few years. There is about 20 or so different projects on display (booths) and a bunch of other things going on. While most of the projects are probably not likely to succeed or be of much interest, some may hold promise. SAGE is currently taking place, probably lasting for another few days. Throughout the rest of SAGE 2007, there should be additional content added to the various booths. I figured that I might as well get the word out, since it may help pass the time for some people and perhaps the more deserving projects will get attention. It seems like whoever put together SAGE spent quite a bit of effort, so it would be a shame to to see it go to waste. EDIT: Doh...I forgot to add the link to SAGE. http://www.sagexpo.org/

The Fist of Mars is just average. However, it has an nice story for an GBA game. If you are looking for games that are like the Fist of Mars, I recommend the Super Robot Wars - Original Generation games for the GBA, and possibly the remake of both titles for PS2 if that one gets translated into English. They are definitely better where the battle mechanics and graphics are concerned. The problem with the Fist of Mars is probably because the engine didn't get many updates due to a split between Winkysoft and Banpresto that resulted in the major SRW development team to not be available to work on Fist of Mars.

I agree with the concept of pack-ins. While it does indeed make buying an system more expensive, it also gives customers something to look forward to when they get home and set it up. In my case, I got an SNES that also included Super Mario All-Stars + World, which is an pretty nice deal. Give a customer a good game experience for their first time playing, and you would probably have a customer come back for seconds. I personally think that pack-in bundles should include an compilation game much like how my first game was, and perhaps another game that acts as the latest killer app. Future Wii packages could offer three or so Virtual Console titles that an customer could pick, and the killer app comes in the package. The former would allow customers to experience the Virtual Console system for free, making them more inclined to use it in the future since if they like it, then they would want more from it. In my opinion, while consoles can indeed be sold by name alone, it is the games that are offered and how you get customers interested in them is key to everything. It begins and ends with games, and deviating from this goal too much will result in ruin. Make good games, make people aware of them, and offer enough at an fair price so that you will have many good customers for the lifespan of your console. In Sony's case though, they don't have enough games or consoles on the market to really convert anyone though. That is an problem for them, and the fact that people notice the Xbox 360 and Wii far more often because of the very fact that there are more of these systems in the common household is something to take note of.

There is another game I found that I think everyone who likes Zelda and Symphony of the Night should play. La-Mulana is basically set in the ruins of an ancient civilization, which is of course filled with death traps and puzzles. It does this very well and has distinct graphical style. The music is good in my opinion, and fortunately for American audiences there is an English patch for the game. However, I recommend playing with an gamepad, and an keyboard is required. Be sure to read the manual. Below are screenshots of the game, plus links. Game & Translation Patch http://agtp.romhack.net/lamulana.html MP3 Archive of in-game music http://naramura.kdn.ne.jp/msx3/g3project/music/

Sometimes it is good to have a deadline, it can prevent stagnation.

I don't know about that. It seems like Secret Rings is taking Sonic in a way better direction than Shadow's misguided efforts. This game is basically set in an Arabian-style story, where each of the Sonic cast are acting in the roles of notable characters, like Ali Baba or Sinbad. The game apparantly is supposed to have about 100 missions, most of them about obtaining powerups that can have a variety of effects, like Timestop, Firebreath, and so on. It doesn't seem bad to me, and watching the better gameplay videos on YouTube, the game looks speedy enough and nice.

True, it wouldn't seem likely, but if they could allow someone else to attempt the idea with the license, it might work out. I don't think anyone thought Mario or Megaman could make the transition to an RPG-style format of gameplay initially, but they did manage it quite well. Concerning speed, I think that it would require the development team to make the terrain of each area designed around the concept, making the appropriate conversions like how it was done in Super Mario RPG. I certainly wouldn't expect it to be perfect in an initial attempt, but I think it can be done.

I personally think that SEGA should try two different things with Sonic. The first and most reliable would probably to revert to an Classic 2D Sonic style, and just try to make games based upon that premise. For the meantime, their 3D and Advance offerings are not too attractive in my opinion. Secondly, I feel that they should try to make an Sonic RPG game, probably for the Wii or DS. I fondly remember Super Mario RPG for the SNES, and I personally think that Sonic could succeed as an RPG in an similar manner. The SatAM cartoon, the Sonic comics, and games could provide plenty of material for an RPG to be based upon, and I think that using the artistic stylings of the older Sonic games could lend an neat and rarely used look for the genre. Instead of trying to instill misplaced characterization into an platforming game or using teamwork systems, Team SEGA could focus those concepts into an RPG game where those ideas may have credible merit.

Gideon Zhi's AGTP translation group has recently completely translated the Japanese game called La-Mulana to English. The gameplay is an side-scrolling platformer game with puzzles, with the protagonist being an Indiana-jones like character. That said, the game so far seems just fine to me, if a bit tough. You can get the game and translation patch from the link below, and for those who want to know what the game looks like, here is a picture. http://agtp.romhack.net/lamulana.html

Hrm...well, here is what comes to mind. First off, there is the Battle for Wesnoth, which just recently got updated to version v1.2.1. Judging from the screenshots, it is an turn-based strategy game in a fantasy anime setting. Might be worth checking out some time. http://www.wesnoth.org/ Now for a game I have played and enjoyed: The New Satan Sam, which is a 2D platformer game. Developed by the guy who made Titan Omega Revelations, which is an fairly good side-scrolling Shoot'em up. All in all, both games play quite nicely and feel fairly professional when everything is considered. With time, the developer of those games might make the next Cave Story someday, I hope. http://satansam.co.uk/games.htm Next up is an roguelike game that is in development, Gearhead 2. Based upon the premise of being basically a mecha oriented anime roguelike, the Gearhead series of games are fairly decent. However, the second iteration is still far from being completed, but it seems to hold much potential for making the gameplay better when compared to the original Gearhead. http://gearhead.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.html Moving on, it is the Doomsday engine, which is apparantly an engine that expands upon the features and engines of Doom, Heretic, and Hexen. I am not sure how good this remade engine is, though it seems promising. http://www.doomsdayhq.com/

For now, I will wait and base my actions on what happens.

That sounds rather...bad, considering the core concept of Harvest Moon. It is like an good idea was snatched up by some foul executive who tainted it with utterly lame things from common games. Hopefully it isn't as bad an idea as it feels to me.