Thalzon

Disgaea has the benefit of being more modern and sci-fi in its setting (despite all appearances). Lunar doesn't have that same benefit, so I can understand the idea that it breaks immersion. I still laughed, though.

I liked those jokes, personally.

Man, I tried so hard to like Blue Dragon. But the story is dumb and the characters (with the exception of Zola) are all morons. The battles are fun, I guess, but it never really gets hard. I finally gave up after traversing yet another optional dungeon that just sticks a worthless spell at the bottom, does not have a boss, and forces me to travel back through its maze-like archetecture to the entrance using the useless map system. I got lost and simply shut the damn thing off.

That better not be him at the 7th inning stretch of the video.

Startropics, naturally. I swear if I ever own my own dev studio I will pester Nintendo relentlessly until they give me the licence.

"I pledge my victory.... to this FEATHER!" "Coach Oleander has taken the brains of all the kids to build brain-powered tanks to take over the world and we're the only ones who can stop him!" "Oh my GOD! Let's make out!"

2k3 was awesome. I spent years and year with it and its forerunner, rm2k. Made tons of graphics, and a few games. Most never really got along so far as to be complete, but I did finish one or two (and then never looked at them again because they were so awful and painful to playtest). My personal best was a game called The Golden City. The main character was a girl named Tess, 16, who returns to her home city after 4 years to rescue an immortal child being used as the city's power source. She's joined by Leonard, her childhood friend who joined the city guard, Nigel, a strange swordsman living in the ruins beneath the city, and Marjoly, a 50-something, level-headed scientist lady. The game has no world map, instead going for maps all being connected Zelda-style. Encounters occured only after collecting "encounter gems", white crystals lying around dungeon areas. Essentially, you only got in battles if you absolutely wanted to. There were also abilities like wall-hugging to avoid traps on single-tile-wide walkways, ropes for climbing ledges (that would need to be retrieved if you wanted to continue on to the next area), and "stealth dungeons" where you had to be sneaky and avoid guards, search lights, and watch dogs. Unfortunately, I lost the game when the program corrupted, and I didn't learn I had given a friend a copy until years later, when I no longer cared for it. I ended up losing roughly 1/4 of the entire game. Oh well. XP never really grabbed me. I'm not one for coding, and it bugged me how features from 2k3 weren't present in XP because they had been replaced with the option of coding them in.

Seconding Zack and Wiki. Also, it's nothing spectacular and it's very much on the sugary side of things, but Dewy's Adventure is a fun little platformer of a decent length and challenge.

I have played and beaten de Blob. Get it, it's very much worth it. Also, Endless Ocean is a good one if you can find it. Super Paper Mario has a few dry early bits but is still a great game... It just starts getting good after the annoyances in chapter 2. No More Heroes can probably be found cheap in the bargain bin, so pick that up. Geometry Wars Galaxies can also be worth your while if you haven't played it anywhere else.

Well, I commend you, but yeah... Beating Mario Galaxy and getting all 241 stars is easier than star-ranking Mirror Mode.

When Chronopolis was thrown into the past due to time experiments, Fate constructed the El Nido archipelago and guided it to ensure that it would be built in the far-flung future.

I like both games, but LO is definitely less ambitious in terms of gameplay than Mass Effect. And Shepherd can have hair on his face, if you want. LO's story is great, but it's probably not apt to compare the two games anyway. They are vastly different in terms of both story and gameplay. It's kind of odd that they're even both under the same genre umbrella. LO bothered me because the battles were too simple. Mass Effect bothers me because the battles are too complex (how do I switch weapons?! Why do they insist on putting the most expensive equipment at the top of the shop menus?! Why do my AI partners act so DUMB?!) I loved LO's characterization and the story's emotional impact. I love Mass Effect's dialogue trees and general adventur-iness goodness. Ramble ramble, blah, blah, digress. My point is, it's not impossible for both games to be fun and enjoyable for different reasons.

We waited until 8 pm. I got tons of chocolate, including a chocolate playstation controller and "grand theft chocolate" game disc. Very cool. Truffles, a bottle of crown Royal, and 60 bucks. I mostly gave booze. I got my niece and nephew some books.

Merry Christmas from London, Ontario, where it WON'T STOP GODDAMN SNOWING AUGH.

Dunno yet, except for what my grandparents got me, since I went with them to pick it out... games. Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword (Thundercougarfalconbird), and Geometry Wars Galaxies for Wii.

Because it wouldn't match up with Chrono Cross, so then they'd have to re-release that game with a fresh new translation, and from what I remember, translating that game was hell.

There Will Be Brawl, it was called. http://therewillbebrawl.com/episodesEpisode1.php

I love the DQ games, but I have a feeling this is gonna be a case of "out sometime in 2010". I mean, we haven't even gotten DQ9 yet.

All of this whining can be equated to a movie aficionado (sp?) complaining that they don't make good epics anymore, that the epics they do make are catered to a more "casual" audience. Or someone who reads books complaining about the disturbing proliferation of books of the pop-up variety. Much as it annoys me that Nintendo decided to be smart rather than loyal to a fault, one could argue that this shift in the industry has been a long time coming. Movies, books, television, et al already appeal to almost everyone. It's only natural for games to follow suit. But because we've been catered to for so long, the shift is the most painful for us. Moreover, Nintendo's flak it's getting for this is somewhat undeserved. Since the Wii was released, there's been a new Metroid, a new Mario, a new Mario Kart, a new Smash Bros, Animal Crossing, a handful of decent-to-awesome third-party games, as well as any other Nintendo franchises I've neglected to mention. And, here's the thing, it's only been two years. Most of the really quality games we've come to expect from Nintendo? Yeah, they take a little longer to make, and it's not like they start as soon as the previous one is done. In the past, on the GC and N64, we got about the same number of truly quality games in the same time frame. It just SEEMED larger back then because everything ELSE was also catered to us. And considering the kind of games Nintendo has lined up for next year (Punch-Out and Sin and Punishment 2, for example), I really don't think we have much to worry about. They haven't forgotten anything except to apply some standards to third parties now that their system is so successful. All that said, I must now turn to the gamers directly. I'm not surprised everyone's getting mad, for the reasons I've stated before. However, we as a demographic are not totally blameless. We seemingly demand nothing short of perfection and we want new and creative every single year, from every single game we buy. We hold reviews in the highest regard (consciously or not) and when a game gets anything below a 7/10 or a similar score we avoid it like the plague (most of the time). In that sense, a lot of developers aren't even gonna try to make a game that appeals to us. It's too expensive, they don't have the time or the manpower, and the profits are too thin. There's also way too much potential to screw up and end up bankrupting the company. Casual gamers have less discriminating tastes, and they still pay the same amount for a game as one of the hardcore (unless it's a budget game, in which case they see a great deal instead of a trap), so why NOT cater to them? To those who feel "betrayed", keep in mind the industry doesn't owe you jack. Another note about reviewers. Should this casual trend continue to increase (and it will), they may find their method of scoring to become laughably quaint. As they're forced to review casual games, they may find they can't properly weigh its pros and cons, because the contents of this game and the games they've come to expect are two entirely different things. Reviewers may have to become more "worldly", like a movie critic, and review games with a certain audience in mind. Of course the hardcore guy doesn't care about Garden Seeding: The Game! Why are you reviewing it based on that standard? He was never gonna buy it anyway! So, in conclusion, I think there's nothing to really worry about. We're not being marginalized or shoo'd out of the room. The industry needs time to grow and adjust to the new demographics it's beginning to cater to. Yeah, yeah, tl;dr.

I've always pronounced it Masa-moon. It's Masa-moonay, right?

Keep in mind that's the Japanese site. When Dissidia is localized you can be sure Tina will become Terra, Butz will become Bartz, etc.

Mr. Woolsey, who did the original FF6 translation, opted to change her name, as Tina isn't very exotic by western standards.

I'm guessing he's the embodiment of the job system from that game. Also he was always super-skinny in the original Amano artwork.

Next time I'll make an extra special joke, just for you.

Because it's gonna need to explain how all these characters exist simultaneously and the complex backstory behind the villains' revivals. Also, no doubt the cast is going to have a serious exchange of fashion tips at some point.