Avatar of Justice

Yes, that's exactly what I'm looking for. I'll contact the guy you suggested. Thanks!

Hey all. Long time no post. I recently had a modder mod my NES front loader with an NESRGB kit. As part of the work, he modded the NES to support expansion audio (such as the VRC6 chip built into Akumajou Densetsu). Unfortunately, I did not have a converter on hand at the time for him to mod to support expansion audio as well. However, now I have this one https://imgur.com/a/vC8ogQi but haven't been able to reach him again. If you're willing and able to mod it shoot me a message. I'll pay! I really really want to play the Japanese version of Castlevania III on my NES, I just need the converter to do it. If you can't do the work yourself but know someone who possibly could, I'd take a recommendation. Thanks!

I was just playing FFIX (which is more graphically intense than FF7) on Mednafen on a 4 year old Mac. I think performance wise I think you'd be alright with Mednafen on Windows on a PC less than five years old. I've heard Mednafen's emulation is more accurate than Sony's PS3 emulation anyhow.

Um...video games???

Pretty excited about this. Iga seems to be having a lot of fun. I'm most excited about the fact that this is on a home console. The DS Castlevania's were quite good (and gameplay wise more refined than Symphony of the Night), but they lacked the CD quality instrumentation. They could never quite achieve the atmosphere SotN had because of it. Also, Iga is hyped about having more buttons than the DS could provide. It'll be fun to see what he does with 2 extra buttons this time around. I hope the Nightmare mode does what Portrait of Ruin did and let you cap your level at 1, 25, or 50. Capping your level at 25 provides a pretty good challenge. Capping at 50, meh, capping at 1 is just too annoying. I was quite sad that Order of Ecclesia only gave you the level cap options of 1 and 50.

I really like SMTIV. The first 4 hours or so are known for being very difficult though, and I would say the game is generally harder than your average JRPG. It is not Persona 3/4 by any stretch of the imagination. If you didn't play it when it got released on the DS initially, you need to go buy Radiant Historia. It feels like a lost SNES RPG and is fantastic. It's not a 3DS game, but I like it better than any of the 3DS JRPG's.

I'm a DS1 vet, and I generally really like Bloodborne. I like the tweaks made to the combat and such. I also really enjoy the horror atmosphere. My major complaint with the game is that the Covenants (Oaths) don't really do much. Also, I wish there was a way to turn invasions on without enabling requesting co-op assistance. I want a little chaos in my game, not help. There's nothing like being completely lost in an area and then some asshole invades you and you have to fight them or else get you get sent back to square one. Difficulty-wise, it's really hard to say. Certain bosses gave me lots of trouble, other didn't. My first character was Strength based using the axe. My second character is Skill/Bloodtinge based and everything is a bit harder. Nothing was as hard as the Taurus Demon was for me in DS1 but that was just me getting used to how Souls games work. I think the game could've used a little more time in the oven. The lack of fleshed out Covenants kind of makes me want to go buy DS2. I was late to the DS1 game and went straight from it to Bloodborne so DS2 is still new to me.

My biggest problem with this game is that it felt much more like a western game than a JRPG. Between the waymarkers guiding you everywhere, cover points to regenerate MP, and clearly delineated warp points on conveniently placed metal towers, I felt like I was playing Assassin's Creed or Gears of War, not Final Fantasy. Most of the level progression and character management system in the game is (hopefully) locked off in the demo which really makes it hard to get a feel for how JRPG'y it actually is. Waymarker and leading the player by the nose make me feel like I'm constantly in a tunnel. Instead of doing a big open world kind of thing, I'd prefer smaller, more tightly designed, memorable areas. See Dark Souls, FFX, or FFVII for how to do this.

I've been enjoying Bug Princess (Mushihimesama) on my iPhone. Several of Cave's shooters are available on iPhone and Android. Shoot 'em ups work surprisingly well on cellphones since they just auto mash the fire button for you freeing you up to navigate your ship with the touch screen. Depending on how "pure" of an experience you want, you can configure Cave's shooter cell phone ports to also auto-bomb for you when a bullet is getting ready to hit you. And there is no Pay to Win garbage in any of them.

I've only been able to finish one of her videos because they are so incredibly tedious and she doesn't really engage in much constructive criticism. It's like watching someone read a TV tropes page to you aloud in the most boring manner possible. I skimmed the others and have found her videos to be overwhelmingly examples of how women are treated badly ad nauseum. I'm not a game maker (aspiring writer type), but I found the Extra Credits video about how to handle women in games much more useful from a creative improving my fiction standpoint. Also, I feel like her videos lack a bit of soul. She never talks much about her personal reaction to games very much. I'm convinced that's because she's not really into games as she stated in the clip in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw She also doesn't seem to be aware of any games besides the AAA types. Unfortunately, all the hater asshole death threat types have escalated the conversation to the point where you can't criticize her videos without being branded some sort of misogynist. I'd love to see more media investigation into the clip above, but any website that questioned her gamer cred would get boycotted by the social justice warriors.

I was a bit concerned about this myself since MMO style quests like this was one of the reasons I quit playing Xenoblade Chronicles. However, I read that the actual game isn't like this at all. The sidequests are apparently lengthy affairs with their own stories and characters. The rewards for most sidequests is unlocking new jobs.

Any other Final Fantasy fans excited about Bravely Default? It comes out for the 3DS in the US on Friday February 7. I pre-ordered and took the day off work I'm so hyped. If you haven't heard, Bravely Default is a throwback to old school Final Fantasy, but it's not burdened with the Final Fantasy name. It implements a version the FF3/FF5 jobs system. You can also mix and match passive abilities from other classes ala Final Fantasy Tactics. The plot doesn't like it'll be terribly memorable but aesthetically it seems strong on the old school charm. You'll be awash in Black Mages, Curaga's, and Fire spells, but not zippers. The music's damn good too Battle Theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a-8pqvm298&list=PLoAc5hlnzY88S2bD7CHTZIDqlQ_wI2oIN Sidequest Boss Battle Theme: One thing that is kind of nice is you can configure things like random encounter rate, difficulty, and whether you get experience and job points from battle. That way, you can side quest, explore, and experiment with jobs to your hearts content without completely killing the difficulty like most JRPGs. The demo is around 3 hours long and really seems to give you a feel for the game so you should totally check it out. If I sound like a Square Enix shill, I'm really hoping this game does well. The game industry is starting to get like the 1990's again where JRPG's are no longer guaranteed to be brought over to the US (Valkyria Chronices 3, anyone?). Square wasn't even going to originally release Bravely Default in the US. So, here I am on an Internet forum trying to get more people interested in the game so I still have JRPG's to play.

I personally think some of this tracks the decline of Japanese games in the West. A lot of those beloved soundtracks (not all, but a lot) were made by Japanese composers. Western games tend to favor a more ambient music profile. The World Ends with You, Radiant Historia, Valkyria Chronicles, Xenoblade Chronicles, and BlazBlue are all Japanese games made during the PS3/360/Wii/DS years. Unfortunately, they aren't really that popular in the US so hardly anyone knows about their amazing soundtracks. If I want a game with a loud soundtrack that evokes a strong mood in me, I play a Japanese one, generally.

Here's a cool quote from Ira Glass, host of the radio show This American Life that seems relevant to this thread. He's talking about making stories, but it applies just as well to making music.

Why? Are the Nintendo Police going to send him to a Wii U Gulag? What laws did this guy violate? I'm sure the store is in trouble, but I don't get what Nintendo can do to this guy besides offer him enough money to make him sell his copy back to make him stop leaking things.