Pre-PAX
Edition
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| April 6th, 2012 |
04/06- 12:00PM EST
Welcome to another episode of Q&A! I
hope you all enjoyed the April
Fools column on Sunday! I'm sure any of you
without any familiarity with
wrestling were a bit lost. Anyway, back to
RPGs!
There is plenty to talk about...
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Hey,
I like Mega
Man X talk.
Before they got to the newest incarnations
of ZX
and Star
Force, I swore by the X and Zero
series. I still think it's
incredibly impressive that they took Mega
Man (read: robot shoots things)
and gave it a
decent storyline
over a number of games. Sure, they play out
like a season of NCIS, with
some plot in the beginning, middle, and end,
and everything else is
filler, but the meat in them was GOOD. Zero's
continued popularity as a
testament to the series' awesomeness!
Wheels
The
stories were
far from perfect, but they do
what they needed to do:
entertain. The Zero
series especially was quite
good in changing the overall
formula for the series and
included even
more narrative. The series is
just fun. I can even sit down
with some of the mediocre Mega
Man games and have a
blast. I think that just shows
the quality of the formula. How
many series can say that? Fans
may complain about repetition,
but we'd eat a classic styled Mega
Man game right up.
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Command
Mission
was fun. Like you said, it's not minblowing.
But it's fun, and the
random characters keep it interesting to
experiment around. There's
also Axl, who I can't seem to count as canon
or valid, since the X series had tanked by
the time he
showed up.
Wheels
I
haven't played Command
Mission yet, but it
seems like a simple good time,
and did feature some developers
from the Breath
of Fire series I
believe. Then again I paid less
than $10 for it so my
expectations are probably much
lower than when the game first
came out! Anyway, what happened
to the X series? I don't think
the latter PS2 games did that
bad, but the series just fell
off the face of the earth. Not
that its a big deal since the Zero
games came out by then.
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Do you have any pets? And if you do, have
you named them after a video
game or movie or something? I'm pet starved
since I move around a lot,
and the longer I go without a pet the more
of them I want. But I've got
it stuck in my head that I need a really
cool (dorky) naming scheme for
them, like get 3 cats and name them Lenneth,
Silmeria and Hrist or
something.
Wheels
I
currently have a cat, but he's
named Oliver after the classic Oliver
and Company (he's an
orange cat). Back when I lived
with my parents we did have a
cat named Shadow, but I didn't
get to name it and I'm not sure
if my brother was thinking of Final
Fantasy VI while naming
her. Anyway, I'm all for giving
pets names from video games!
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What would you say... to someone who doesn't
love the Tales
series, but feels like he
should try again? I played Symphonia.
It
was
fine.
It was ridiculously too long, and all the
peripheral game
systems of cooking and little scenes and
bonuses upon completion for
New Game + mode kinda didn't interest me. Is
this something that can be
gotten over with others in the series, or is
our love just not meant to
be?
Wheels
I
would say you should give the
series another try, but you
should be very selective about
it. The Tales
games are often very long
(though not always as long as I
hear Symphonia is).
I think Tales
of Graces F would be a
good one to play as it has a
fantastic battle system and
reigns in the peripheral game
systems such as titles to more
tightly integrate with character
development and combat. It is
also not overly long. Tales
of the Abyss also
recently came out on 3DS, but
that also has the problem of
being a bit too long. So, try Tales
of Graces F!
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In conclusion, I've written you a haiku
puzzle. It describes an RPG,
and you have to guess which RPG it is. I
tried to do something easy
since I'll probably botch it and describe 17
different games. This
could be a 7 degrees replacement if it's
amusing, if not then thanks
for being a sport!
"A world of magic
Empire controlled by death
One hero must part."
Have a good weekend!
J
Wheels
I
approve of this new challenge!
I'm finding this one tough, as
there are several different
games this could describe. My
first guess would have been Final
Fantasy VI, but then I
don't think "Empire controlled
by death" really fits there. You
know what, I'm just going to
guess that. Nothing else seems
to fit for me right now!
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Hey Wheels,
I hear you're going to Orlando in
April! Well, OK, I heard
because you told me. Anyway, this has
inspired me to ask: if you
could make an amusement park ride out of an
RPG, what would it be, and
what would the ride be like?
Wheels
I
think I would go simple and make
some kind of thrill ride based
around the Ys
series. It could be
something like Space Mountain
only instead of zipping around
in the dark you zip through
various locales from the series.
The ride would of course be
accompanied by various rocking
musical tracks from the series.
You could also go simpler than
that and just make a
roller-coaster that plays Ys
tunes while you ride.
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My ride would be based on Xenoblade
Chronicles, which I'm so happy to
see coming out in North
America very soon now. Riders will be
placed in cars shaped like
nopon hot air ballons, and soar through the
air above the beautiful
landscape of the Bionis. Of course,
there will be close calls
with angry flying mechon and other enemies
that would be spoilers to
mention at this point. I imagine it
sort of like a cross between
Disney's Peter Pan and Indiana Jones rides.
Cheers,
Ocelot
Wheels
That
sounds incredible. What Indiana
Jones ride though? Is that
something that's only in
Disneyland in California? I
don't recall ever seeing that in
Orlando. Anyway, that sounds
like an amazing ride given the
many cool locations in the game.
You could even model the waiting
area around one of the towns in
the game. Perhaps Nintendo needs
to make their own theme park and
put this there?
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Hey Wheels, guess who just got his internet
back!
Wow, lots of talk about MegaTen bosses
lately, huh? I didn't find
the final boss of P3
to be all that difficult, but then again I
took outrageous advantage of
the game's Shuffle Time bonus system and the
high-level encounters in
the Monad Depths. Level 72 party +
level 95 monsters + sneak attack + elemental
weakness exploits + three
tens of clubs in Shuffle Time (gotta love
the One More Chance feature)
= around 28,000 experience points in one
go. My main beef with
the
final boss wasn't that she was tough, but
that she didn't change forms
at all as she cycled through the first
thirteen greater arcana.
Wheels
Welcome
back to the internet!
I guess the problem I had with
that boss is simply that I was
playing the game on hard. Even
after grinding there were still
times the boss could wipe my
party. I'm reasonably sure that
boss could hand out most of the
status ailments that exist in
the game! I agree on your last
part as well, would have been
cool if the boss changed its
appearance to match each arcana.
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But a MegaTen
boss that I absolutely hated? There
was one in Soul Hackers that fits
that
description. Let me introduce you to
the terror that is Skippy
the Wonder Dolphin.
Wheels
I
don't even know what to say
about the name. They really
named a boss that? Anyway, I
tried to search for a picture of
it and failed.
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Now, much of Soul Hackers
takes place in a pseudo-virtual world, and
Skippy inhabits a painting
within a virtual gallery in that world.
Whenever he finds a lonely,
receptive soul enjoying his painting, he
pulls it into his personal
domain and together they have tons of fun
until the victim's body in
the real world expires. He's just done
that to the hero's little
sister. Dolphins are normally jerks,
but angelic dolphins with
halos and wings? Doubly so.
Wheels
Dolphins
are normally jerks? I don't know
about that. Perhaps you've just
met the wrong dolphins? Anyway,
this sounds like a strange boss.
An angelic dolphin sucking
people into his painting within
a digital world?
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At first glance Skippy doesn't look all that
tough. His physical
attacks hit hard, but not too hard.
His water attacks consume so
much MP that he can only use them a few
times over the course of the
battle. His hypnosis attack is
annoying, but can be dealt
with. And he only has a few hundred
hit points. So what's
the problem? He absorbs magic.
ALL magic. And then converts
it into health. His natural defense
stat is really high as well,
meaning even the strongest demons available
at the time only do nickel
and dime damage.
Wheels
So
essentially its a battle of
attrition then? You've got to
hack away at his HP slowly and
keep yourself healed? Doesn't
sound too crazy. I guess it
could become tough if he takes
out your stronger demons or
something.
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Here's a fun fact about damage absorption in
Soul
Hackers though. The absorbed
health does not cap off at the character's
max HP. Instead, the
demon is allowed to go well over 100% of its
own health when absorbing
elemental damage. The tradeoff is that
if enough energy is stored
up in this manner, the demon may
self-destruct. I really wish I'd
known this when I first fought Skippy.
Since I'm thinking of
taking on this game again this year, I might
just have to test this
tactic out and see if it works on him like I
think it does.
Boom, boom, bye, bye, dolphin.
Wheels
That's
odd. I guess that's likely the
intended strategy to defeat him?
Heal him with elements attacks
until he explodes? That poor
innocent dolphin. What did he
ever do to you? Oh right, the
whole murdering of the sister...
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Okay, now for a challenge! All this
talk of villains has made me
think up a new one. To quote Roger
Ebert:
"Each film is only as good as its villain.
Since the heroes and the
gimmicks tend to repeat from film to film,
only a great villain can
transform a good try into a triumph."
Substitute "game" for "film" and you get the
idea. While not all
RPGs actually require villains (see the
Atelier series), many of the
most cherished games also have the most
memorable baddies. So,
the challenge is to create a villain and
then build up a plot around
him, her, or it.
Have fun with this one!
Your fellow columnist,
Gaijin
Wheels
I
love this challenge! I'm hoping
some readers will come up with
some entries for this one. I'll
be away the week after next so I
will try and get something to
you before then. This could be
fun. I'm thinking perhaps I
could mix together the Joker and
Kefka to make someone truly
evil!
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Arch-Duke of Content (Part 1
of Part 2)
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Mr. Spinning Wheels!
friendOfAgnes, we shall see how I stand on
further Megami
Tensei venturing. What
I've heard about the first Devil
Survivor doesn't make me eager to
try it any time soon, as it
offers a very similar experience to the one
that just infuriated me so
much in its sequel according to a couple of
people whose stances I know
well. The thrill of
white-knuckle theatrics in the eleventh
hour doesn't do it for me anymore, so games
that steadily increase in
frustration as they proceed aren't things I
readily approach.
We'll see what happens in the future, that's
all.
Wheels
Well perhaps you'd be better off
trying something from a different SMT sub-series
then? I'm thinking perhaps some
proper SMT titles might
work? Strange Journey on
DS or Nocturne on PS2
can both fill that. They certainly
are far from easy games, but I think
you may find them interesting to
delve into. You could also give the
Persona
games a try, as I'm sure you
know the third and fourth titles are
quite popular on RPGamer.
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Okay, Mr. Q&A host. You've never
seen a Cary Grant
movie? Intolerable! I'll just
run down all the ones I
remember and one of them (at least!) will be
seen by you in the very
near future! Get your wife in on the
fun, Cary Grant sure as hell
isn't less popular among the ladies.
Topper
is a
fine screwball comedy. The premise is
simple enough: Cary Grant
and wife Constance Bennett are extremely
lightweight partiers who get
themselves killed but can't stop being
ghosts until they help
someone. At least, that's their
interpretation. Their
choice is Mr. Topper (Roland Young), a
supremely hen-pecked husband who
manages the bank where they stored their
money until the untimely
demise. Doesn't make much sense if you
stop to think, but it's
funny.
The Awful
Truth
is another good screwball in which Cary and
wife Irene Dunne almost
divorce but think better of it after some
craziness. Bringing up Baby is a
superb
screwball that involves Cary Grant,
Katherine Hepburn, a tame leopard
in the wilds of Connecticut that responds to
a song, and madcap hijinks
all over the place. Thinking hard
about it does no one any
good. One more really good screwball:
His Girl
Friday, in which Rosalind
Russell is enticed back to work on just
one more story at the
newspaper Cary Grant edits before her
wedding to someone who isn't the
star - their relationship was on the rocks,
y'see. No points in
guessing how it ends, the fun is seeing it
happen.
There's also Arsenic and Old Lace,
which
is very popular on the stage and offers a
great showcase of how
good Cary Grant was at this screwball stuff
- watch him bugging his
eyes out after being bound and gagged by
Raymond Massey while Peter
Lorre looks on. Sounds unfunny, but
definitely in context it's
hilarious. One other comedy, though
not really a screwball, is The
Philadelphia Story, in which he
and Katherine Hepburn are an estranged
couple and she's also in a
family that the reporters have been wanting
to learn about for years -
so off goes James Stewart to learn
more.
Not in the screwball mood? Well, you
might like Gunga Din, in which Cary
is one of
a trio of soldiers trying to deal with a
nasty cult in India during the
1830s. It might even be the same cult
Indiana Jones tackled in Temple of Doom,
the resemblances
are many. It's a little dated in the
early going but gets
involving quickly. Or Only
Angels Have Wings, where he runs a
mail shipment service on a
Caribbean island prone to bad weather.
That'd be a great way to
learn about Jean Arthur too, as the woman
who puts her unformed plans
on hold to spend awhile on that island with
Cary.
His first Hitchcock collaboration, Suspicion,
in
which Joan Fontaine falls for him and
subsequently starts to wonder
if he might be going to kill her, is
good. Better is his second
Hitchcock collaboration, Notorious,
in
which Ingrid Bergman is sent to spy on a
nest of ex-Nazis in
Argentina right after the war and Cary is
her contact. To Catch a Thief is a pure
lark
involving Cary and Grace Kelly as cat
burglars on the Riviera, but it's
fun. Or there's the justly famous North by
Northwest, which is just a
blast of how to make an action movie that
doesn't feel stupid in any
respect - a skill increasingly missing among
today's filmmakers,
sadly.
I could go on, but this is a good list to
pick something
from. Which you're going to do
right now, of course.
No waiting!
Now that that's done, describe to me one
reason my visceral hatred for
Rogue-likes is unfounded. I don't
really care if the three I
sampled years ago weren't very good, the
playing mechanic just sparks a
reptile-brain trigger inside me that equates
to instant rage with no
cure.
Wheels
Well that certainly leaves me with a
ton of options. I think I'll start
with that movie that takes place in
Connecticut and go from there.
Perhaps after a few of these I'll be
able to answer your question from
last week! If not, I guess I'll just
have to watch the entire library.
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So how goes the Lunar: Silver Star
playthrough? Had you ever played this
story before? Isn't
it sad that the Saturn remake was going to
be localized until Working
Designs and Sega had a nasty falling-out and
it wound up on PlayStation
a couple years later instead?
Wheels
I'm taking my time with it, but its
moving along. It has a nice brisk
pace and combat is really fast, but
I found the need to grind in the
trial caves before the magic city.
I've overcome that hurdle however
and I'm moving along (despite seeing
some awful jokes that have not aged
well). I hope to have that reviewed
in a few weeks. It's very sad we
never got the Saturn version, as I
would have loved one of those huge
Saturn cases with a nice Working
Designs manual. Still, there's
nothing wrong with the PlayStation
version. I'd like to know exactly
what the falling out was, given
there's some colorful stories about
Working Designs!
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Wibblefish: yours is a story I can
abstractly admire without ever
wanting to emulate. One run through
the two Shenmue
games was quite enough for
me. Sure, the locations are more
interesting to explore than just
walking around the streets surrounding my
own residence, but this
probably shows why I never played many
adventure games.
TO
BE
CONTINUED...
Wheels
Well there are some adventure games
that provide much more interesting
locales to explore. Still I get what
you mean. What's the point in
exploring some well crafted areas if
they aren't interesting? This is
what Shenmue failed to
do for many. If the games were more
like Yakuza I think
they would have done much better.
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That's it for this week!
See you all next week.
-Wheels
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