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Posts categoriezed as Banter

Miscellanous posts, shop talk.

Waggle waggle

Waggle waggle published on No Comments on Waggle waggle

After way too much hunting around, I stopped in a Best Buy on a whim while on the way back from the art store yesterday. Huzzah! I finally found a stinking Wii console and snapped it up along with Hyper Hype Bros. Brawl and a classic controller which will probably see a good amount of Virtual Console related abuse.

Anywho, if anyone wants to join me braiding each other’s hair, or trading Mii’s or whatever it is you people do with these things, my Wii’s friend code is 2374-8148-0420-0420. My SSB-specific code is 5026-4901-8645 but I don’t know how much I’ll mess with online play, at least until I unlock Snake.

…oh crap. Snake… SNAAAAKE!! (I gotta plow through the MGS Essentials collection before I get another few years behind the curve.)

Guardian Spirits Progress Check-In

Guardian Spirits Progress Check-In published on 2 Comments on Guardian Spirits Progress Check-In

So, I’ve been tinkering with my game off and on again lately, mainly doing my sprite work during drawing blocks or other lulls in production, as well as hammering and fine-tuning the story and concept stuff into place for when I work up the gumption to really experiment with the engine(s, stupid hybrid game style).

The biggest factors I’m undecided on right now are the exact system of weapon management I want to use (one being to have a simple array of weapons that can be leveled up through use, and one similar to Gunstar Heroes or Sigma Star Saga where weapons can be customized through combinations of items which would be cooler but probably a bitch to figure out how to execute), and whether to retain the overhead view for the exploration segments or go to a side-scrolling, Metroid-like overworld which would be both easier to plot out and make detailed sprites for. Not to mention offer more options for crazy movement equipment, originally the Booster gear just let the Guardian (Guardienne?) execute a short dash move, in a side scroller the same ability would make a good air dash or double-jump upgrade.

At least the storyline is fairly congealed at this stage. A space peacekeeping force is sending a crack team of android operatives to figure out why the Cancer Claw, a pirate group is dicking around in an uncharted asteroid field, only to find an ancient relic that looks to be a superweapon crawling with hostile aliens. After a quick assessment, the team decides it’s better to disable the relic site rather than let their goofball nemeses get ahold of it and split up to deactivate the energy reactors deep within the rock.

Of course, it’s still a pretty ambitious (or stupid) undertaking, so it’ll be a while before it sees the light of day. I’m tinkering with a couple of shooter game ideas at the present though, so maybe one of those will pop up soon. Ish. Before that game does, anyway.

Nippon Ichi Done Stole Mah Brains

Nippon Ichi Done Stole Mah Brains published on No Comments on Nippon Ichi Done Stole Mah Brains

I remembered why I never bothered to finish Disgaea 2 last night when I sat down for another round in my march to beat Soul Nomad and found the former already in my PS2. I think I was showing someone the differences between the two games (one is fast paced enough to be described fairly well as a ‘romp’, while the other I had left gathering dust for the better part of a year because it was starting to feel like ‘work.’) Out of laziness and nostalgia (more the former), I went ahead and played it anyway, and that brings me to my original point of why I never finished the game- I needed to get like 20 levels to get my hero alone to that of the weakest enemies on the second-to-last Shinra Tower level.

I spent an hour and a half last night gaining levels before it occured to me I could just trot off to the Dark Senate (using Rozalin, who either due to her pedigree or her cleavage I seem to have more luck passing bills with) and vote for Weaker Enemies (as well as More Expensive Items a few times when I realized the shops only carried the starting assortment.) With that kick in the chops, I finished off the Tower, and was treated with a duet of rigged battles (one you can’t win and one you can’t lose.) As a result, my attitude toward it’s softened a little, but I’m still going to back burnerize it so I can finish tearing through Soul Nomad. (Though I am probably about the same duration from the end in both of them…)

I’ve got a weird relationship with Disgaea 2, overall. It’s pretty fair to say it’s a polished version of its direct predecessor, but the fact it lacks some of the innovations and classes from N1’s more adventurous in-between titles. F’rinstance, the characters-from-items creation system could be paired nicely with Item World, letting you start a new character with some stat boosts and levels in the double digits rather than holding the newbies’ hand for upwards of six hours as they leech XP off your higher level men through combo attacks. The square tiles are pretty necessary for the whole Geo Panel gimmick and all, but after two ‘gridless’ games that let you move and aim freely, gunners needing to be in a perfectly straight line from their target is pretty damned annoying, especially when they don’t seem to do much more damage than archers who have the typical ‘diamond’ shaped range of targeting. And if that wasn’t enough, Adell just doesn’t work as a Makai-verse hero. After the likes of Laharl and Zetta (not so much Marona, then again I skipped Phantom Brave), a goody-two-shoes who NEVER GIVES UP! AND NEVER BREAKS A PROMISE! hot-blooded youth doesn’t seem to click quite as well in a game where you’re encouraged to break the system and oh yeah, rack up Felonies for bonuses. Even if he is on a mission of revenge to save his family. Actually, especially. Too noble and cliche. At least 3 is getting back on track with the story of a demon kid on a quest to kill his dad for erasing his Disgaea 1 save file. It’s easier to pretend Rozalin’s the heroine and bitching her way across the country to see/kill/whatever her dad.

SooOOOOOOUL NOMAD! (Revisited)

SooOOOOOOUL NOMAD! (Revisited) published on No Comments on SooOOOOOOUL NOMAD! (Revisited)

As I trudged through Wild Arms XF and slogged through Disgaea PSP’s Etna Mode, I couldn’t help but think of that good old N1 gem, Soul Nomad& The World Eaters, which incidentally would be a great death metal band name. (The Japanese title Soul Cradle, on the other hand, would be a great whatever-the-hell-genre Savage Garden is band title.) So, I started tearing through it again, going at a respectable pace because, get this, SOUL NOMAD HAS A RESPECTABLE PACE. I really haven’t any part where I was forced to level up for hours on end in order to pass an enemy formation that was only tough because they had about double my main character’s level. In fact, there are many times where I found myself grinding willingly because I like the game engine. I’d even go on to say that I like the bite-sized Inspection quests (SN’s equivalent to Item World) better than the protracted story battles that are usually plagued with waves of reinforcements, and the good old ‘Defeat All Enemies’ condition that forces you to hunt down every last archer and gypsy on the map even after killing the boss.

It’s a shame that Soul Nomad doesn’t have quite the following as certain other N1 games- the squad based fighting is much more strategic than simply leveling everyone to 9999 so that the actual meat of the game can be completed in about a half hour. Like Makai Kingdom and Phantom Brave, it’s pretty much doomed to being one of those games that was knocked out in between Disgaeas and had some vague surface similarites to said game. Though unlike those two, its divergences don’t cripple you or leave you utterly disconnected from the plotline (though I know not everyone is as bugged by the seeming laziness of Makai’s near-entire cast being player-made generics. Soul Nomad instead makes the story characters gussied up versions of the extras- Levin being a Bareknuckle with blonde hair, or Vitali as a Cleric wearing a hat instead of a headband. Woo.)

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