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CONTENT PART QUATRO
Mr. Wheels of Commerce, salute. The temptation to give
you even more content to make your final month on the job
incredibly memorable just couldn't be resisted, you see.
I feel that Squid Odyssey deserves a little further
explanation, as even though I haven't exactly been rushing
to play it, there are still some things that just can't be
excused. These are technical problems, something that
appears to be quite common lately when 3DS games were
originally on another system (witness my crashes with One
Piece: Romance Dawn, and the lovely Ms. Marchello's
horrible time with Grinsia).
Wheels' Comment
The mass of content
is much appreciated sir! You have always
provided ample questions which helped me through
many a dry spell when not too many people were
writing in.
In addition to crashes in these downloadable
games, crashes seem to be on the rise for retail
games as well considering there's now patches
for games on the eShop. In fact, two of the
three games on my import 3DS have required
patches (Monster Hunter 4 and Dragon
Quest Monsters). There's at least one
other game that really could use a patch as well
(Harvest Moon: Tales of Two Towns). Not
sure if there's a quality control issue
somewhere or perhaps in the case of these small
downloadable games just a lack of resources for
testing. It sucks whatever the reason happens to
be!
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It's true, Squid Odyssey has only crashed on me
once. It's performed a very odd lock-up more times
than that though. I'm able to get into the controls to
restart the stage, but nothing on the screen responds.
This happened with a particular character class, and now
that I've taken both shooter squid out of my team it's
okay. Maybe. Still, isn't that a rotten ailment,
to restrict you from using a particular character class by
making the game have technical issues?
Wheels' Comment
That's the worst
sort of issue. I'd almost prefer random crashes
to being basically locked out of content because
of technical issues. Hopefully the game will be
patched in short order.
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Oh, and restarting a stage this way is different than
doing it because everybody on the team getting KOed, because
you don't keep anything from the run this way. It
still requires a startlingly long load screen though - and
how the hell is there a load screen on the friggin'
3DS? This isn't a disc-based media! What is
going on here, for 20 seconds or more???
Wheels' Comment
That sounds like a
bit of shoddy programming. I don't think
Dragon Quest VII or Monster Hunter 4 (two
of the best looking games on the system) have
anything approaching those load times. Could
also be the default SD in the 3DS. I'm just
assuming it isn't one with the fastest data
transfer rate. I'm probably giving the
developers an excuse they don't deserve though.
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I'm not sure if Heroes of Might and Magic games
count as something we should cover on this site. There
seems to be a considerable difference in views on this
point. Not having played one myself (geez, there's a
finite amount of time in the day already!), I can't offer a
whole lot of firsthand information. Your situation
might be different though.
Wheels' Comment
I don't think they
really count. There's an argument to be had I
think, but ultimately those games are more your
classic turn-based strategy games. A bit more
RPG mixed in than say, Civilization, but
still clearly turn-based strategy. More
importantly they are very much worth playing and
you should give them a try.
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I feel the constant dumping on empires in RPGs is
unwarranted. An emperor CAN be better than a king or
queen! I offer as historical evidence the Spanish
royal family in the late 1500s and mid 1600s, which died out
due to rampant inbreeding. Would you trust a man with
only 6 great-grandparents (due to constantly marrying
cousins and siblings) to rule you as king? Or, for
another example, George III of Great Britain - the man who
went insane later in his rule. Do we want a king who
has gone insane? Not that every emperor throughout
history has been a shining paragon of greatness, but neither
were all of them dastardly and despicable excuses for
humans.
Wheels' Comment
Oh for sure, I
feel like there's some untapped story potential
for an RPG where the empire is not the great
evil, the forces working against it are. Didn't
the Elder Scrolls do this to some extent
though? I recall the Emperor in Oblivion
being a pretty cool guy. Then again I didn't
like the Elder Scrolls games a ton so
I'm not sure if that turns out to be the
opposite. Anyway, an idea certainly worth
investigating! Perhaps someone should make an
RPG taking place in a kingdom where the royalty
has been ruined by inbreeding as well?
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Okay. This ought to be the final word you get from
me. What a July you're having!
JuMeSyn
Wheels' Comment
Thank you sir, as
always you've provided some interesting and
unique content.
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Disgaea is Rubbish
@AskWheels One last easy defend the indefensible to go out
on? "Disgaea is rubbish." :P
Wheels' Comment
This one is actually somewhat
easier than you think. Disgaea isn't
exactly friendly to newcomers! The Disgaea games
have all sorts of crazy features where you can
break the game over your knee. How is anyone new
supposed to figure them out though? What about
strategy fans who aren't interested in the silly
stories (quiet, I know that you can skip
cutscenes, you're going to ruin this). I won't
even go into how one of the primary series
features, the Item World, takes forever to deal
with. I mean who wants to deal with all these
numbers and complexities in a strategy RPG? Disgaea
is just an uninviting mess of weird penguin
things and an army of clones of some weird
blonde rock dude. RUBBISH.
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Top Tweets
Wheels' Comment
All
I have to say is:
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Hot Topics and Outro
Four years of Q&A/Mailbag! How the
heck did that happen? So what's next for your host? I'll
be working on multiple reviews in the near future for Demon
Gaze, Dragon Warrior, and a few other games
as well. I'm still planning out my article on the perils
of Monster Hunter clones. I've got some
impressions to write on a few games. I may also do a
podcast looking at the past four years of Q&A/Mailbag
before the end of the summer. Don't forget you can also
bug me on twitter!
So what's next for the Mailbag? We shall
see. Perhaps someone else will take up the mantle. Perhaps
we shall continue the ancient RPGamer tradition of Q&A
going dormant for long stretches.
Time for some thanks before I pass the
Mailbag on to the next host. I'd like to thank Hito,
Nodal, and Fanboymaster for helping me get Q&A off the
ground with early questions before readers started to send
stuff in. I'd like to thank the many regulars who
consistently sent stuff in for stretches, who I won't name
individually for fear of forgetting anyone. Thanks to
Fanboymaster again for providing questions whenever I was
in a pinch and listening to me complain as I played Mugen
Souls for review. Thanks to @EricRPG and
@OnyxOblivion for constantly poking fun at my distaste for
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and Mugen Souls.
Thanks to LolWhoops and Smacd for being the only non-staff
to write up Final Fantasy Second Chances. Thanks
to everyone that entered any of my silly contests. Thanks
to @Beat_twittar for providing completely insane quests.
Also thanks to @falselogic for interesting and slightly
less insane questions. Thanks to @itzaraya for being a
good sport about me finding new ways to pester him with
that Conception II song. Thanks to my buddy Kyle
for starting the connection challenges that people picked
up on and kept sending me for years. Finally thanks to
@Cooltendo for the awesome Mummy Trigger picture.
As far as staff goes, thanks to Michael
Cunningham for giving me the chance to write
Q&A/Mailbag. Thanks to Mike Moehnke for constantly
providing massive letters with weeks' worth of content
that often kept this thing going from the start. Thanks
to Michael Baker for often writing in despite my
constant forgetfulness to write in to his column. Thanks
to Alex Fuller for the new Mailbag template and for
proofing many Mailbags. Thanks to Sam Marchello and
Becky Cunningham for lots of proofs, questions, and
general support for Q&A/Mailbag. Thanks to Cassandra
Ramos for lots of great questions. Thanks to Nathan
Schlothan for totally agreeing that DmC:Devil May
Cry is great (I kid, I kid). Thanks to Phillip
Willis for letting me promote Q&A/Mailbag on the RPG
Backtrack. Finally thanks to the staff in general for
continuing to make RPGamer great.
Also of course thanks to my wife and son for being
awesome.
Now go buy lots of Dragon Quest kids.
P.S. No one took up my Crystal
Bearers challenge. Oh well! I didn't expect anyone
would, but I wanted to give one last shot at getting
people to play that crazy game. Give it a try!
Here are some hot topics I've seen around
the net:
- Why does Kawazu make such awesome games?
- Who will be the next Mailbag host and what is their
favorite Kawazu game?
- Tales of Vesperia PS3 mostly just added some
lame pirate?
- How could anyone say no to localizing a Dragon
Quest Slime game?
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