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Googleshng - September 18 '04- 4:00 Eastern Standard Time
Someone was talking to me about this here new Ghost in the Shell movie
Evidently, it isn't really a movie based on the new manga series, but rather, like the other movie, it's
one plot point from the original manga, stretched out a bit, sans tachikomas, with the same exact soundtrack.
Why can't I go to a movie theater and see cute little spider tank robots plotting to overthrow humanity?
Why?
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I know this was posted by Cast, but my answers are different.
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For the record, I wanted to see the new Resident Evil movie, until I saw the
second trailer for it. Then my wife really wanted to see it. Since it's
like trying to swallow a brick to get her to see a zombie flick, I figured
'Hey, this is my chance'. Unfortunately, she loved it. Now I'm stuck going
to see Shaun of the Dead in a few months.
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Googleshng:
Those Resident Evil movies fail to qualify as zombie movies. Zombie movies don't have axe kicks and bullet
time effects. Shaun of the Dead fully qualifies though, and I for one am looking forward to it more than
any movie I've seen previews for in years. Who wouldn't want to see something in the vein of Dawn of the
Dead and Dead Alive?
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Also, what's with the new QNA address? Will that just go into a queue for
you and/or Andrew, or just one of you, or what?
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Googleshng:
Yes. The idea here is that there's always this weird sloshing effect on the handover days where people
keep sending letters to me on Cast's first day and vice versa, despite the mailtos changing. If everything's
going to one box, things don't sit around for half a week.
Of course, this also means that not only do I have to sift all the spam out of my inbox, but I have to
compare what's left to three columns double-checking for what's already been printed. Nasty tradeoff that.
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And, on a somewhat related note. I'm playing Phantom Brave, and I just am
not into it as much as Disgaea. I'm at, what I presume to be, the last
boss. The story's nice and all. In fact, I like the story more than I did
Disgaea, I think. But the game mechanics just aren't as much fun. It's
sort of like when you go to a concert and you hear someone play a piece they
wrote that pushes the technical boundaries of music composition. Then
someone plays a piece that uses traditional composition techniques and does
them real well. I much prefer the former, because the latter's a good
exercise, but isn't suitable for reaching me, the audience, until it's had
time to simmer and be perfected. Does that make sense? Phantom Brave has
got a lot of technical things that are pretty nice about it. The vector
movement system is excellently done. But the tradeoff is that you don't
have all the fun patterns that you did with the grid system's magic. The
dynamicity of the characters being able to become anything and weapons being
anything and all is well done, and cute for a little while. But after a
time, I just start wishing that there was an obvious straight progression of
weapons so that I could just grab the next best one if I didn't want to
worry about leveling the weapons and such. Or maybe I'm just whiny.
Submitted for your extrospection.
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Googleshng:
I'm a tad more fond of Disgaea as well. Part of it is that I like my grids, part of it is that I like
the struture of the whole transmigration system and item worlds, and I'm sure part of it is Etna too.
On the other hand, Phantom Brave gives you a LOT more freedom to experiment with odd mechanics, puts a
much greater emphasis on strategy than Disgaea, and for that matter most TRPGs, and it rewards creativity.
Both are good for different reasons.
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Less Popular RPGs
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Goog
I know you're going to be gone for the next few days or whatever, but I must
say, I enjoy writing to you more than Andrew (even though you like FFVIII,
although I can't remember if that was him or you...oh well, doesn't matter).
He's kind of fanatical. Anyways, onto more serious matters.
I finally beat Valkyrie Profile thank the Gods. Great game, I recommend it
to anyone with the 80 bucks or more it costs to buy the sucker off of Ebay.
I resorted to buying Koudelka off of Ebay and it arrived about a week ago.
I wanted to finish VP first so I just barely started Koudelka in order to
get a feel for the game. So far it seems fun, although the graphics do seem
a tad sub-par for a '99 PS game. Perhaps I'm just too used to the newer
games? Or perhaps i'm just not far enough in. Anyways, that kinda thing
doesn't bug me much, I still think that the graphics on FF1 from FF Origins
are badass. I grew up with the original FF1, so doesn't take much too get
me going.
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Googleshng:
I seem to recall Koudelka looked amazing for the time. There were a couple awkward details, like that
bit with the knife in the intro, and people's ears, but this was before most developers had a good handle
on CGI workstations, and you have to admit those clouds in the intro are beautiful. Now, the sound quality
on the other hand, that I have issues with.
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I was going to ask a question but it's escaped me...wait, there it is, let
me get my butterfly net. Alright, I was going to ask you about Wild ARMs as
a series. I enjoyed Wild ARMs very much (one of my favorite RPGs ever.
Wild ARMs 2 I just couldn't get into (we discussed why awhile back). Wild
ARMs 3 was also amazing (sadly I never finished it, something else came
along). Now I hear new things about the remake of Wild ARMs and what is
basically Wild ARMs 4. Is the remake going to be a true remake or are there
going to be added characters? I've heard both so not sure which is true.
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Googleshng:
If I recall, yon remake of Wild ARMs is pretty much aimed at making it more like the second game. We
lose the unique magic/skill system for each character in favor of the standardize force gauge level instead
of MP system, and rather than having three characters each with their own stories, of equal importance
to the plot, we get 6 characters to be switched around, with some clearly taking the back seat. The extras
I seem to recall hearing somewhere being Anna, Calamity Jane, and her butler.
Considering that everyone I've ever talked to on the subject thought 2 was a piece of garbage compared
to 1, citing these reasons mainly, this move strikes me as, shall we say, braindead.
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Ooo, another question comes to mind. Without spoiling the games for me, how
does Koudelka tie into Shadow Hearts? I mean, is it just the same kinda
timeline and you hear Koudelka's name in Shadow Hearts? Or is it something
more major, like you actually meet Koudelka or something?
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Googleshng:
Without spoiling anything? That makes it tricky. OK, let's try it this way. The setting of Koudelka,
along with just about every character and major story point, come up in Shadow Hearts.
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And what's your beef with Golden Sun? I thoroughly enjoyed both titles
(although i kinda consider it one game). The battle system was awesome in
my humble opinion. I loved the Djinns and summons and how you used them.
Gryphon
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Googleshng:
Uh, I don't have a problem with Golden Sun. You seem to have me confused with another host.
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What's his problem?
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Skies of Arcadia spoilers ahoy!
Can you give us a story analysis of Skies of Arcadia or perhapes a website that does? I don't understand the main bad guys motivation at the end. Maybe some mistranslation was at work.
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Googleshng:
What's not to understand? We have the fanatically devout follower of someone who's attempting to take
over the world. They're sitting on a world destroying weapon. You kill the guy he's devoted his entire
life to. He just can't take it and decides to use the sucker. Rather extreme, but grief makes people
irrational some times.
If this seems confusing, that's just because you've played so many cookie cutter RPGs that it's hardwired
into your brain that the silver haired pretty boy must always secretly hate his boss. Hooray for bucking
the trend.
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There's no place with you here in the future!
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1)Do you know of any RPGs where you are a ship's captain and you're able to add to your ship or buy a new ship? I'd appreciate it if you could help.
The answer is so obvious: Skies of Arcadia
ValhallaDeath
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Googleshng:
Uh, yes. I mentioned that when someone first asked me about this, along with several other games. I don't
understand how the question managed to unanswer itself.
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Raabu ando PSO!
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Quick question... do you know enough about PSO I and II Plus (GCN) to know if it's worth getting if you don't have a broadband connection?
Thanks.
Josh
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Googleshng:
The GC version of PSO, last I checked, has a multiplayer split-screen mode. In my book, assuming you
have people to play it with, this is much better than playing it online. So really, it's just a question
of how much appeal you find in playing Diablo with a controller rather than a mouse.
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