Comments 1,213

Re: Here's Your First Look At Sonic X Shadow Generations: Dark Beginnings

AlienX

@Samalik I had to be 'that guy' and point out all the 3D games where JP dub was taken out for space. At least the ones I know of.

Sonic Heroes (GC)
Shadow the Hedgehog (GC)
Sonic Riders (GC)
Sonic Unleashed (Wii)
All-Stars Racing (didn't release in JPN)
Sonic Lost World 3DS (I actually don't remember)
-Technically- Brawl.
Sonic 2006 and Smash for 3DS requires changing the entire system language to use the JP dub.

Then the 2D ones would be:
Sonic Battle
Sonic Advance 3
Sonic Rush
Sonic Rush Adventure
Sonic Colors DS
Sonic Generations 3DS
Sonic CD in Sonic Gems Collection

Most of these support multi-lang so it's a pretty seamless transition. A few of them have dual-audio mods too.

Re: Here's Your First Look At Sonic X Shadow Generations: Dark Beginnings

AlienX

It's cool to see what seems to be a serious story and not the trash lines from Forces or the constant reminders of random trivia in Frontiers.

But I will say this: the voice choices are still terrible, Stephanie Sheh sounds like a moe moe girl, it's a 180 from Maria's traditional sound — it really shouldn't be hard to find someone that sounds like Rebecca Honig.

It's quite funny, my biggest complaint with the voice cast has always been that they sound too normal, when the 4Kids cast was the complete opposite, but now that Maria sounds like a Funimation dub it's the other way around, she needs a gentle, normal sounding voice.

Re: Review: Tsukihime -A Piece Of Blue Glass Moon- (Switch) - A Delightfully Dark Revival For A VN Classic

AlienX

I knew about this game from the Wii homebrew days, you could get the original game running through a poorly-working replica of the engine.

Even when I got hooked into Ace Attorney and Hotel Dusk, I could not understand the love for this one. One major thing that annoys me is that the entire screen is the text box and doesn't have the same feel as other visual novels.

Re: Aspyr Is Bringing Another Classic Star Wars Game To Switch This August

AlienX

This was the game I really wanted to play when I still only had SNES and PS1, I was disappointed to find out the PS1 did not play PS2 games after renting it lmao.

Not the worst gamble, some GBC games will play on GB I guess.

A year later I got a GC and completely forgot this game existed, the lego games covered the star wars itch. Would still like to play it tho!

Re: Nintendo Switch Online Gets Four New Additions Today, Including Zelda, Metroid, And Perfect Dark

AlienX

ALTTP has a DARK, NORMAL, and BRIGHT option, the "dark" option represents the original colors of the SNES original.

...But it's pointless now because of the terrible color correction filter that makes everything look washed out!

There ya go that's my criticism. Four Swords online is OK but the DSiWare version will always work since it's offline and has more content.

Props to anyone who has the patience to reach the Palace of the Four Sword in this version.

Re: Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Completes Series In The West This September

AlienX

Maybe it's because they were the last I played but the Edgeworth games are a lot better than Apollo Justice/DD/SoJ!

Can't believe they finally considered using the original sprites, though the character portraits on DS were basically just downscaled art and don't really have the same appeal as the ones from the og trilogy. Everything else is pretty much your typical 16-bit graphics which is great.

It's also cool to see the English title and puns for AAI2, farewell Justine Courtney!

Re: Sonic Team Open To More Characters From Comic Series Appearing In Games

AlienX

The Archie comics era from 2003 to 2016 was my jam, once they rebooted the series and shortly cancelled it to reboot it yet again in IDW I lost faith in the comics.

Because of that I have quite a hard time accepting new characters like Tangle and Whisper.

I dunno, to me they're kinda over-designed, for Sonic characters at least.

Re: Hands On: Sonic X Shadow Generations Is A Love Letter To Sonic Adventure 2

AlienX

The Biolizard fight looks surprisingly accurate, the one on 3DS was a joke, I can't help but still be bothered by how super stiff the controls look, the jerky turns are there to remind you that this is a game about going fast and is tuned to running in a straight line so you don't mess up and blame the game.

And as that Ark level leads me to believe this is indeed still about going in a straight line boosting through insignificant enemies.

I hope Kingdom Valley isn't reduced to that, the original level is one of the most complex 3d Sonic stages out there.

Black Doom sounded great by the way, but Kirk Thornton's voice is still so jarring after all these years. What a waste knowing Jason would gladly do it.

Re: Sonic Team On Remasters: "If There's A Title People Like, We'll Think About It"

AlienX

Dumb pr talk, I know most people here just want Switch support but the Sonic series has too many good, interesting games locked away, Generations has always been easily accessible thanks to the PC version.
I imagine many fans would not bother playing this game without access to the many impressive mods the PC version has. To me it's a game from the 'bare minimum' era of Sega. The levels are too simple, too easy, and too short.

If Sega really wanted to celebrate Shadow, they should've either:

A. Make an original game that isn't just a carbon copy of 'boost, win', even if the concept is visiting past stages. A lot of Shadow's past stages were action based not just speed based.

B. Port Shadow 2005.

C. Port Sonic 2006, what many consider Shadow's peak as a character.

Re: Poll: Is $60 Too Much For Nintendo's Switch Re-Releases?

AlienX

I recall paying $30 for a used copy of TTYD back in 2010, if I were to play the same exact game that I already experienced but with redrawn HD visuals and half the frame rate, then yeah $60 is a slap in the face.

HD was a big thing back then, now it's the obvious, expected thing to support, it shouldn't drive up the price. (...It also shouldn't hinder performance!)

I know people will disagree with this comparison but still fun to consider:

When Sonic Adventure released on the Dreamcast in 1999 it was priced at $50 (looked it up) I bought the GameCube version which released in 2003, surely for the same or lower price.

Now the problem with this is that the GC version offered 60fps, while pretty much every other texture and most models got remade to fit a different style. That's nuts considering all the other stuff cranked into this version, and it was all for the same price as the simpler DC original.

I'm willing to bet that 90% of the people who played TTYD on the GC don't really care about the HD aspect and just want to have access to the game again. HD/QoL/new content should be an incentive to buy the game again not increase the flippin' price.

Re: Poll: Box Art Brawl - Duel: Bravely Default

AlienX

Never seen box arts that are so different yet both so good.

I think I instinctively went with the fairy, as that's the one I recognize, but who am I kidding it was probably because the striking pose is pleasing to my eyes.

The European art feels more telling that it's an RPG, though!

Re: Random: Sakurai Cut Dolby Surround From Kirby Game To Trim Player Wait Time

AlienX

@smoreon I'm not familiar with xbox but I like comparing it to the 'data install' option of some PSP games. (Kingdom Hearts)

I don't know if there's documentation on it, but if you've used Brawl mods before you might recognize the files.

Basically, every character that shifts to another character during gameplay has their animation file (IIRC) cached and there's also some main menu stuff.

If you use Dolphin, you can look at the tmp folder in realtime. Whenever you launch software this folder gets cleared so loading masterpieces and then going back to Brawl's menu means it has to cache the files again.

When they're written to the tmp folder they use random names, but they have normal names on the disc itself, so if you can identify each file and blank them, Brawl will prioritize (again IIRC) if you use the 'file patch code', the files from the SD card, so you can get the same effect but without the slow loading start.

I think Project M or some of its continuation attempts do this, or just hack the game to load the files like normal since most people will run it from SD or USB.

Other games that use the system memory to cache big files are Final Fantasy CC Echoes of Time and PokePark.

FF copies the entire sfx and music archives which is like 27 MB and also a resource file that's 12.8 MB, in total it's 39.7 MB. It takes about 30 seconds to get through the loading there. It's worth noting that the caching starts before the strap screen unlike Brawl, so longplays on youtube tend to skip it.

Re: Random: Sakurai Cut Dolby Surround From Kirby Game To Trim Player Wait Time

AlienX

@NintendomPower Yeah, Brawl's loading is insane compared to Melee, and is kinda disappointing when you find out years later it's because it's copying 40 MB of temp files to the system memory without making the user aware of it.

Whatever effort one made to avoid using the sd card menu is wasted knowing you still ran Brawl like 500 times beforehand.

Re: Random: Sakurai Cut Dolby Surround From Kirby Game To Trim Player Wait Time

AlienX

I'd like to say surround was kinda useless because I never had the setup for it.

But the wait time isn't a big deal, when I was a kid I always got chills seeing the Sonic Heroes startup: "Presented by Sega", "Created by Sonic Team" -start theme song- "Sofdec ADX logos", "Dolby Surround logo" and then a fade in to the title screen with the song vocals coming in.

To me it always gave it a cinematic feel, and you can't skip any of it, nor do you want to.

Re: Random: Sakurai's Game Storage Solutions Are A Sight To Behold

AlienX

The 3 SD cards hosting possibly the entirety of the JP Wii Shop Channel feels unreal, I guess I now know the Wii can handle it.

Sakurai's Wii U's internal memory must be super flooded, though I guess if you multiply 692 titles by the 3 files used for save files + 1 ticket + 1 metadata per title it's still just around 3.4k files which isn't too impressive.

PC Engine CD savefiles take up a lot of blocks so I wonder how much space would he have left if all games had savefiles created.

Some WiiWare like to waste a lot of space like MDK2 and DLC stuff like FFIV The After Years.

Re: Round Up: The Reviews Are In For The Knuckles Paramount+ TV Show

AlienX

I think Knuckles could carry his own show, it's just that this isn't that Knuckles, y'know?

If you ask me, one of the most memorable episodes from Sonic X is the one where it's just Knuckles teaming up with Sammo Hung, searching for a chaos emerald.

I'll still check it out, but meh, I hope they know how to make Shadow work because with Maria, that movie should write itself, but we'll see.

Re: The First Third-Party iOS App Store Hosts A Free Nintendo Emulator (Europe)

AlienX

I tried Delta for the first time yesterday on Sonic Advance 3 and wow, it's almost like the VC experience, no feature creep, very polished, and well, it works.

...But! There is one thing that's driving me nuts, while video seems perfectly sync'd to the iPhone, audio seems to slowly desync until it distorts audio for a second and resyncs again! This happens like every minute.

This is a common problem in emulators and the best solution I am aware of is to dynamically adjust the audio's sample rate just a little bit so that audio always stays synchronized as well as the video, which is what RetroArch does.

Re: Sonic Movies To Be 'Avengers-Level' Events, Says Franchise Producer

AlienX

Whether they kill Maria with a gun or with a fish, I sure hope this film doesn't try to drown its dramatic moments with shoehorned jokes and references.

I mean, that's why Thor 4 is so beloved among the MCU crowd.

It may be terrible business but Sonic 3 should just be the "for the fans" one and simply let the original story take the reigns.

Re: Feature: 33 Games We're Surprised Still Aren't On Switch

AlienX

@smoreon Having grown up with the GC version, the dreamcast version has always been inferior/ugly to me, so I've never seen the appeal (I mean, I understand the appeal, just that it doesn't apply to me.)

And I've seen the videos analyzing the core differences, but I always stop when they start mentioning the most absurd differences no one, or at least casual players should care about.

It's not like Sega will use it, as you said, they'll probably target a remake, introducing a bunch of new issues in the process.

Re: Feature: 33 Games We're Surprised Still Aren't On Switch

AlienX

I just finished checking out this article and couldn't help but feel annoyed.

It feels ridiculous that bloody DKR gets its own spot, while SA1 (the thumbnail clickbait) is lumped with "Dreamcast titles" with no description or anything.

Sonic Adventure is possibly one of the most important Sonic titles out there. This is a Nintendo-centered site, the GC port is realistically an improvement in every sense: better visuals, 60fps, more content.

Why do people still clamour for the halfbaked Dreamcast version? Why is using Sonic as clickbait good enough, but not good enough to get its own description telling readers why it should be on Switch?

Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Another Code: Recollection?

AlienX

9-Excellent

I'm not hard to please when it comes to stuff like this, it's pretty much perfect. When I played the originals I always wanted to have just a bit more freedom of movement which this remake achieves.

I can't give it a perfect score because it's no longer "the game I knew", I didn't need the characters to get different outfits or hairstyles, or shoehorned diversity, because it doesn't add anything, it removes things.

The problem is the game isn't targeted at me, it's for the new audiences. Whether it's people who can better appreciate having Dan Maxwell with darker skin, or Ashley with super tight shorts. For me it's just a nuisance.

Just the same, we now have a baseline for a Hotel Dusk remake.

Re: Nintendo Expands Switch Online's GBA Library With Two RPG Classics Next Week

AlienX

Never played them but looks cool as heck.

It always takes me by surprise that the Japanese yt channel does a super basic trailer for these releases that only shows gameplay snippets, while here it's always 1 dedicated background music track with fancy in-between messages and sometimes there's even narration.

It sounds like NOA really wants to push for these games. That said, I'm well above letting a fancy trailer influence my decision on games.

But yeah, It's as if Japan sees these releases as nostalgic bonuses and not something to sell systems or subscriptions.

Re: Poll: Box Art Brawl - Duel: Trace Memory

AlienX

Easy NA, not to mention when you were a teen buying this with a parent would make it awkward if you needed to explain why you wanted the game with the girl and exposed midriff on the cover.

I remember buying Trace Memory when I was a senior, it was all thanks to Brawl and trying to recreate the hype after playing all the Ace Attorney titles available at the time.

NA's zoom allows you to appreciate the art better, which is always nice.

Re: Nintendo Releases Switch eShop Demo For Another Code: Recollection

AlienX

Always blown away by the visuals, it's like an alternate timeline, as I never expected Nintendo to ever touch this series again.

Hope it sells well! It's been a while since I've played R, if that's Tommy in the overview, shame they got rid of his Kurt Cobain look. He looks kinda generic now.

And if that's a new character next to him, that's interesting. The other girl that's usually with Elizabeth was kinda bland so maybe they improved her here.

Re: Feature: "We Were Aware Of The Fans' Wishes" - Rescuing The 3DS Games For Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy

AlienX

As someone who didn't enjoy Dual Destinies all the way, I must say Turnabout Reclaimed is the best of the bunch. It's a bit unfortunate it was DLC back in the day. (I imagine many didn't bother getting it.)

I don't care for the fact that they cross-examine another animal, but making good use of Pearls + chilling aquarium theme + defendant being likeable = fun case.

Re: Soapbox: 20 Years Later, Why Do We Still Not Have A New Sonic Battle?

AlienX

I'm not super into fighting games, I think Sonic the Fighters is boring (and therefore bad) but Sonic Battle is different, it's fun to play around with the various characters, progressing through the story, and collecting skill cards. It's quite cool, one of the most unique Sonic games IMO.

Sequel nowadays wouldn't work because everything Sega releases is lifeless or barebones, and only slightly improved with the obligatory "Plus" addition.

I just imagine the sequel being half the roster Battle had, with the generic lookin' stages from Lost World, Forces, and Frontiers.

Re: Sonic Superstars' Sales Were 'Slightly Weaker' Than Sega Had Anticipated

AlienX

Farewell, Amy! It was nice while it lasted.

I haven't played this yet because it makes no sense to me to waste $60 on a game that looks marginally better than Sonic 4.

I feel Sega again tries to please multiple factions of the fanbase in one game but ultimately ends up blending the wrong things together resulting in mediocrity.

I want to see the next 3D Sonic game drop 2.5d stages/sections. Then Sega will have my attention.

Or a 2D game that uses pixel art without relying on the classic style. But this ship sailed a long time ago.

Re: Takashi Iizuka Explains Timeline Placement Of Sonic Superstars

AlienX

Shadow really was the glue for the timeline.

There's no continuity after 2006 so the way I see it, the timeline ended a long time ago.

But why be boring? If we follow the rules set by Sonic X, Sonic's planet has a different bs time flow, so technically you could fit everything, even the SatAM canon into it.