StardusterEX

I quite liked this one, actually! It kept me occupied during a month-long hospital stay last year, anyway. I enjoy Natsume’s take on the genre, I like hunting down all the crop mutations. I also think their marriage candidate designs are pretty top-tier, but I wish social interactions were deeper…

I’m curious to see what “Deluxe Edition” means, the mobile editions already got a controller update, so presumably it’s got to be more than just that? But it never got any DLC (as of this comment), so it’s not just going to be be base game + DLC. Hmm…

If you want to complete it without paying a ton, you need to actually treat it like a trading card game, and find other people online or irl to barter with.

Biggest issue with that is, the current trading system is a big pain if you aren’t right next to a person. They need to hurry with the trading update, and make people able to request cards. That’d cut down on the difficulty by at least half. 🤷‍♂️

Can’t wait to say I’m gonna try everything out, then just play the heck out of Stairway over and over again. 😎

ngl, last DLC didn’t interest me, but I’m really liking the looks of this one. 👀

If they include World Wide Edition, I’ll be playing the heck out of this, that was one of my favorite GBA games.

I just want a port of the first three games. You could transfer the main character from 1 to 2 to 3, so it was fun to get to play with your cute li’l Denpa Man friend through all his adventures, and see how relationships and villains and villages develop over time. You could also get bonuses in-game for playing the previous games and transferring your hero!

Plus, the translation in the first three was just fine! 😭

The bad translation isn’t a part of the charm when the previous 3 games had no translation issues whatsoever. This is a disgrace to their legacy.

Glad female hero is still here, gotta start with that “Sexy/Vamp” personality for stat bonuses lol.

@BenoitRen @Spider-Kev And you know what happened when games did releases with glitches and /or game-breaking issues before patches were easily downloadable? A new version of the game would be released with (hopefully) most of the glitches fixed and you’d have to buy it all over again, or you’d have to send in the game to the company/manufacturer for patching/replacement, or it would remain unfixed forever, and you’d have to hope someone on Gamefaqs found a workaround so you could continue.

And if you think this is any “less polished” at release than the original, please go to the Mario Wiki and look at the extensive list of glitches from the original game… None of which were ever fixed.

Oh dear Arceus, at least the Willy Wonka experience wasn’t literally endangering the lives of terminally ill children for a photo op. This is… horrific.

Maybe the launch of this one will not be so bad that Japanese fans bully the director off of Twitter… Hopefully they’ve learned from the mistakes in Olive Town.

Everyone refers to what we got as mobile versions, but these are actually newer and uglier and far worse than what was released on mobile. Like, a straight mobile port would have been a blessing in comparison. They at least used consistent pixel-based graphics throughout (even if 3 was stripped of T’n’T boards).

@Lizuka Another point to consider though is that Undertale/Deltarune don’t have a “normal” audience that’s just going to lose interest. They’re going to create their own fanart and content and music and games until the new chapter comes out, and the hype train will keep rolling. TBH at this point the original games are only a teeny tiny part of the whole of the massive gravitational pull this fandom has and it’s kind of scary. D:

@JayJ Well, 1.5 for consoles dropped like 2 months after the PC version, so I doubt it’s gonna take a year. I’m assuming around the same time frame, maybe a little longer.

@JohnnyMind Natsume themselves actually provided an explanation for the Natume thing in a Facebook post some years ago, for anyone that’s interested:

“BEHIND THE SCENES: Why NATUME?
With the recent release of Harvest Moon 64 on the Wii U Virtual Console in both North America and Europe, let's answer that one important question everyone has been talking about for 17 years: What's up with the spelling of "Natume" on the title screen in Harvest Moon 64?!
Back when Harvest Moon 64 was being worked on, technology was very different. The Internet, email, data transfer, etc. weren’t the everyday tools they are now, so communication with Japan took a bit longer and was a tad more primitive than it is today. Unfortunately, the correction request on the title screen had fallen through the cracks, and when this was discovered, the title had already been approved by Nintendo and was set to go to production.
The problem? Fixing it would have delayed the game by at least 45 days, pushing it out of December! Yikes! Sorry, no Harvest Moon 64 for Christmas and instead, a February release. So, it was decided that we would rather let our fans have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year planting crops and taking care of animals instead of being a Grinch for a simple “s”. The funny thing is, Natume is a legit way to spell Natsume in some versions of romaji. And now you know the story!”

@NinjaHamsterSaki No problem!

@NinjaHamsterSaki Technically you don’t have to move, you could just increase town ranks by completing requests, and there are plenty of fast-travel points already including one in each town, and you can still use the farming plots without having your farm there.

I think the most surprising part for me has been how much the HM subreddit has been enjoying it considering their… feelings towards Natsume’s games. It’s nice being able to talk about WoA and how much fun I’ve been having without getting called a Natsume shill :,)

@Bobb if the Paper Mario games are considered canon, when Mario characters die and have been neither good nor bad, they go to the Underwhere and become Shaydes. If they were good, they go to the Overthere and become Nimbis. Those who were very bad are sent to Bonechill’s Prison beneath the Underwhere.

@PtM Oddly enough, I think the GBA version of Spyro: The Eternal Night was the best version of the game. It at least had way less frustrating design choices than the console versions. Not sure about the DS version, that was an entirely different version yet again, but I think it was trying to closer emulate the console versions than what the GBA could.

Please just let it resolve Perry’s story somehow. ;o;

@arekdougy it helps steer you kid towards one of the professions… scholar, I think? Vs. hand-milking, which gives them points towards rancher.

Edit: hold on, I got that mixed up. Milk by hand = rancher, showing your kid the milker tool, (maybe using it on cows?) = scientist, milker room = neutral

But everything was so vague in the original. In this one, you’ve got meters to see what career your child is favoring and if you do something by to increase it, it’ll show you by how much.

@ATaco Dunno about in the remake not having played it yet, but Marlin/Matthew in the original was… horrible, lol. He was a misogynist (and got specifically told off by Takakura for it in one event), an alcoholic, and was kinda obsessed with Celia even after marriage to your character and would constantly compare you to her (wishing your cooking was like hers, etc). He really was the worst husband out of the three options.

To make an obscure reference I’m worried no one else is likely to understand- reminds me of the ar Tonelico II Phantasmagoria song powered up with a perfect 100-IPD Replekia.

Nukes the whole battlefield with a giant space laser, dealing millions of points of damage to everything it touches. …Not necessary for regular gameplay at all, but it sure looks cool.

The bartering system, the breeding system with tiers of “shiny” animals, making sure you’ve got enough supplies for you and your flocks and herds to make it through the winter, hunting, culling… This game has a ton that separates it from other farming games feature-wise. It had more of a realistic take on animals than I’ve seen before or since. I’m glad it’s coming West so I don’t have to import it or figure out where the PS2 went, lol.

Ah, it’s clear in so many areas that even after the delay earlier this year, they still cut corners to get it out faster. That’s just disappointing for a sendoff to the trilogy that probably saved the series. :/ They apparently went with a different translation company for this game than the previous two, so the tone is kind of stiff and weird like they translated it literally instead of localizing and there are typos everywhere in some places… There’s also incorrect information in some of the tutorials and crafting, which is just unforgivable. The small text and the depth-of-field issues make it way harder on the eyes than the previous two Ryza games… Though there’s at least a patch in the works for the DoF. And the minimalistic design in battle seems like a cool idea, but it actively makes it harder to see characters’ HP, so they end up dying in battle more… And I didn’t think the combat style meshed with the alchemic item use in the previous games, but this combat is somehow worse. I’m not even quite sure what it is.

I might just be extra-critical after playing so many Atelier games, I dunno. But I can’t recommend this as easily as the previous two games or even some of the older games. :/ It’s not completely busted and I don’t think there’s anything game-breaking in it, it’s not a 1/10 or anything, but I’m really hoping some of these issues can be ironed out… The series and fans deserves more respect.

@bozz this one does (and did, in the case of the original) what no other farm sim I’ve seen so far has done, taking a focus on family and letting you raise your child to adulthood, with their interest and the ending changing depending on who you befriend and activities you choose to partake in during your time in the valley. Plus, getting to see everyone age as the story goes on, families and characters moving in or out, interpersonal stories and seeing how your choice in spouse affects the other marriage candidates you didn’t choose…

The dubs for the Atelier games were never that great to begin with. The voice acting was fine, sometimes really good, but they only every dubbed like 30-50% of it vs. the Japanese version which had like 90% of the game voiced. Ryza’s kind of the odd one out in that regard once again, it had less voice acting than previous games iirc.

But I’ve refused to play games for less, so I’m not judging anyone who won’t play without a dub. I’d like to see them return ‘cause I like having choices, but I’d like to see both languages hitting that ~90% voice acting mark. :<

Ah, I love these games so much! I started playing Love Nikki several years ago just wanting a cute dress up game, and it soon ended up as something way darker/more mature than I expected, so that was a real treat! I also appreciate that the developers seem to listen to the feedback of the players (at least when I was playing more actively). A pay-to-win event came to the US server, and the community rallied to boycott the next one that was scheduled to come through some weeks later, because only the chart leader had a chance to get every part of the outfit. …The US server didn’t end up getting any more of those types of events after that, lol.

@Boldfoxrd Where they release Arbok and Weezing to save the Ekans and Koffing from that poacher? My heart wasn’t ready.

@rjejr Most of the other Dragons shows are pretty good, though I thought this one was pretty wretched in comparison lol. It didn’t give me anything I couldn’t get from watching the other shows/movies, it just gave it to me in a worse package. But maybe I’m just jaded.

Still stuck on Rune Factory 5, can’t decide who to marry. Ludmilla’s great and also way taller than my character, I love Beatrice’s design, Ryker’s a cringey edgelord which I love, but Lucas has had my absolute favorite lines in the game so far. Aaahhh, such tough choices.

@jack3ww Different teams for each game.

Similar to Sunless Sea, you say..? On that note, I keep chasing a game that has buildup and consequences with teeth, something like Seeking the Name in Fallen London. I haven’t found anything that’s managed to recapture the feeling yet, and so the search continues.

@Travisemo007 You can set the music you like in all of the modern games, from music from past Atelier and other Gust games. Might I suggest songs like Astarte, Liela Xea, Nefertiti, or Namenloses Licht if you want the music to be a bit heavier?

@BloodNinja You’re still using one Pokémon at a time, but multiple wild ones can gang up on you if you aren’t careful.
Edit: maybe someone already answered, I think my internet connection is delaying comment refreshes

@Ooccoo_Jr add more water

Say what you will about the pirates and leakers but they’ve done a better job of advertising and getting people hyped than anything that’s been officially released. I miss the advertising from the Pokémon Colosseum days… I dunno what kinds of ads other regions got, but the US ones were great, lol.

@CactusMan I like that the miscellaneous options weren’t locked behind a New Game+ here. Nexomon: Extinction had that problem, and I don’t always have time to replay stuff.

@moodycat Start with Marnian Tavern Story- that one actually had a budget and it’s got an Atelier-lite feel to it.

@CactusMan Yeah, I’m not understanding their point either. The miner guy was a jerk and got eaten by sea monsters as a result, dunno what this has to do with anti-capitalism.

I’m having fun making new monsters. The high-temperature breeding is interesting and getting to see traits and colors early is nice, though it makes me feel a little bad somehow.

I hope the rest will be ported later, Putt Putt Saves the Zoo was always my favorite!

@BloodNinja Also product scarcity tends to make people more likely to buy stuff if they’re actually able to find it… So if the number of Switches being produced + the Switches already made still manages to exceed the numbers previously sold, it’s going to see a bump in sales.

This is currently an industry-wide issue due to worldwide supply-chain problems, but Nintendo has been using artificial scarcity since their days of producing arcade machines in order to boost sales. I dunno about Sony/Microsoft, I haven’t really looked into their histories before, but based on that Nintendo probably knows how to navigate this situation to their advantage and sales will likely remain strong.

@Xellen My best guess is these were manufactured ahead of time as much as possible in an attempt to avoid issues that could be coming up from material shortages. All the money in the world doesn’t mean a thing if no one is able to deliver the base materials you need due to shipping problems or labor shortages.

…I need that blob fish-looking gyroid.

So after reading these comments, I feel like I’m the only person that’s been keeping up with leaks. Or perhaps people are just avoiding posting spoilers about them since they haven’t released? I’m not sure.

Dunno if it’s actually the AC DLC adding to the price of the NSO expansion, or if it’s just an incentive to get it considering the cost. I imagine a lot of the increase in price is actually going towards licensing fees for the Genesis games… ‘course, I could also be completely wrong about that.

Either way, I’m having a lot of fun. My only complaints are that the extra wall partitions don’t really connect and you can’t put stuff on them… And I wish there was touchscreen control when in drag/drop mode because it felt smoother in HHD where I could use a stylus, but all the new features and furniture that have been added make it so much fun. I just bought a corpse flower from the office. I’m not sure where they got it or how they were keeping it indoors, and I’m not sure I even want to know, LOL.

Over/Under on whether or not there will be a mouse cursor on the opening screen and flying across the credits screen in Legends Arceus like there was in SwSh? I think there was a third mouse cursor hanging out in the Isle of Armor direct, too.

@Tott No idea myself, I brute force my way coding basic stuff, and usually just end up with a spaghetti code mess at the end. But Gamefreak has done it once before and plenty of rom hacks offer multiple experiences just by altering the code that’s already largely in place, so it’s very possible to do.

@Daniel36 The three Mercenaries Saga games take place in the same world, iirc. I don't remember characters crossing over between games, but I remember characters mentioning events/groups from the previous game/s.

They aren't so bad. They're never going to blow bigger-budget tactical RPGs out of the water, but they're relatively inexpensive and easy to pick up and play. Some of them have different endings and there's more difficulties and super-weapons/armor to unlock on subsequent playthroughs, so that's always a good time.

@Janeygo They also show up after it rains!

I liked the old clunky big ones, but I can fit so many more of these in my houses, so I guess it’s a fair trade. And being able to actually set them on top of furniture is a massive improvement.