TotalHenshin

It’s a real bummer if you don’t know Japanese playing this, because the little guy that intentionally looks like a turd will give you fun facts about Japanese history or about the prefecture the level is set in, things like that (if one cared).

Will probably pick it up once it’s discounted a little bit. Got enough games to wait until then.

Thanks for highlighting this game. I had seen the name dropped, but seeing the style and knowing it’s a pulpy horror VN of sorts it’s right up my alley.

Some of the flaws here seem like a hard pill to swallow for shmup lovers. Is this really the best way to play this game or would the PC release or something else be the best way?

@PJOReilly Is this worth it for the Wii version alone? I still have an unplayed copy of the DS game sitting on my shelf.

@Princess_Lilly

“These were chatty compared to other games”
That’s not even true because games like Zork and Colossal Cave Adventure were actually chatty in their own right and were contemporaneous or pre-dated the games mentioned. Your subsequent description of that era suggests to me that you haven’t actually gone through the computer RPGs of that era.

“ the best RPGs in history, like Final Fantasy 5 - 10, Persona series, Chrono Trigger, Xenoblade series, Fallout series, Grandia”

I could come up with a list of great RPGs that are not chatty (nor would I actually agree with each choice you made as re: being chatty), but let’s look outside ourselves here and see that there are at least three others here who are conceding the point that GS is too chatty, so it’s not a unique opinion held by the reviewer.

The difference between what you described in TES and GS is that you choose to go and talk to people (or read a book) as an option. Here, the main story sequences of the game have bloated dialogue that you cannot choose to not engage with. If it doesn’t bother you, more power to you, but it clearly bothers enough people that it’s worth pointing out.

I hope you enjoy the game if you intend to replay it. 🙂 I started replaying it yesterday in Japanese to see how it compares to my memories of the original.

@Princess_Lilly “Rpgs are talky, I mean they are Rpgs.”

That’s not really an answer, nor is it actually true that all RPGs are “talky.” In fact, most of the genre starters (Wizardry, Ultima, FF1, DraQue1, etc) were relatively sparse when it came to flavor text for setting up their world and there are still plenty today that aren’t as loquacious as GS.

You may really like GS, and that’s cool, but saying, “That’s just the way the game is!” is a crappy non-comment that attempts to undermine the reviewer’s credibility with the genre. It may be true that RPGs can be talky. This reviewer found this RPG to be very talky compared to other RPGs he’s played. Your comment intimated that you didn’t disagree with the comment, but that you liked the rest of the game so much it didn’t matter to you. That’s fine, but it may matter to someone else and is worth pointing out.

I was about to say, “Even during the Wii U days??” but then I remembered the portable market and the home console maker used to be two different things. 😅

@Tempestryke Lol, you’re the first to ever directly reference VJ with my name, so I appreciate it. 😅

Please be about pandas
Please be about pandas
Please be about pandas
Please be about pandas
Please be about pandas
Please be about pandas
Please be about pandas
Please be about pandas

@Tempestryke It’s been about a decade since I played both back to back, but my recollection is that the controls were tighter in the Genesis version, the music was superior, and the giant mech fights were awful in the SNES version. I also remember the Genesis version, like other Konami Genesis titles at the time, employed neat graphical effects such as the level with with the water reflecting the sprites. I feel like I also recall the SNES version having more ‘90s ‘tude in general and at times trying to imitate Sonic in its gameplay, both of which I think were moves in the wrong direction. Again, that’s just my opinion. I know some people really love the SNES game, and it’s not terrible, but it felt like a downgrade to me.

RKA is great. Unfortunately, Sparkster couldn’t hold a flame to it.

… I didn’t intend that last sentence to be a pun, but sometimes it happens.

Yep it’s old. I was still in college when OoT3D came out.

@CANOEberry Yes, it was the blue guy specifically that felt familiar. Haven’t played Dread yet.

Lol I don’t know what manga, but henshin just means transformation (in this case) and comes from Viewtiful Joe’s catchphrase.

@Lofoten The final paragraph of the article explains the selection process.

Poor Astral Ascent not getting a single vote. ☹️

What? The Japanese got a free wireless adapter so they could play without the link cable?! Lucky!

@CANOEberry Your avatar is really familiar. Where is it from, if I may ask? EDIT: Wait, I think I’ve asked you this before. My apologies. 😅

On the topic, I would be nonplussed if it was HFR.

Finished SMRPG with the wife. She played the original while I played the remake, and she enjoyed it, but didn’t love it. Divorce papers are being filed as we speak! (jk. I was worried that it not being her first RPG she might find it a little too breezy. She’s also not the best at the reacting quickly so some things like Mario’s jumping powers were just a no-go for her. Nonetheless, she still enjoyed it and thought it was funny and charming. Now she’s onto Symphony of the Night, which really needs a Switch port.)

We’ll see if we can squeeze another world of Mario Wonder in since she’s off this weekend. Hope so. Don’t really like making progress in a game only twice a month.

Disgaea 1 Complete is going in fits and starts. Whenever I start that game, I get sucked in bad, so I’ve been trying to take care of everything else at home before starting it, which has resulted in me not starting it. I also finished Sokobond the other day and that was a pleasant chemistry-adjacent puzzle game!

(@NintendoLife Psst. I personally enjoy the Time Extension article links. Damien is a workhorse like no other)

Happy New Year’s everyone!!

Geez, nearly 6k yen each? That’s absurdly expensive. They must really be desperate for cash or something.

@Yoshif3 I’m quite happy your saga in this comments section had a happy ending. It was fun and frustrating watching other people make the same suggestions I was going to and then be wrong. 😅

I like this idea, but I wish you got more contributions. Added Perfect Console and Video Palace to the podcast list and looking into the book Alana mentioned.

Off the dome: Oppenheimer was great… My wife is watching The Wire for the first time and that’s still great. Best book I read in 2023 was either Pachinko or Killers of the Flower Moon.

Still going to be trying to chip away at Disgaea 1 and Super Mario RPG this weekend. Started No Heroes Allowed! VR on the PS4 side after finishing Halo 1 this last week.

@JohnnyMind そうなの？それも面白いけどできれば両方を日本語に設定します。読書力と聞き取りのためにね。

日本へ行ったことがあるの？DMを送りたいけど Nintendo Lifeでできないの。

I appreciate farming sim lover @KateGray giving this game a fair assessment for those who have never played it before, stating that up front, and still giving it a score that would cause people who played it then to likely go nuclear. Keep up the strong work Kate.

@JohnnyMind Princess Lillyをよく手伝ってあげた。私もしたかったが遅かったの。日本語でゲームをよくする？

This was obscenely long. Dirk Diggler ain’t got nothing on this survey. 🥵

157 games.

….346 hours total. Guess I opened and closed a lot of games to test their language support or something. Anyway
1) Pikmin 4 @ 39 hours
2) M+R Kingdom Battle + DK DLC @ 37 hours
3) surprisingly Dandy Dungeon Legend of Brave Yamada @ 20 hours. This must have been very early in the year, because I barely recall it. I recall when I first beat it on iOS years ago, but totally forgot I beat it again on Switch. Haven’t touched TotK yet. Own it, but… I guess I know the investment asked for. 😅

Hoping to wrap up the Otogirisou sound novel today. It’s a shame that “Banshee’s Last Cry” was the only sound novel localized to English and it was just on phones and is now gone, because there is something compelling to the way these Japanese sound novels play. Having the sounds and music score accompany the text is like an enhanced reading experience. Obviously, if you don’t like reading I doubt you’d enjoy these games, but as a reader, it’s been really cool in a way that engages my imagination more than a typical VN does.

Disgaea 1 will be my only handheld game to play afterwards. On the big screen I may start a franchise I’ve never played but always wanted to: Halo. Starting with Halo 1 via the MCC.

Glad I got it in time.

Done and done. Glad to support the site in such a low-effort way.

This means the 360 sold more in the US than the Wii did? Interesting! I would not have guessed that despite living here.

I like this year-end wrap-up thing, but if they have data on what days we played, how much time we played games each month and total etc, why can’t that level of minutiae be shared with us via our Switch like the 3DS’s Activity Log app? It just feels scummy for them to have info on us that they don’t at least make easily accessible for us.

This is awesome. Don’t know if the content is any good (yet), but I just love that they’re doing this stuff.

It’s not a show that needs to happen anymore, but I will miss those densely packed days of trailers, announcements, and awkward press conferences. It’s okay to be nostalgic about something and know that its time has passed, like broadcast television, Justin Bieber, or communism.

That headline made me think it was a tie-in to Another World aka Out of this World and Among Us. So disappointed.

Is this reverse psychology to get me more interested in the game??

Because it’s working.

I’ll also agree that the design is underwhelming. She looks like a minor NPC out of a generic ‘90s 3D platformer.

@Fizza She’s not quite 😳 enough to be Doronjo, but I see what you’re getting yat.

(😏)

@Ryan_Again Star Ocean Second Story R I think is the most gorgeous of them all. They all look wonderful, but I feel like they topped themselves with SOSSR. 🤤

DQ3 looks great too!

@HandheldHaunter It did not get announced at a Direct. It was announced during SE’s own stream for a bunch of DQ stuff and they only said “home consoles.”

@JohnnyMind Interesting to know! Thank you!

I don’t want another Jordan Mechner work, or any sort of cinematic platformer. Maybe Tempest 2000?

If it’s a fuller project, Origin Systems might not be the worst pick, if they could get Lord British on board.

The options aren’t fair. How about “Putting all these games in one collection would highlight the decline of quality in the series that would tarnish people’s memories?” I loved the first couple Layton games, but they really didn’t evolve enough between iterations, IMHO.

@Anti-Matter Oh I see. Cool! Well I hope you enjoy the game. 😄

@Anti-Matter そうですか？ Do you live in Japan? For Kanji, I highly recommend Heisig’s RTK vol 1 with an Anki deck (+ using kanji.koohii.com if you’re really stuck on a particular kanji)and RTK vol 2. It was really hard work, but I can tell you that learning the kanji was invaluable to me learning Japanese. It made learning new kanji compound words easier to memorize and easier to speculate the meaning when reading. Can’t recommend it enough.

@Anti-Matter 日本に住んでいますか？日本語がペラペラですか？

Hellz.
Yeah.

That’s all I came to say.

This is a shame. This game deserved more success than it had, but it really is a hard market to get a strong foothold in.

Just got back from a week with the wife’s fam. Got to play some Rogue Legacy 2 and so will probably continue with that. I also started shortly before leaving a JPN playthrough of Disgaea 1 Complete. I was expecting the amount of slang from characters like Laharl to be tough, but it’s actually going pretty well!

Outside of Switch, will probably try to do a day or two each day in Boku no Natsuyami 2 (aka My Summer Vacation 2) for PSP. Haven’t been playing this as consistently as I should. Happy gaming y’all.

@Warioware Thank you for letting me know! As a real gamer, my aversion to natural light and my vehement disdain for people that disagree with me (that I use to cover up my insecurities the way these Doritos’ crumbs cover up my fingertips) makes it hard to reach out to normies like yourself. 😏

I just needed to know if the performance is smooth enough during hectic fights. Can anyone confirm? Because the knock on the visuals is about their direction, not the performance.