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Post by Wyrdwad on Jul 5, 2014 1:30:32 GMT -5
Tom, I have a question. I heard about the delay on SC for PSP. Didn't hear any mention of the PS3 version. I could be wrong, but I seem to recall there being the "possibility" of that coming as well. Can you update us on that, or is that still up in the air at the moment? Still nothing to update, I'm sorry to say. It's being looked into, but as of right now, it's still just PSP and PC. -Tom
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Post by Wyrdwad on Jul 5, 2014 1:18:52 GMT -5
Surprised no one here has mentioned Shovel Knight yet! It was released a little over a week ago for PC/Steam, 3DS eShop and Wii U eShop, and has been garnering a TON of praise from the gaming media -- lots of perfect 10/10 scores and such. And after playing through it myself, I can honestly say that every last bit of praise it's been receiving is absolutely warranted: the game is virtually flawless.
What it is, basically, is a retro-styled platformer that draws heavy inspiration from Mega Man, Duck Tales, Zelda 2, Super Mario Bros. 3 and Castlevania, but still manages to be entirely its own thing, never feeling like a ripoff of any of its muses. A lot of reviews have said that it plays almost like a rose-tinted memory of an NES classic -- all the best parts, with none of the crap we've forgotten about over the years that horribly frustrated us as kids. With just a touch of modernism, too -- instead of lives, there are checkpoints. If you die, you drop three bags of money and return to the last checkpoint you touched, but if you can manage to make it to those bags of money without dying again, you'll get them back and thus have received no penalty for dying. And if you're feeling super-hardcore, you can actually destroy the checkpoints, collecting a ton of money for doing so but rendering them useless in the process.
The game's also got a ton of charm, with two towns you can explore full of unique villagers with surprisingly well-written dialogue to read, cool dances and animations and secrets, neat stuff to buy, etc., as well as an overarching story told through minimal dialogue with the bosses you face along the way, leading to one of the most satisfying final bosses and endings I've encountered in a really long time.
Here's the launch trailer for the game, which I think does a great job of showing off how awesome it is:
And the soundtrack -- man, the soundtrack! The song used in that trailer isn't actually present in the game proper, as the game proper uses only legit NES-compatible 8-bit songs composed by Jake Kaufman (with two tracks composed by Manami Matsumae, the original composer for Mega Man)... and they are GLORIOUS. Here are some of my personal favorites:
And the two Manami Matsumae tracks, which I don't actually like nearly as much as Jake Kaufman's (really goes to show you how far Kaufman has come as a composer over the years!), but they're still really good:
I can't say enough good things about this game, and I think most of you on ALoY would also really love it. It's cheap and readily available (though digital only, I'm sorry to say!), and I strongly urge you all to give it a shot. It's absolutely a strong contender for my Game of the Year 2014.
-Tom
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Post by Wyrdwad on Jul 2, 2014 3:17:21 GMT -5
I doubt it would be usable without a LOT of finagling, honestly. Earlier versions of the games used very differently-structured text boxes, as opposed to Dark Revenant's standard 3-line dialogue windows. Matching the old text to the new text could prove fairly time-consuming, since it's split up so differently. It's theoretically possible, but you might be better off just retranslating the game on TurboGrafx.
Also, officially, we absolutely couldn't condone using our script for any other version of the game... but I doubt we'd issue a C&D or anything. We'd probably just disavow all knowledge of it or something.
-Tom
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Post by Wyrdwad on May 20, 2014 22:04:29 GMT -5
In terms of proper release order, it's LoH3: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch, LoH4: A Tear of Vermilion and LoH5: Song of the Ocean. Which, using the American numbering system, would be LoH2, LoH1, LoH3.
In terms of in-world chronology, I think Tear of Vermilion comes first, then Song of the Ocean, then Moonlight Witch. I miiiiight have those first two reversed, but I don't think so -- though I am 100% certain that Moonlight Witch is the last game chronologically. That would be LoH4, LoH5, LoH3 using the Japanese numbering, and LoH1, LoH3, LoH2 using the American numbering.
As for the battle system, it's a pale shadow of the original, which was more of a real-time system -- almost RTS in nature, but with just enough turn-based to even things out and keep them interesting. I liked the original system waaaaaaay better than the one used in the PSP versions -- and it's especially annoying since Moonlight Witch's Japanese PSP port had a battle system very similar to the original PC iteration's, but because Bandai Japan changed it for Tear of Vermilion, and Tear of Vermilion is the game we got first over here, Moonlight Witch's American PSP version got its battle system overhauled to match.
Add to that the unfortunate localization choices, and we didn't really get a fair representation of this trilogy over here, sadly.
-Tom
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Post by Wyrdwad on May 10, 2014 21:12:13 GMT -5
Which means, that likely if XSEED were to release the game, it would be as a PSN download title for PS-Vita, right? Well, we can't port PSP games to Vita either, so it would be a PSN download for PSP if it were to happen. But of course, Vita users would be able to download and play it just as well. -Tom
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Post by Wyrdwad on May 10, 2014 12:27:30 GMT -5
Yeah, without commenting on the game itself, I will say that we've entertained the idea of trying to port console/handheld games to Steam (read: beg Sara to do it for us)... but that's nothing more than a pipe dream at this point. We have yet to see any success with this idea, and there's no sign of any success to this end in the foreseeable future, so any games that don't already exist for PC are very unlikely to see PC announcements from us anytime soon.
-Tom
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Post by Wyrdwad on May 6, 2014 19:30:16 GMT -5
All kidding aside, I launched a new project to translate Brandish: The Dark Revenant. I finished translating the script for the first six floors and another translator did the tutorial level. Based on the amount of entries in the script, you could say we passed the 20% mark. It's been a while since I last translated and had some problems getting into it, so I'll probably redo the first floor later. This is looking really cool, but... uh... you might want to focus your attention on other games rather than fan-translating this one. For... reasons. -Tom
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Post by Wyrdwad on Apr 13, 2014 23:45:37 GMT -5
Retro Reality recently uploaded this footage taken from an unreleased Famicom prototype of what we know as NES Strider: There are a few notable differences (one of the big ones being the lack of crazy lag whenever an item or character pops up), but the one that stood out most to me? That extra text during the intro. Because it's SONG LYRICS. Like, timed to the opening theme. And I'm a crazy enough S.O.B. to have transcribed and roughly translated them. Somebody needs to make a vocal version of this song, stat! Gamemusicfreak, spread the word! -Tom * * * もえあがるぐれんのほのお moeagaru guren no honoo A flaring crimson flame それはやつらのひとみのいろ sore wa yatsura no hitomi no iro is the color of their eyes. すべてをころがし subete wo korogashi They take down all in their path, しゃくねつにそめる shakunetsu ni someru leaving it smoldering in their wake. ストライダー sutoraidaa Striders! おまえはそのてで omae wa sono te de By your hands, ストライダー sutoraidaa Striders! なにをまもるのか nani wo mamoru no ka what is it you protect? いまはもう ima wa mou Now is the time. ひとすじのひかりさえ hitosuji no hikari sae Even if naught but a single beam of light とどかないこのちじょうに todokanai kono chijou ni should reach this earth, ザ・デンジャー・ゾーン・オブ・ダーク za denjaa zoun obu daaku The Danger Zone of Dark あおきのをはせるものよ aoki no wo haseru mono yo shall be restored to its rightful blue by your hands.
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