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Post by Digitalnametag on Oct 5, 2019 8:35:01 GMT -5
That's a silly argument. I'm with shelverton on this one. The guy needs replaced. Sugiyama has produced some excellent tracks (with V and VIII being highlights) but some of the tracks in XI kill the experience. Sticking with tradition is nice but when it starts to hurt you need to do something else. A silly argument? Creators are the moral owners of their creation. There's nothing silly about this. Dragon Quest has such a strong identity as a series because it's actually remained in its creators hands instead of being passed around random hacks on a corporate whim. If Sugiyama has truly lost interest or the ability to compose, maybe they'll find him a successor. But it's not a decision they'll take lightly. Yeah well saying something like 'bullshit corporate franchise' makes you sound silly. Don't you think Dragon Quest X came about from someone on the corporate ladder wanting to make a lot of money on an MMO? How about all those street-pass functions in IX capitalizing on the massive success of the DS? If you like the music in XI that's great! But don't act like Dragon Quest isn't a corporate product that only maintains those three famed creators in their roles so long as it suits the needs of the company.
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Post by shelverton on Oct 5, 2019 9:46:15 GMT -5
Well my point is it doesn’t matter how much good music you used to make if your latest work sounds as bad as some of DQXI. Then you need to be replaced, is all. Imagine if an unknown composer was pitching that overworld theme to SquareEnix, or the battle theme for that matter. I highly doubt they’d wanna use them. For any game. You're talking about a series that has remained with its 3 creators for over 30 years. Dragon Quest IS Yuji Horii, Akira Toriyama and Koichi Sugiyama. You don't just replace one of them like this is some bullshit corporate franchise. He'll have to die or retire completely for something like that to happen. This time there's more backlash than ever though, with entire articles being written about how terrible the music in DQXI is. People are seriously put off by it. Shouldn't SquareEnic take notice? However, I fully understand how they would not use someone else as a composer for a mainline DQ because traditions and all, and I think it's very sad. In an industry where many young, talented creators are struggling to find work, I am actually offended to see how Sugiyama can get away with this, when anyone else would've been fired. Well, perhaps I'm exaggerating, but still... But yeah, I get it. Traditions... conservative mindsets... fear of change... Japan.... and so on. Perhaps SquareEnix could hire someone to very silently oversee his work for the next DQ. You know, tone down the madness, try to steer the melodies into a less grating direction. A musical care-giver if you will.
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Post by toei on Oct 6, 2019 1:42:59 GMT -5
shelverton Were any such articles written in Japan, or is it just Westerners, which represent a small portion of the series' overall sales? And it has nothing to do with composers trying to find work or whatever. If young creators are struggling to find work, then they can just create their own games like Horii and them created Dragon Quest. No one's entitled to just being given someone else's creation, and part of said creation is the sound that Sugiyama defined and has continued to represent. It's not an issue of Japan being conservative of whatever. Digitalnametag Yuji Horii is not an employee of Square Enix. The title screen of every DQ game bears copyright mentions for Armor Project (that's Horii's company), Bird Studio (Toriyama's), Koichi Sugiyama, Enix / Square Enix, and whichever outside developer worked on the specific game. Of course this only means they have rights relating to the games that have already been released, but we don't actually know if Enix has sole ownership of the Dragon Quest trademark as you're assuming it does. The contract was signed over 30 years ago in a foreign country and we have no idea how they did business. But if you think Enix could realistically just "fire" Horii and them and hand the series to some random people without making a huge fuss and possibly ruining the franchise, you're being ridiculous. This is one of the rare cases where a huge mainstream series (in Japan) *hasn't* been whored around and lost all meaning and identity in the process, and that's a very good thing, because the way the entertainment business generally treats ownership is morally and ethically corrupt. Authorship should be ownership, period. Anything else is law bowing down to finance.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Oct 6, 2019 6:33:32 GMT -5
I don't recall reading any backlash over the music of DQXI apart from the fact the original version had shitty midi renditions. I like the orchestral versions enough.
It is admittedly a little weird for a modern game to have so little variation in the music, though. Ideally, you would be able to switch between orchestral versions of each of the 11 mainline soundtracks. Or better yet, have it be a random overworld/battle track each time you enter/finish a fight. I mean, XI is supposed to be sort of a celebration of the series, right? It's honestly kind of stupid for any RPG after the NES era to have only one main battle track.
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Post by dsparil on Oct 7, 2019 6:38:45 GMT -5
Backlash is a little strong, but there's a few stray articles complaining about the music. As evident here, it also does come up as a sore point. The DQVIII music setting seems to only change the field music which is really the most annoying one anyway.
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Post by Snake on Oct 7, 2019 13:09:03 GMT -5
I love Sugiyama's music. The first world map in Dragon Quest II is one of the best world map themes in any RPG (though the SNES version sounds best), DQIV and VI are filled with great music, and basically every other DQ game has a solid soundtrack (haven't played XI yet). I can't imagine DQ scored by anybody else. Koshiro did use classical compositions for Actraiser, but none of it was particularly powerful or memorable. It will be a strange day if Dragon Quest continues and Sugiyama is no longer there to score it. To me, that's akin to Final Fantasy without Nobuo Uematsu. Post Final Fantasy X, the whole series went off the rails in gameplay, direction, and musicality. I still thing Yuzo Koshiro has the depth to adapt for it. He can go contemporary and upbeat like Ys 1, Ys 2, Legacy of the Wizard, Streets of Rage, and Revenge of Shinobi. He can do more classical scoring like for Actraiser 1 and 2, and Shenmue. But original works aside, I think working in tandem with Michiru Yamane on Castlevania:Portrait of Ruin, can show that he can pick up and emulate a certain flavor to match the series he is working on.
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Post by chronotigger65 on Oct 7, 2019 16:57:09 GMT -5
Is there any truth to Nintendo and Microsoft having close business relations lately? A guy on Youtube said this some weeks ago and with Banjo Kazooie appearing in Smash Bros. and recently Ori and the Blind Forest is now on Switch I'm thinking this guy is right.
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Post by chronotigger65 on Oct 7, 2019 18:32:02 GMT -5
Here's a question about Ghostbusters the Video Game Remastered on the Switch. This port seems to be based on the PS3 or similar version and I like to get it but I'm concerned about some bugs that appeared on the PS3 port that might be in Switch one. There were two, both dealing with saves. The first one deals with saving info on things one scans in stages and the other one I forgot what it was exactly probably dealing with continuing a save game and not being able to. Have these been fixed? Also, why is this a Gamestop exclusive? I might have some trouble getting the physical copy with various stores across the country closing down. There's three or four of them I know where I can get to but who knows which ones will be around.
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Post by chronotigger65 on Oct 7, 2019 20:19:57 GMT -5
One final post I hope. I'm posting here as it deals with game stuff and posting it elsewhere it may not get a reply. Checking out Amazon.com for a strategy guide for Anachronox and found something but I got to say that the prices can be absolutely ridiculous! Some goes for hundreds of dollars but the highest I see is almost $3,200 and that's not including almost $230 in taxes, for a simple strategy guide! I've noticed prices from the site appearing on Gamefaqs for games for sale with similarly high prices for new games. How the heck does Amazon let things go this high?
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Post by Catalyst on Oct 7, 2019 21:57:17 GMT -5
Is there any truth to Nintendo and Microsoft having close business relations lately? A guy on Youtube said this some weeks ago and with Banjo Kazooie appearing in Smash Bros. and recently Ori and the Blind Forest is now on Switch I'm thinking this guy is right. There was a rumor a while back about the Xbox Live app coming onto the Switch, but I don't think anything ever came of it. At the very least they seem to have a closer relationship than Sony does with either of them.
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Post by KGRAMR on Oct 7, 2019 23:00:03 GMT -5
I haven't been active here on the forums since... fuck, i don't know how long. Mainly since i've been busy with improving some video game articles at Wikipedia. I've been on a Toaplan kick recently as well and all i want to say is that Vimana has a great fucking soundtrack...
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Post by windfisch on Oct 10, 2019 16:54:30 GMT -5
So meanwhile this happened:
Judging by comments and likes/dislikes, many people apparently do get overly protective about stuff they like, but don't actually have any stakes in. Hopefully the Cuphead devs are more chill about it and see it as a compliment.
I mean, it's obviously *heavily* inspired by Cuphead, no doubt about that. But then again Cuphead wouldn't exist without things like the Fleischer Cartoons, and games by Konami, Treasure and Capcom, among others. That's not a secret, the devs were pretty open about that and there are tons of obvious homages. And titles like Dragon's Lair, Aladdin and Mickey Mania have already paved the way for bringing traditional movie animation techniques to video games. So Cuphead, like almost any work of art, did not come out of nowhere. To be fair, they took all those inspirations and combined them into something rather unique, whereas Enchanted Portals seems more derivative. But the latter still remains a very ambitious project, featuring well-made original art. Artistically it's not quite as perfect and cohesive as Cuphead (so far), but more often than not it comes pretty close or even matches Cuphead's level of quality. That alone is pretty damn impressive (especially assuming they won't have anywhere near the funding Cuphead got) and I hope gameplay-wise it will also deliver. At the very least it could end up becoming this generation's equivalent to what Gunner's Heaven was to Gunstar Heroes.
I for one wish them all the best!
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Post by GamerL on Oct 10, 2019 17:53:06 GMT -5
So meanwhile this happened:
Judging by comments and likes/dislikes, many people apparently do get overly protective about stuff they like, but don't actually have any stakes in. Hopefully the Cuphead devs are more chill about it and see it as a compliment.
I mean, it's obviously *heavily* inspired by Cuphead, no doubt about that. But then again Cuphead wouldn't exist without things like the Fleischer Cartoons, and games by Konami, Treasure and Capcom, among others. That's not a secret, the devs were pretty open about that and there are tons of obvious homages. And titles like Dragon's Lair, Aladdin and Mickey Mania have already paved the way for bringing traditional movie animation techniques to video games. So Cuphead, like almost any work of art, did not come out of nowhere. To be fair, they took all those inspirations and combined them into something rather unique, whereas Enchanted Portals seems more derivative. But the latter still remains a very ambitious project, featuring well-made original art. Artistically it's not quite as perfect and cohesive as Cuphead (so far), but more often than not it comes pretty close or even matches Cuphead's level of quality. That alone is pretty damn impressive (especially assuming they won't have anywhere near the funding Cuphead got) and I hope gameplay-wise it will also deliver. At the very least it could end up becoming this generation's equivalent to what Gunner's Heaven was to Gunstar Heroes.
I for one wish them all the best!
Yeah, I'm ok with this, it doesn't look as good as Cuphead but it's not a cheap rip off either, some genuine work was put into this game as well. I'm fine with another Cuphead esque game like this as we wait for a Cuphead 2.
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Post by retr0gamer on Oct 11, 2019 3:31:36 GMT -5
I'm alright with this as well. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and I'm really enjoying the influx of quality Contra rip offs lately so relish having another one. It's not like it's 2048 totally ripping off Threes either, it might have similar gameplay but there will be subtle differences and new designed bosses.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Oct 11, 2019 3:41:06 GMT -5
Of course Cuphead has its own inspirations, but it's one thing to take inspiration from a variety of things and mix them together (which is what Cuphead did) and another thing to just copy an entire game. What these guys did was take all their inspiration from literally one game. It's a run and gunner focused on boss battles, with shmup stages, 20's/30's cartoon style and a jazz soundtrack. They even pretty much took the animations of them main characters from Cuphead. They didn't merely took inspiration from it, they tried to make it as similar as possible in every way. If Cuphead was a series that had been dead for 20 years it would've been one thing, but this is just shameless.
It would be like making a stealth game with a flat artsyle called 'Rude Duck Game' in which you play as a duck trying to make life miserable for villagers while a piano rendition of a piece of classical music plays.
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