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Post by ReyVGM on Oct 13, 2008 21:24:15 GMT -5
Jeremy Parish: It’s interesting, because the one Square Enix game that has been on the Virtual Console is ActRaiser. This game reminds me a lot of the sim elements of ActRaiser. I don’t know if that means anything, but I am kind of curious about how this became a Final Fantasy game instead of an ActRaiser sequel, because it didn’t originally start out as a Final Fantasy. Fumiaki Shiraishi : I’d like to make an ActRaiser sequel. That would be kind of fun. gonintendo.com/?p=42715As for the GameFan Actraiser 3 rumor, my scanner is dead, so I can't scan the page. Not that I was planning on digging the magazine out anyways
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Post by derboo on Oct 14, 2008 6:02:16 GMT -5
This game reminds me a lot of the sim elements of ActRaiser. What game are they talking about?
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Post by ReyVGM on Oct 14, 2008 6:06:13 GMT -5
That WiiWare Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles.
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Post by butanebob on Oct 14, 2008 11:08:08 GMT -5
Didn't they become "shade", release a handful of games and then disappear?
God i miss quintet!
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Post by Ganelon on Oct 14, 2008 17:53:04 GMT -5
Based on the credits, it's obvious that only a couple of folks went from Quintet to Shade, so it's no more Shade than Konami is Treasure or Wolf Team is tri-Ace. One of Quintet's last games was Brightis (and yes, this was after Shade's The Granstream Saga), a pretty average 3D ARPG.
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Post by Ryu the Grappler on Jan 28, 2009 21:57:32 GMT -5
There's an interview with Shinji Futami, who worked as the Overseas Marketing Director on both ActRaiser games, in the February 2009 issue of Game Informer. Its very informative and reveals quite a few things about the series, although a bit too short.
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Post by Scylla on Apr 1, 2009 13:57:21 GMT -5
ActRaiser truly epitomizes the concept of something being "the sum of its parts." I think if you isolated the game into its parts, none of them could stand up as a particularly remarkable game. The level design of the action sequences isn't that impressive, and the controls are a tad clunky. Then with the simulation portions, they lack any real depth, and there's no way to really mess up. Yet when you add them together and throw in some great music and a few spots of attractive graphics (which also counterbalance the sub-par graphics of town-building), you somehow get a game that's thoroughly enjoyable, if only for its variety and pacing. A lot of developers could learn a thing or two by looking back at ActRaiser. It seems like people try to grasp at the idea but ultimately fail. Like look how big throwing mini-games into RPGs was in the PS1 era. Yet a few sporadic, unpleasant, poorly-programmed mini-games can't save an RPG that's already been monotonous for 20 hours.
Anyway, excellent article. Kurt wasn't kidding when he said it was detailed. I don't know how necessary it is to go into stuff like a bestiary of simulation monsters, but that's your call. :P I was a little thrown off with how you go into graphics and sound before thoroughly assessing gameplay since the usual pattern in HG101 articles is the other way around and I did notice a few missing words if you ever want to do another spellcheck, but all in all, great writing. It actually inspired me to fire the game up via emulation at school, and you know you're doing something right if a review makes someone want to play a game (at least in terms of praising reviews). :)
Oh, and for one final comment, I personally wouldn't take the lack of a save feature as a bad sign. I'm a fan of passwords, but developers have to be smart about it. I can't claim to know how long they are in ActRaiser 2, but given that it's solely an action game, I appreciate the passwords. The first game has a lot of details in the simulation mode to store, so a password would've been really cumbersome. Stuff like, say, Metroid and Willow on NES should've never had passwords, but short passwords will always be superior to me. No worry of ever losing a save nor of a battery dying. You can't beat that. Or a game can be awesome like Rayman and have both.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2009 15:10:16 GMT -5
Anyway, excellent article. Kurt wasn't kidding when he said it was detailed. I don't know how necessary it is to go into stuff like a bestiary of simulation monsters, but that's your call. :P I was a little thrown off with how you go into graphics and sound before thoroughly assessing gameplay since the usual pattern in HG101 articles is the other way around and I did notice a few missing words if you ever want to do another spellcheck, but all in all, great writing. It actually inspired me to fire the game up via emulation at school, and you know you're doing something right if a review makes someone want to play a game (at least in terms of praising reviews). :) Well thank you, Tina! As what's technically my latest article, I had a good deal of fun writing this one, and it gave me an excuse to play through Actraiser again! I also had to bear with AR2 for a bit... a bit of a hassle, to be sure. :x Anyway, my own style is to focus on the more superficial factors first and then get into the core gameplay. I see it like writing a story, basically; you've got your exposition with the basics, the graphics, the gameplay, and so on. Then the rising action starts as you get detailed into the game and how it plays, describing all the nuances and quirks here and there. The climax is when I gush about my favorite part of the game, that which I think makes it worth writing about. The falling action is to mention all sorts of miscellaneous stuff that didn't really fit into any previous sections, and the denouement is at the conclusion which I usually try to make as definitive as possible. That's not always how it works, but this is usually how I approach writing. Also, what words am I missing and/or what grammar flukes have you sighted? We're always looking to improve, so do tell. :) You've also got a point about passwords and how they can't actually be lost due to glitches. I believe AR2's passwords are... sixteen characters? A bit frustrating but not overly horrendous as the passwords from the NES Metal Gear games. Now THOSE were heinous. I might want to ask to change it for AR2, though; the passwords aren't too bad, and it's not really that they're a step back from battery saving as I seemed to indicate in my writing. It's simply something different from before.
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Post by Scylla on Apr 1, 2009 15:43:35 GMT -5
Oh, I'm not one to say writing has to be structured in any particular way. I like to experiment myself. You're right, there's a good argument to be made for starting with the overall presentation and aesthetics of a game, basically covering the "feel", before actually getting into the details. I'd say that's a top-down approach, since you start with sort of lofty, encompassing ideas before tearing it into its pieces. I usually do a story-gameplay-graphics-music approach, but that's pretty boring and standardized. If anything, that's an general order of importance or significance. The story comes first just to set up the premise and a frame of reference, and then generally gamers find gameplay more important than graphics and consider sound the least important aspect. Anyway, I just pointed it out because it struck me as different from the usual flow of articles here. I think the various pieces on the site mesh pretty well, but it's interesting when the quirks of individual writers stand out. I see a lot of that in terms of length and detail. You can open up one article and see a couple paragraphs on each game and open up another where there's probably well over 1000 words on each.
As for the mistakes, it's just really tiny stuff and probably no more than five tops. Like in this line missing the second "as":
"The lack of saving predicts that this sequel is not as good the original, though it is impossible to tell so at first glance."
I can't recall where the others were, but they were all minuscule like that.
16 characters sounds somewhat long, at least if it's letters. Letter passwords get annoying after 8 or so characters to me. Beyond that, they're better off going with a grid like Castlevania or Mega Man. Maybe it's just my imagination because it's not as tedious, but it feels quicker to draw out a grid and doodle in some hearts or whatever the heck.
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Post by ReyVGM on Apr 19, 2009 21:44:35 GMT -5
I don't believe the article touched upon the differences between the USA and Jpn versions. I'll be adding the differences I encounter as I play the Japanese version. - First land is called Filmoa in the Japanese version. - In the first battle stage, the static enemy tree drops seeds that sprout into enemies. I don't remember that being in the USA version. - The second battle stage of the first land (Fillmore) has the same music from the first battle stage instead of its own dedicated track. - Some enemies on the battle stages seem to take more hits, but on the sim stages they take less. - In the sim areas, you only regain SP when you gain a level instead of everytime the hourglass resets. - The winged fish thingie that jumps from the bloodstained waters in Bloodpool's first battle stage are completely different. - The falling parts of the bridge in the first Bloodpool battle stage don't have any indication of being broken. I remember the USA version having different colored sprites for the parts that fell. - Some parts of the stage seem to be arranged differently. - The platforms in the boss area are arranged in an annoying manner. - It takes SEVERAL turns for the people to start building and procreating! - Since it takes so long for the people to procreate, you have to wait lots of turns before you can seal your first monster lair (since you need over 8 people to do it). - Desert stage is called Casandra, not Kasandora. - The Pyramid in Kasandora's sim stage now has an eye. - In Kasandora's second battle stage, there are some blue enemies with a sword wearing Egyptian type clothes, in the Japanese version they are just plain naked blue enemies with a sword. - I didn't see anything out of the ordinary in Aitos. - Marahna is called Marana. - The boss in the first Marahna stage hides his weak point while in the USA version it is always uncovered. - Everything was the same in Northwall and Death Heim
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Post by Shellshock on Apr 20, 2009 11:35:59 GMT -5
There's definitely lots of minor differences, but including them all might fall beyond the nature of the article. I would include some comparison shots of the graphic variations.
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Post by Scylla on Apr 20, 2009 12:36:31 GMT -5
Pretty interesting stuff. For the name differences, are those names actually written in English somewhere in the Japanese game, or are you just romanizing the katakana yourself? If it's the latter, then they're basically the same (well, they are regardless).
To write "Fillmore" in katakana, you'd write it as "firumoa-". You could literally romanize it as "Filmoa", but that's pretty awkward. Considering the game clearly has a lot of Western influence in the naming of its locations, "Fillmore" seems more accurate to the original idea. If they put the terms in English themselves, you can't really argue against their official romanizations, but I'd venture to say that the person in charge of that wasn't well-versed in English.
I seem to recall the article saying something about the Japanese version being different, but I believe it was summed up as an overall assessment of it being more difficult.
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Post by ReyVGM on Apr 20, 2009 12:51:20 GMT -5
The land names are in English when you start and end a battle stage. The battle stages are more difficult, some enemies takes more hits, they shoot at you more, enemies with shields block more and there are more bats and will'o wisps scattered around. I actually feel the changes made to the USA version were for the best. The later battle stages were just too damn annoying with small enemies and projectiles flying around hitting you all the time.
The sim parts are both easier and harder in the Japanese version. Easier because the enemies take less hits, but hardder because the cursor takes too damn long to start building, moving and the SP ("magic points") only refill when you gain a level, so good luck trying to burn down trees if you aren't gaining levels. That was also improved for the USA version.
As for what is going to be included in the article. Yeah, I don't expect every little detail to make it. I just noted them all as I was playing the game, but I think the comparison shots, the land names, difficulty/annoyance differences should be included.
I also recall an article that saying something about Jap/USA differences, but that article also said the Japanese game had music not found in the USA version, which is totally not true.
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Post by dire51 on Apr 20, 2009 13:15:21 GMT -5
The logo on the Japanese title screen looks a little more elaborate too.
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Post by ReyVGM on Apr 20, 2009 18:57:52 GMT -5
Finished and added pics, for the record.
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