ot4ku
New Member
Posts: 1
|
Post by ot4ku on Nov 13, 2010 15:59:49 GMT -5
I really enjoey this article, its wonderfuly written, is there a way to contact "David DeRienzo"?
Or does anyone here know about the difference from the Dreamcast "normal" Edition (i think this one is the one mentioned in the article) and the "Final Edition" for Dreamcast?
Quote: "The Dreamcast port, sadly, isn't quite what I'd hoped. The music is from the cart version, not the Neo Geo CD version."
So i would realy be interested to know if the Final Edition has some improvements, i tryed already google it, but cant find any useful information.
Also, is there anothere Edition of the 1st Game with the Anime Intro exept the PSone Edition?
Im not sure if i should just buy the PS2 compilation of both games, or the 1st for PSone because it has the Anime Intro (im not sure if the psone edition is cut), and the 2nd for Dreamcast as Final Edition (uncut), some help would be really great, thanks in advance and thanks for all this amazing articles!
|
|
|
Post by Discoalucard on Nov 13, 2010 17:39:45 GMT -5
He posts around here under the name "Bean".
I think there's only one real version of the Dreamcast game (they might all be called Final? I can't remember) but it does not have the CD music. Technically the best port is the DC version because the PS2 version, while it has the music, has some bits of choppiness and slowdown.
If you want the first game...well, the PS2 version isn't quite perfect, but it's better than the PSOne version, despite lacking the intro.
|
|
|
Post by Revolver Ocelot on Nov 19, 2010 11:51:28 GMT -5
I dunno if it's my PC or what, but I never really noticed the load times on LB2 on NGCD being particularly long, and the music is really, really fucking great.
|
|
|
Post by Discoalucard on Nov 19, 2010 15:58:04 GMT -5
I'm sure if you were playing it on a single speed Neo Geo CD you'd be saying something different
|
|
|
Post by MRSKELETON on Nov 19, 2010 16:12:08 GMT -5
the last blade is such a good game; and thats my two cents
|
|
|
Post by KeeperBvK on May 10, 2011 1:20:51 GMT -5
Some quick remarks:
- If the second game's Japanese title is fully given as Bakumatsu Roman Daini Tobari: Gekka no Kenshi in the article, then the first one should also be given as Bakumatsu Roman: Gekka no Kenshi, since that IS its full title.
- The system lists for the first and second game both lack "Neo Geo CD"
- Samurai Shodown is (consistently) misspelled as Samurai Showdown
- For the NGPC game it says How is that?
- The ending bit where it asks for where the license might have gone strikes me as completely odd. Who else but SNK Playmore would have the license, especially considering they still released a compilation in 2008. Now, if you would ask for who might be given the license to produce another sequel, that would be a valid question to ask, but asking for where the LB license lies after the demise of SNK is like asking who's holding the Sonic license after the "demise" of Sega.
- I feel like the article would need a bit more explanation on what makes the fighting engine so great. I've never really played any LB so far and after reading the article, I want to change that, if only because I get how great the art style is, but not because of the actual gameplay. I'm basically told that it's great and that it's unlike any other 2D fighting game, but not really how and why. It's focused either on long combos or on strong, single moves, depending on which style you chose. And besides that? I'm more than often told throughout the article that the games are among the best, but I'd like to be informed on why that is a bit more (in terms of gameplay).
|
|
|
Post by Discoalucard on May 10, 2011 8:32:18 GMT -5
The stuff about the licensing made more sense when this was written nearly five years ago.
As for the quality of the fighting engine - well, from a mechanical standpoint it's not super indepth or anything. Heck, just read earlier in the thread and I'm pretty sure there was some guy complaining about how unbalanced The Last Blade is. (EDIT: actually, doesn't appear to be in this thread, but it was definitely somewhere from around when this was initially posted.) I know the counter system isn't particularly well regarded by hardcore fans.
The strength of The Last Blade does not lie in its fighting engine (which is certainly still more than competant), but on the flow of the battle, and the atmosphere, the gorgeous animation and artwork, the serene, almost laid back music, and so forth. It's got class in a way that most fighting games don't.
|
|
|
Post by Revolver Ocelot on May 10, 2011 8:51:24 GMT -5
It was a different thread. Anyways... wow. This article has gotten more retrospective attention than anything I've ever seen on this site. I wrote it in.. what... 2007 and people still occasionally crop up to disagree with what I wrote and want me to explain myself? Give it a rest, people. I like the game, so I wrote about it. If you want justification for it, it's all there in the article. So re-read it and this time don't just focus on the bits you disagree with. If you can't see the justification for it in what I wrote, then you're just not getting it. In which case, I'm sorry, but I'm not rewriting it now, four years after the fact, though it would be nice for all the technical errors to be corrected.
|
|
|
Post by KeeperBvK on May 11, 2011 1:42:59 GMT -5
Is that a way of responding to someone who read your article and still has questions about the game that simply have NOT been answered (so please don't tell me to reread it and that I just don't get it, because, yeah, I obviously didnt get the points I was asking, which is simply because they're not in there)? I now just saw this other, old thread about it and while I can see why you would have been pissed off by that to some extent, I'm not sure why you would direct that at me. I'm no whiny fighting game maniac demanding for truth about some extremely high level imbalance to be told, but I am new to the series and (from what I understand about this site) as such I should have a good picture of the games I read about afterwards. It would be nice to clarify to me the stuff I was asking for and the few bits in the article that were just raised up without explanation (namely, what makes the fighting engine SO different and why do LB2's characters in the NGPC change how the game itself works? I can hardly imagine any fighting game to drastically change just by putting in characters from one of ist sequels, so I'd just really like to know). At least Kurt can give me a real answer instead. Thanks for that. And see? Telling me that the fighting flow is such a special thing about LB tells me a lot about what makes it so great and about the fighting itself.
By the way: It's not just this article I've been reading as I'm catching up on all the old articles and 99% of them have some kind of mistake(s), so once again please refrain from acting like everyone was out to get your article. Should I be sorry now that I read your article and found questions to be raised and not answered? I'm not necessarily asking you to rewrite the article, I just wanted light to be shed on my questions...
And the whole description of the visuals, the sound and the atmosphere in total is fantastic, by the way. Thanks for explaining the Bakumatsu Roman era.
|
|
|
Post by Revolver Ocelot on May 11, 2011 8:32:41 GMT -5
Is that a way of responding to someone who read your article and still has questions about the game that simply have NOT been answered (so please don't tell me to reread it and that I just don't get it, because, yeah, I obviously didnt get the points I was asking, which is simply because they're not in there)? I now just saw this other, old thread about it and while I can see why you would have been pissed off by that to some extent, I'm not sure why you would direct that at me. I'm no whiny fighting game maniac demanding for truth about some extremely high level imbalance to be told, but I am new to the series and (from what I understand about this site) as such I should have a good picture of the games I read about afterwards. It would be nice to clarify to me the stuff I was asking for and the few bits in the article that were just raised up without explanation (namely, what makes the fighting engine SO different and why do LB2's characters in the NGPC change how the game itself works? I can hardly imagine any fighting game to drastically change just by putting in characters from one of ist sequels, so I'd just really like to know). At least Kurt can give me a real answer instead. Thanks for that. And see? Telling me that the fighting flow is such a special thing about LB tells me a lot about what makes it so great and about the fighting itself. By the way: It's not just this article I've been reading as I'm catching up on all the old articles and 99% of them have some kind of mistake(s), so once again please refrain from acting like everyone was out to get your article. Should I be sorry now that I read your article and found questions to be raised and not answered? I'm not necessarily asking you to rewrite the article, I just wanted light to be shed on my questions... And the whole description of the visuals, the sound and the atmosphere in total is fantastic, by the way. Thanks for explaining the Bakumatsu Roman era. It's just frustrating because I don't really know what you're asking for. You're essentially asking me to justify an opinion (which is practically impossible) and explain what makes the fighting engine so great even though I've pretty much broken it down completely. Yes, Last Blade is simple and a little broken, but it's balanced, easy to play, difficult to master and overall, it's fun. As with the case in Samurai Shodown II, style also has a lot to do with it. But I've detailed all of those reasons why I think it's great in the article proper and I don't know what else to tell you. Sorry for being a douche, but this article's gotten a lot of retrospective ire (mostly from hardcore fighting game fanatics) and I'm just tired of people bringing it up. I appreciate your compliments.
|
|
|
Post by Discoalucard on May 11, 2011 8:59:42 GMT -5
BTW, the section of the NGPC game, I interpreted the stuff about the extra characters as simplying changing the game from being a port of LB1 to making it more like a port of LB2. It doesn't fundamentally alter the gameplay or anything. I clarified that when I made thse revisions.
|
|
|
Post by KeeperBvK on May 11, 2011 18:59:48 GMT -5
Thanks for the replies, Bean and Kurt (no pun intended...or maybe it was). Now you're saying it's a little broken? Thats actually something I didn't see anywhere in the article or do you mean how you mentioned that some characters are unbalanced? And I guess my biggest gripe was the sentence "It doesn't really play like any other 2D fighting game.", as I didn't feel like that was really elaborated on, despite sounding like it was incredibly important to the game. I'm not that big into 2D fighters, simply for not having the time necessary to get truly accustomed with all the nuances, so I usually just tinker around a bit with the occasional Street Fighter, play Blazblue for a while, pop in a few coins into a KoF machine every now and then and that's pretty much it, although I admire the genre. So in short, I don't know a lot about 2D fighters, hence I cannot deduce from the article what sets Last Blade's gameplay apart from basically the entirety of the genre as it is stated. To me (after reading what is there describing the fighting system) it sounds like a run-of-the mill system with styles to choose from and either hard-hitting chars or combo-reliant chars. Or is the defining factor simply that you can have both a fighter that relies on single, strong attacks and one that relies on combos in one fight, whereas other games are stricly leaning to either side? I'm just trying to understand it, really. Seeing as you seem to be into the genre quite a bit, it might seem redundant to mention it and it's perfectly clear to you, but to me, the sentence "It doesn't really play like any other 2D fighting game." opened up more questions than it answered. Sorry for seemingly hitting a wrong note on that. However, once more, your article still made me wanna play LB if only to witness its presentation one day.
|
|
|
Post by Revolver Ocelot on May 12, 2011 7:03:38 GMT -5
After I mention that it's unlike any other 2D fighting game, I explain that it's more like Soulcalibur than anything else, and Soulcalibur, of course, is a 3D fighting game. The attack layout is almost exactly like Soulcalibur. You have a weak attack (which is usually horizontal), a heavy attack (which is usually vertical), a kick and a deflect. I even setup the controls so that the button layout is the same as Soulcalibur. There's also an ukemi-like maneuver where you can recover from a fall by pressing a button just as you land, and you can hit people while they're laying down if they don't ukemi.
Also, I explained in the other thread that I didn't mention that Last Blade was "broken" anywhere in the article because doing so is quite silly when just about every fighting game on the market can be exploited. LB2 is nowhere near as bad as MvC3 or a lot of other games. It might not be a tournament-worthy fighting game (though I would argue that this is true only because it's not as well-known), but that's not what's important to me.
Also, if you like BlazBlue, you'll probably like Last Blade. It's how Daisuke Ishitawari got his start, after all.
|
|
|
Post by susanismyalias on May 12, 2011 14:10:57 GMT -5
Also, if you like BlazBlue, you'll probably like Last Blade. It's how Daisuke Ishitawari got his start, after all. What did he work on in the game?
|
|
|
Post by saikyo on May 12, 2011 18:05:08 GMT -5
It was another Daisuke Ishitawari, at that time he was already in "Team Neo Blood"
It changes to the "TLB2" engine if I remember...
Musashi is playable in the dreamcast version...I think, but just in VS mode.
Kinda hard to explain but with the "normal" characters and using well the "repel" button, you have to think very well any offensive step so not to be so obvious and your opponent simply "repel" it and combo with speed style ou chain the DMs with power style.
The flow of the game is great too, its not like one sided, you can turn the tables.Rarely you win with a perfect or STUN the other character.
But the game has flaws, like Mukuro having a normal throw who does more damage than the command throw from the "grappler character" from the game, has some abuse with some special attacks (Zantetsu and Moriya), and some character can be cheap as hell (like Lee Rekka) with little to respond to their attacks.But its a fun game with a low or mid level game, high level can be very boring...
|
|