Shadow of Destiny

[Discoalucard]

www.hardcoregaming101.net/shadowofmemories/shadowofmemories.htm

When the PS2 first came out, this and Gradius III & IV were the only real games I was interested in. I eventually got Shadow of Destiny cheap, although I barely played any of it. The plot sounds pretty cool, but even back in 2004 or so, I found the graphic style really offputting.

[ryochan]

I like the Japanese PS2 and European XBox covers a lot ^^ Anyway, game's interesting, and I think I'd seen it around here a few times, but never had any money to invest in games. Of course, now I'm bothered because that spiritual successor's art looks familiar... Do you happen to know the character designer?

[Deleted]

Great article. The game isn't too bad either, although it gets tedious at times.

Here's all the typos I could find:

"After a dozing off while having a cup of coffee, your protagonist, Eike Kusch, gets assaulted immediately as soon as he leaves the ccafe, knowing neither who killed him nor why."

"Dana - She works as a waitress in Café Sonne, Eike's favourite coffe shop."

"The game actually keeps track for every single sequence, and after it is finished once, presents a total percentage of scenes seen per chaper, so absolute completionists will probably have to invest quite a lot of time before they can feel satisfied."

[derboo]

Aug 15, 2009 18:39:26 GMT -5 ryochan said:

I like the Japanese PS2 and European XBox covers a lot ^^ Anyway, game's interesting, and I think I'd seen it around here a few times, but never had any money to invest in games. Of course, now I'm bothered because that spiritual successor's art looks familiar... Do you happen to know the character designer?

A lazy gamefaqs search brought up this:

Art Director Yoji Nakaza
Art Director Eiji Wakamatsu
Animation Director Toshiyasu Kogawa

With no particular mention of a character designer. I might check the japanese Wikipedia, if I have more time.

[Garamoth]

Good article. On the other hand, it would seem to me that some of the most interesting things to be said about the game would be about the endings, but that would be a bit too spoilery, wouldn't it? So I don't know, food for thought, I guess...

Wow, the Japanese cover art looked considerably better than the Western ones.

Also:

"He spends his days in a laboratory in the cellar, searching for a cure to his wive's (wife's) ilness (illness)."
"A famous painter, a fotographer (photographer) and a movie director."

[ryochan]

I hit up youtube... seems Junko Kawano may have done the initial designs for Time Hollow's characters, and a Shinsuke Uchiyama did the game stuff... Interesting.

The only Shinsuke Uchiyama I found did animation, but Junko Kawano seems to be the person who did designs for several Suikoden characters, which explains why I found the style familiar.

[Ace Whatever]

Nice write-up. I like the new format for character bios.

What wold have happened if you had the squire plant a flower instead of a statue?

[derboo]

To quote myself from the article:
"Most of them are either purely cosmetic, or wrong choices only lead to your repeated death."

In this case, it would have been the former.

Btw: I know the Time Hollow writeup is rather harsh with the game. I wrote it from the "disappointed fan who doesn't acknowledge it as a spiritual successor"-perspective. I wouldn't try to cling to that version if someone wanted to do the game some more justice.

[wyrdwad]

IIRC, nothing much - there would just be a flower garden there instead of a statue for the rest of the game, but either works as a solution to the problem.

-Tom

[Garamoth]

There's also a few other interesting alternate solutions like the statue/plant thing.

In one chapter, you get stabbed, so you have to travel around to find a piece of metal to protect yourself. However, if you already have something to protect yourself you can skip the entire chapter. I think it's the only time you can save yourself before dying.

[Gilder]

Holy Crap!

I've been playing DDR only to find out now that Time Hollow is an actual video game?! I thought it was some anime that Konami threw in the game. Good song though.

Great read too, I'll have to try to find this at some point.

[wyrdwad]

Garamoth: You can also choose whether to actually place a piece of metal beneath your shirt, or the wooden bakery sign. Either one is effective at stopping you from getting stabbed.

-Tom

[Smithee]

Man, this is making me even more excited for the PSP port! I've been interested in the game since I heard of it, and this has totally re-rekindled my interest!

[Deleted]

Thanks for the article on this great game. I was just about to send a couple of spare memory cards to a friend, and my Shadow of Destiny clear file was on one of them. She'd never heard of it before, so I did a quick check and found a copy for $10. Guess it isn't as rare as it used to be?

It's always a good feeling to share cool games with people.

[TheGunheart]

Does anyone else thing it's worth noting that Charles Martinet ("It'sa me! Mario!) did the awesomely creepy voice of Homunculus?