Amentep

Yeah I was worried when it seemed to drop off the radar it was going to be cancelled. Atlus being involved is good, IMO. That said, my only worry about changing the art (if that is indeed what they do, as opposed to just toning it down in previews or cover art like they've done in some titles) is only really if it has a detrimental effect on the animations; the movies I'd seen looked really good for the sprite animations and I'd hate to think that might get sacrificed because the character designs were too over-the-top for the US market.

Atlus has taken over publishing duties for Vanillaware's DRAGON'S CROWN n the US... ...which means the game isn't coming out until next year. It was originally slated for an early 2012 release but had slipped past that to a generic 2012 release last I heard. So glad its not being cancelled. http://blog.us.plays...or-ps-vita-ps3/ EDIT: Looking at Atlus' version of the Dragon's Crown site, it looks like they haven't moved over the movies or the full character art for the Valkyrie or Sorceress (both over-the-top in being "sexy") and all the character pictures are cropped. Wonder if it means that they'll be altering these characters for the NA market? Japan Site - http://dragons-crown.com/jp/ Atlus Site - http://www.atlus.com/dragonscrown/

Are you closer to the sexy librarian look or the sexy accountant look? Neither. I need them to see as well. The world's a blobby impressionist painting without them. Maybe its because I'm a supervisor now, and everyone who noticed is either a potential employee or family...

I got new glasses. Everyone tells me I look younger. I'm not sure if they mean it, or if they're humoring me...

I still would like to visit Kutn

Is the air being properly filtered in the new place? Mold? Allergens?

Camera's still suck but the enemies are expensive now, maybe? I'm still playing through Tales of Graces f but remembered I'd been doing Tales of the World on my PSP and picked it back up.

I think - and this is just me - when dealing with entertainment there never is any guarantee of quality, only that you're hoping that whatever you support (at any point in the development cycle - or even after in traditional consumer relationships) turns out to your taste. For all we know we'll be dead or blind or our computers gone, or homeless; but to me the question is do I want to support a concept I like, creators I like. If I dislike the end product - well there goes the chance that I'd give future blind support for a project. But I won't regret having made a decision to support the initial project even if I'm not crazy about the results.

One of the things that I've been wondering if JRPGs will eventually develop more into (outside of a the few titles they've had that have allowed you to make protagonists) is to allow you to pick from a set of protagonists. the PSP Persona 3 allows you to pick between gender for the protagonist; Summon Knight game on the DS or the Swordcraft stories on the GBA allowed you to pick between two different protagonists (who played through the same story). I'm playing through Tales of Graces f and I couldn't help but think that a game like this could be created where all of the characters could be the protagonist (but can't help but imagine it'd add a few layers of complexity to do). Funnily enough, one of the early WRPGs I played was SSI's Phantasie (travel on a top down overhead map; combat takes place on a separate screen with monsters arrayed against the heroes in rows) when I first started playing JRPGs I didn't notice much difference in style (except in Phantasie you rolled your own characters). Its interesting to see how both WRPGs and JRPGs take their cues from those older games as a foundation but have certainly grown in different ways.

I'm sorry, I guess I was confused when you said "it just hasn't been adapted into any video games" as not being a specific reference to the setting being turned into a turn-based RPG. The game that was made was a survival horror game, not an RPG, but was based on the Call of Cthulhu RPG (including adapting the sanity system of the P&P game).

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth by Headfirst was based on the RPG CALL OF CTHULHU. Headfirst were going to do two other games (BEYOND THE MOUNTAIN OF MADNESS and DESTINY'S END) but the company went belly-up (also taking the Deadlands game with them). I'd love to see an RPG set in the DEADLANDS universe (Headfirst was making an action game as far as I could tell).

Well they have the territories (America Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and US Virgin Islands). Then they have the short lived Nation-states / republics / nations within the US that didn't eventually get statehood (Franklin, Muskogee, West Florida, Indian Stream) And then they have State Capitals. And then they have former State Capitals. ... Or they could do something completely different.

This, if they fixed the dreadful combat from the last one. Whatwhatwhat, Wiz8's combat is coolness personified! Wizfast is mandatory though, else you could read write War and Peace in between rounds thanks to the slow animations. I'm not a big fan of the way they implemented combat; part of it is the speed (sloooooow) and part of it is the fact that the enemies have tactical advantages that the user does not (something that I always find cheap). In particular that the player is hamstrung by the fact that they can't get out of a grouping but the opponents can. So my party meets their party and in the first round I set to fire ranged weapons and an area effect magic. Their party's melee people rush me while their magic users also cast an area affect spell. My area effect spell hits maybe one of their party (because they can spread out) while there's hits my entire group because they can't spread out. Now 8 was the first one I played since the early series (either Wiz 1, 2 or 3, not sure which, but I suspect 3) and my memory was that the enemies you faced in those games were set up like yours - in a block and in rows. To me that's fair. Wiz8 came off as unfair, essentially, since the enemies could plonk repeated area effect spells on me and kill half of my group with ease while I was trying to take down one of their party; and their party would never, ever be in a group. There was also the issue that magic casters could cast spells on my party when I couldn't see them to target them which also seemed weird. Loved a lot of stuff about the game, but combat wasn't one of them. Regardless, I'd love to see the series get a revival (and not just in Japan).

I'm not disputing that it'd be nice to have more RPGs come across the ocean! I imagine there's a feeling that the really old school games wouldn't be worth the cost of translating. Its not that shocking, I'm afraid, that Vic Ireland's first foray into Kickstarter is an old-school "Wizardry" style game - Class of Heroes 2 - and that the game doesn't look like it'll meet its funding for a physical copy translation. But even as a fan of the old Working Designs (RIP), I was dismayed with the lack of fidelity to their source material (sometimes out of necessity, but the modern gags and references ALWAYS threw me out of the game).

Thinking about it a bit, I'd love for an RPG game set in Imagawa's GIANT ROBO: THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL universe. Not entirely sure how it'd work, but I thought that was a great distillation of a sort of "everything and the kitchen sink" universe since it homages so much of Yokayama's career, not just Giant Robo and had a lot of fun ideas to play around with.

Well I won't dispute not feeling the characters were fleshed out despite there being less of them; but I think in general there's a feeling that for me at least all of the characters could have used more development.

Looking forward to Dragon's Dogma myself; I'm cautiously optimistic about it.

Sean Bean was actually one of the few main cast members to live in Silent Hill...

Ashley is a lot worse than the others in that regard, though. Shorter lines and fewer of them. Too bad, since she was one of the better set up characters in ME1, with dialogues regarding her beliefs and views of other species (and changes in them brought about by, say, Shepard's death) apparently being cut at a very late stage. Well she had more than Doctor Chakwas (expected) but less than some of the other companions. But it wasn't really something I noticed (but then Ashley wasn't a main member on my 1.5 trips through the game).

Its been too long since I played it full through as well. But fond memories and all of that (well except the memory of my brother loaning the game to a friend of his who promptly overwrote my game with his save).

The Three Stooges. While not up to the mastery of the original film crew, the movie does a good job of delivering on the kind of things that the Three Stooges have always done (generally beating the heck out of one another). The through story is probably a bit more emotional than a real Three Stooges short would have been (Moe, Larry and Curley pretty much lived unexamined filmic lives not ever needing to give time to ponder how much destruction they've left in their wake) but given that you can't make a modern film without having some sort of emotional through story they at least keep its impact to a minimum. A couple of the sequences (the attempt to get into the hospital - particularly the diaper changing bit leaps to mind) are pretty darn hilarious.

Not really a cartoon/anime setting and only tangentially a comic setting (thank you licenses!), but I'd love to see a game set in Street & Smith's pulp hero universe with Doc Savage, the Shadow and the Avenger (plus their crews) taking on criminal masterminds in 1930s New York.

This, if they fixed the dreadful combat from the last one. I'd also like a revival of SSI's Phantasie series (or something along those lines).

I started up Tales of Graces f. I've always liked the Tales series character interaction (well at least since they stopped cutting them out of the US versions of the games... ) which is still fun; has sort of an interesting twist on a JRPG cliche' (the reckless hero youth and his friends go an adventure and get kinda screwed up because of it). Still very early in the game, I think. Combat reminds me of other Tales games, although I don't like the limit on the number of attacks you can do (seems to artificial).

The dialogue with Ashley annoyed me, mainly because she happened to be my love interest for that play through. Yet a lot of time after missions, she had nothing more than a Zaeed/Kasumi response. Ashley: Horrible what happened on Thessia. Those poor people. *click on her again* Ashley; I hope Liara is holding up. *click on her again* Ashley: Those Reaper bastards. *click on her again* Ashley: Commander. *click on her again* Ashley: Commander. *click on her again* Ashley: Commander. This is my love interest, the one that's supposed to be so close to Shepard, yet that's all I get when discussing one of the major moments of the game? (PS. I think it was after Thessia. It might have been after Rannoch. Either way, it was a major story point mission) But my experience is that all of the characters do that. And frankly I can't expect that any of the characters have an infinite amount of dialogue. Also I liked Vega; was he the greatest companion? No. But I did like having his comments in the party seeing a lot of the craziness for the first time.