Today in Gaming

https://twitter.com/BandaiNamcoEU/status/648515012449972224

LOL. It's not practical at this point. When it first came out on PS3 Bandai Namco wasn't bringing Tales games over anymore period, they had just stopped. Vesperia's year late 360 release in Europe earlier than year was the last one they did for 2 and a half years.

Vesperia 360 is a really awesome game though and has a great dub.

"We hear you!"
"ToV plz"
"Yeah no"

I find it quite funny in a sad way.

Harbinger wrote:

"We hear you!"
"ToV plz"
"Yeah no"

I find it quite funny in a sad way.

People should learn to give up. Vesps3 isn't going to happen in English.

They effectively meant they hear all requests that aren't Tales, since the only requests that would be possible in the slightest (that aren't already being worked on) for the series are Vesperia PS3 and Tales of Innocence Vita.

They're not going to localize PS2, NDS or PSP titles in this day and age.

Loved their response though. "Not that one." I could just imagine someone saying that as they shove their head in the sand like an ostrich.

That response could not have been more perfect.

Those tweets were magical and totally did my morning when I read them.

Falcom nerds! What are your thoughts on this seemingly boring boss fight?


That was rather tiring to watch to be honest. Tokyo Xanadu feels more and more underwhelming the more I watched the gameplay videos.

First thing I noted was the rather bland overall stage design, which is probably a procedurally-generated dungeon going by the way the rooms are designed. This, I can get behind with, but the boss stage having the same generic design is rather odd. Even Nayuta, which has a really boring combat (ymmv) makes up for it with a really dynamic and gimmicky boss stage, beautiful as f*** to boot.

Well, I'll give it the benefit of doubt and say that it's a tutorial miniboss of sort.

Next, are we really doing a hit and run boss this days? Come on. Unless the player is dumb and not using all the game's mechanic (like guarding for example), this is really tedious. The boss don't seem requiring as much reflex like older Ys bosses nor does it requires gimmicky way to fight like Zwei or Nayuta bosses. It doesn't even have desperation attack. So much backpedalling in boss design.

At least Celceta, with the rather limited boss fight design, has Flash Guard and Dodge to compensate for it, making fights enjoyable as you find the timing for guarding or dodging.

Well, again, I guess I can chalk this flaws up as the tutorial boss being fairly easy and bland, but this doesn't bode very well with me tbh. I remember being "what the f*** oh my god its spinning around oh shit im dying" with the turtle boss in Seven and being "whee jumping platform holy shit sakura petals what the f*** do I hit now" with Nayuta, but this boss? Wow, it is so boring. Even the parts where the player get hit was because he was dumb to not go out of the way even with the obvious tells of the boss.

I love Falcom, but I'm no apologist. I'm not gonna overglorify stuff as being whee awesome when it's not. And dare I say it, that is a rather boring soundtrack, Falcom JDK. Though that opera voice is rather good. Makes me wanna listen to Nightwish.

It's the first boss fight, so we've yet to see the real thing about bosses for this game. I'm waiting to be surprised, but obviously, Earth Dragon Rada Manj would probably never happen in this game. Love that whole boss fight.

Please don't let the dungeons be procedurally generated. Celceta had great dungeon design and the little I've played of Nayuta was amazing. Loved the stages in those. Have to get back to it again one of these days.

I haven't been keeping up with the mechanics of thisbgame so its hard to comment on the possible battle options aside from it having the Seven and Celeta styled Weakness system and immediate party switch. I guess the stamina bar helps on controlling spamming early on. It's still too early to actually judge Xanadu, especially in this boss fight.

But compared to Seven's first boss, this is underwhelming. The music track doesn't pump my blood. Vacant Interference...

Falcom probably had to pour more budget for the fancy ass anime scenes (the flash stuled openings were better. And had really nice and crisp art), singing idol VAs and advertising that idol unit IRL (Their facebook page advertises them. Wow are we cashing in on that Love Live audience now falcom?) and tryomg to push this new IP on the market.

Obviously I'm exaggerating, but this game is looking like a mesh of different ideas that sell (School from Sen, Persona parallels, and idols and their music) with just Falcom's skin in it. And aside from Manami Numakura being in it (oh lordy hypocrisy) I'm not that hyped at all or like "I NEEEDDDD THISSSSS" similar to my reaction to Celceta's first gameplay teailer.

Hopefully, Ys 8 still stays true. And we want better boss themes for it. More rocking violins and rocking guitars. Ys 8. Ys i. Ys 8.

Yep, I admit that I was jumping to conclusion about the whole game. And agreed on Rada Manj, that was probably the best Ys fight I've ever experienced. Add that it was the first time The Legend of Five Great Dragons was played, yeah it's definitely the most memorable.

Too bad Celceta's bosses were rather basic compared to the creativity of some of the bosses in Seven, like the boss design was downgraded, hence why I was led to make assumptions about the boss battles in Tokyo Xanadu.

DylDawg wrote:

Please don't let the dungeons be procedurally generated. Celceta had great dungeon design and the little I've played of Nayuta was amazing. Loved the stages in those. Have to get back to it again one of these days.

Well, it might not be procedurally generated, but I won't raise up hope for a great dungeon design with fun gimmicks. It is after all, a dungeon crawler. It'll just be hallways and beating up monsters, with occasional punch button to open doors. From the clips they've showed, platforming is also going to be minimal.

What I do hope is for a better boss room instead of a boring vacant box arena.


And yeah. Ys 8. Still waiting on any info on that. Last I checked, they planned to release it on 2015 and there's about 3 months left. Unless they were really confident with the fanbase and release it without any info - which is a massively ballsy move, in holiday season nonetheless - I'm not sure we're getting it this year.


In another news, FFXV will (re?)introduce weapon switching on the fly. Huh. It's actually rather cool that they listen to feedbacks. Now just polish up the speed and responsiveness of the actions, which probably means removing the auto-battle, and I probably will have fun playing it.

f*** yeah doublepost


New SAO game announced - SAO: Hollow Realization.

It's supposedly a 'revival' story of Aincrad, so the story probably goes like Kirito suddenly realize he's inside SAO again, and probably from floor 1 with his stats wiped since he's not dual-wielding in the trailer. It's actually really cool if Kirito kept his memories and can fix stuffs like saving Sachi or something. The little girl that is prominent in the trailer is, I'm guessing,

Spoiler:

Onto the gameplay part. I admit, that was a really beautiful field scene. And dodging/dashing seems to work like Lost Song, so I guess they kept the improvements they made. Lost Song is okay-ish on combat standpoint, but there's too much lack of contents for it to be enjoyable. Although, I really hope they implement the true mechanics in the game, like Sword Skills having cooldown instead of using mana or some shit. And fucking switching should not have a cooldown holy shit.

The weapon reinforcement system is already really laid down in Progressive, with one whole arc dedicated to explain the mechanics, so I hope they implement that in too. Also, stop frigging giving Dual-Wield preferential treatment. I know it's cool and stuff, but it's hardly everything Kirito uses. Kirito also has Martial Arts Skill that he used to kill Kuradeel and Meteor Break is a really cool combination of Martial Arts and One-handed Sword Skill. There's a reason why Kirito doesn't use a shield (apart from keeping his other hand free for dual-wield).

I myself am liking more the One-handed Sword Skills, partially due to it being emphasized greatly in Alicization arc, so when I saw Kirito single wielding sword for most of the trailer, I was gleeful

Speaking of Alicization, Eugeo better make it in this game. Screw girls, it's men's job to kill stuff and adventure.


this poster is pretty badass

Huh? Lost Song still used SP? Re: Hollow Fragment introduced cooldowns for Sword Skills as opposed to relying on SP...Mind you, it also came out toward the end of the year that Lost Song was released in (PS4 version of Lost Song released on the same day.)

I wonder if the US version of Lost Song will take that into account?

Rather than SP it's MP now, being set in ALO, but yeah, Sword Skills and Magic use MP. It regenerates at an acceptable rate, but with one Sword Skill consuming half the MP bar, it's really limiting. And since you also use MP for magics, yeah it kinda suck. Thankfully normal attacks has a rather good damage rate than Hollow Fragment.

I'm not sure whether they would go out of their way to revamp the system for US release. Director's Cut, probably, since they apparently did that for Re: Hollow Fragment.


I keep forgetting that US version of Lost Song is not out yet. That Asian version's English was pretty good.

Disgaea 5 tomorrow!

Really interesting stuff:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-canceled-final-fantasy-xii-sequel-narrative-an/1100-6431040/

Some BLOPS 3 changes and improvements to the full game based on beta feedback. Nice of them to go into detail like this. The last time COD had a beta, the feedback didn't help much at all (dogs do less damage, whoopy).

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2015/10/08/how-you-helped-improve-call-of-duty-black-ops-iii-multiplayer/

Key things from this list:

-Blackhat's hack speed now based on distance from streak, higher streaks are harder to hack.
-Rejack is still worthless (its basically a limited Tac Insert now)
-Reduced flinch (apparently this was a netcode issue)
-Concussion stun reduced by 1 second.
-Tac Mask now unlocked at Level 13

http://www.siliconera.com/2015/10/09/star-ocean-second-evolution-headed-to-ps4-and-vita-this-month-in-japan/

This was already announced but there's more info now. "Improved BGM and graphics"... Uuuuh, I do hope they mean more than just an upscale because the untouched, low quality ps1 textures were VERY much apparent in the psp version, especially in comparison to First Departure as I played them back to back.

As for improved BGM, I'm not sure I like that idea. Why f*** with something that was already pretty damn perfect?

The other day, I went to EB games the other day to buy Disgaea 5. I asked them if they had any in-store since I couldn't find any on the shelves. I asked the dude working there and he replied "sorry, the only copies we have are for those who pre-ordered the game".

I was a bit disturbed by this. I'm surprised that they didn't even order 1 extra copy at all. Before leaving the store, I saw "Pre-order ToZ now!" I wonder if they will do the same thing? D5 is more niche so maybe that's why?

In the end, I went elsewhere to buy it.

Ah, the same happened with Tales of Hearts R last year at our EB Games, I had it preordered tho.

Don't buy games in-store, this is especially true for Canadians.

This has been a pretty consistent problem for two generations, especially for fans of niche games.

King Cat the Sixth wrote:

It's supposedly a 'revival' story of Aincrad, so the story probably goes like Kirito suddenly realize he's inside SAO again, and probably from floor 1 with his stats wiped since he's not dual-wielding in the trailer. It's actually really cool if Kirito kept his memories and can fix stuffs like saving Sachi or something.

It's always funny to me how optimistic you can be, giving FAR too much credit to game designers:

http://www.siliconera.com/2015/10/09/sword-art-online-hollow-realization-gets-its-first-screenshots-and-story-details/

Yeah so I'm REALLY not sure what the point of this is considering that Aincrad was already added to ALO which still ran on the Cardinal System. I'm not sure about the story of Lost Song, but considering Infinity Moment and Hollow Fragment's story arcs, I'm starting to wonder if the whole series of games just have their own alternate timeline where the Seed never happened?

Harbinger wrote:

The other day, I went to EB games the other day to buy Disgaea 5. I asked them if they had any in-store since I couldn't find any on the shelves. I asked the dude working there and he replied "sorry, the only copies we have are for those who pre-ordered the game".

I was a bit disturbed by this. I'm surprised that they didn't even order 1 extra copy at all. Before leaving the store, I saw "Pre-order ToZ now!" I wonder if they will do the same thing? D5 is more niche so maybe that's why?

In the end, I went elsewhere to buy it.

GameStop and EB Games, which are the same thing, have horrible business practices. They don't make as much on new stock so they only order what they pressured people to pre-order and maybe one or two extra. You can do a lot better than going there.

I bought it at Best Buy in the end.

@Falcom: I think I saw ToHR when it came out. There's copies of ToX2 as well... but I'm guessing they are older copies. I tend to buy games at Best Buy --- not sure why I went to EB Games

@Taiyz: I remember seeing Atelier games there maybe a year ago. Lately, I haven't seen any of them at all. Maybe I should just stop going there. I don't exactly like buying games there. Too many stickers (prices over prices). Box is already opened...

@ToH: Makes sense, I guess.

You'd be surprised how my niche games show up at Walmart as well. My local store gets in all the Atlus games. Heck, they even had Project Mirai.

They also get in various special editions of games as well.

I don't usually go to Gamestop anymore unless they have a good trade-in deal or have games I can't find at the other retailers. I bought the Vita version of Disgaea 4 from them because NISA hasn't restocked it in months and its very expensive on Amazon and Ebay.

Taiyz wrote:

King Cat the Sixth wrote:

It's supposedly a 'revival' story of Aincrad, so the story probably goes like Kirito suddenly realize he's inside SAO again, and probably from floor 1 with his stats wiped since he's not dual-wielding in the trailer. It's actually really cool if Kirito kept his memories and can fix stuffs like saving Sachi or something.

It's always funny to me how optimistic you can be, giving FAR too much credit to game designers:

http://www.siliconera.com/2015/10/09/sword-art-online-hollow-realization-gets-its-first-screenshots-and-story-details/

A man can dream ;_;.

And it's also what I think would really be an interesting storyline for spin-off game for anime/novel; it provides a nice what-if situations while not obstructing the actual story canon. Sachi dying is already an integral part of Kirito's character development (I know, I know, stop smirking), so doing it like this (a deja vu of actual story) wouldn't invalidate his development and still be able to open up new possibility for the doomed characters. Makes more sense as compared to some glitch in the matrix that forcefully summoned someone from another game (why the hell was Sinon even testing Medicuboid in the first place).

Also as in the spoiler, this can be tied to the next arc of the anime

Spoiler:

Alas, it's just not meant to be. :'(

Taiyz wrote:

Yeah so I'm REALLY not sure what the point of this is considering that Aincrad was already added to ALO which still ran on the Cardinal System. I'm not sure about the story of Lost Song, but considering Infinity Moment and Hollow Fragment's story arcs, I'm starting to wonder if the whole series of games just have their own alternate timeline where the Seed never happened?

In Lost Song, I don't think the Aincrad expansion ever existed. Instead, the first update is a new area called Svart Alfheim. So yeah, the whole Seed stuff never happened in the game series.

Here's Taiyz's Sooper Guy-d to Online Shopping!

Best Buy is actually the best. Sign up for Gamers Club and get 2x reward points on gaming purchases and occasionally awesome promos like FFXIII for $5. (That's literally how I got into the games.) Aksys games usually fail to stock in Canada so beware, Amazon and EB at least usually fulfill your order after a delay but I had to get BlazBlue CPE digitally since BB got screwed. Like Falcom said, Sega's niche games like Project Mirai are even being pushed in BB's newsletters! XSEED Games are always reliable but that's a given.

Amazon is reliable since they de-list maxed out items, but they don't always ship pre-orders to reach you for release day, BB is better at this, EB/Gamestop is the best.

Only use EB/Bamestop if you want to buy used, or want an exclusive Limited Edition or pre-order bonus, some Nintendo products and niche Namco Bandai retail releases are exclusive there.

Subscribe to Atlus, NISA, Idea Factory and XSEED's newsletters so you always know when their games include pre-order CDs or artbooks or have first print or more expensive limited editions. NISA and Iffy have their own websites and storefronts with exclusive pre-order bonuses, LEs and other goods.

VideoGamesPlus are the supercoolguys for Canadians, they don't discount much, but usually retain launch editions/CDs, clearly labeled, for months after a game's release, so for Atlus fans they are invaluable. Sometimes they get some exclusive stock in cooperation with the above publishers and otherwise promote non-standard releases, like Steins;Gate's US release and the Japanese 64GB Vita memory card. They also import games from other regions that feature the same localization but get a digital release here, like Pirate Warriors 1-2 with Collector's Editions, and DMC4 Special Edition, but they don't always import all versions like the DMC4SE pizza box CE.

VGP and National Console Support/NCSX will sometimes get European imports that are region-free like Dodonpachi Resurrection and Steins;Gate. Play-Asia is not as forthcoming on this front, but they did recently push the Chinese version of Moe Chronicle which has an English translation but no US release. The latter two are your go-to import companies, NCS is cool about it if you email and ask if they still have launch editions/POBs, Play-Asia usually gets Japanese online shop editions for a premium cost. AmiAmi actually sometimes gets some physical POBs exclusive to them and like VGP all their stuff is incredibly labeled, they are usually very cost-effective as well, but their available games seem more limited than the other guys.

Finally, Namco Bandai and Square-Enix occasionally has some exclusives on their online storefronts. Unlimited World Red's...Vita? version and Tales of Heart R I think were exclusive there as retail products, as was JoJo All Star Battle...They usually partner with Amazon, sometimes Gamestop/EB. Square-Enix's storefront is better but both use Digital River for fulfillment (I need to check, SE may have stopped.) SE has a rewards program now, I think recent examples would be the Type-0 and Rise of the Tomb Raider LEs; Dragon Quest Heroes had exclusive DLC there as a POB.

Apologies for typos, this was from my Wii U. Also I'm really hoping VGP gets the Crystal DualShock 4s, I love see-through controllers.

To add to Taiyz' guide, I'd say 30 percent off preorders at E3 is the best. This year it was just amazon who intentionally hold back free shipping a bit but...at least they sometimes lower prices even more. Best Buy is far superior with shipping but they didn't do it this year (only 20 percent, and they're having another one today actually.)

So yes, E3, E3, E3.