Ah, Mr. Smith. We've been expecting you. The top floor; please use the elevator in the back. Of course, I remember all the faces of our guests. Even your bag, Sir...
Xed51 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 23, 2022 4:08 pm
I updated the Complete Book page to include your translations and a better description of the book's content, let me know if I got anything wrong.
Looks fine. You're correct with Rieko Naitou. Haven't read the interview yet, but it also says that she is a big Suda fan and that they discuss their shared love of David Lynch. Which is probably why they had the interview in a David Lynch themed cafe.
Why does Toriko appear to be Tetsugoro's daughter? I got no fucking clue lol. Reading the in-game guidebook, you might think that Toriko is actually the maiden who prayed for the Island to be saved, guiding the Japanese stranger to the monument, but there is also a possibility that that passage is referring to Catherine/Katharine. (Whom the new version of TSC seems to confirm is actually a spirit.) Granted it's also possible that Toriko and Catherine are one and the same, with Christina being Sumio (both their portraits are pink, their "voices" sound the same whenever Christina speaks.)
That's an interesting theory that I hadn't considered.
There's obviously a lot that is unclear, but personally I think that Toriko is Kusabi's daughter. There seems to be a lot that may hint to the 'it's all a dream' theory, but I think the end of the game makes it clear that the island was real and thus the characters probably went there. Though I could see some aspects occuring simply in Mondo's head or even a shared dream of some of the characters. You've obviously done way more digging into the game than I have so I'll be interested to read what you put together when you finish it.
I do wonder sometimes if Suda just inserts things just to create mindfucks and mess with the player. Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day seems like it's just a bizarre mishmash of nonsensical crazy stuff with no rhyme or reason. Though I've always thought that the game may have been meant as a parody of anime culture which would actually make it fit nicely with the rest of the Short Peace compilation with each part covering an aspect or time period of Japan.
I would personally care about it, but I see your point. Most fans of "niche" games don't actually play them at all, or care about them. They're only interested in the label of "being into niche games" so they can put it on their twitter bio or something lol.
I agree. These days, I find that popularity just seems to come from things being shared via social media rather than people actually trying things out. I have never really engaged much online over the years, but lately I have started developing this strange desire to want people to play the games that I think are great, despite knowing that there's no reason anyone should care what I think or vice versa.
I almost want to go back to the pre-internet days when my game info came from magazines. I simply explored games myself and didn't give a shit whether they were popular or not.
Another game that I'm really interested in playing once it comes out, but I imagine will get no love, is Monark. I tried the JP demo a little while back and aspects of the story like a protag with amnesia had me ready to quickly dismiss it as anime crap. Playing through it though, there's an interesting psychological aspect with a lot of behavioural type questions and the first villain had some great scenes regarding his past (something I'm realising easily grabs me). I also read an interview with the creator (https://news.denfaminicogamer.jp/interview/211018a) where he talks about his difficult childhood and how what saved him were games that dealt with dark themes (Shin Megami Tensei if, Drakengard). The way the characters in those games persevered in the irrational circumstances they were in, inspired him to keep living in our own irrational world. That interview turned the game into a must play for me. I might not end up liking it, but the point is that I'll decide that for myself after experiencing it.
In short, if you want to open a thread to talk about Zanki Zero or whatever's on your mind I wouldn't mind at all, and I'd probably be interested in reading it, but don't expect to ever get the type of attention you'd get in a 4chan thread or something. Although I do think that Krixxz played Zanki Zero; I think he brought up the censorship on the old forums, but I can't be bothered to check right now
I might just do that. I was gonna write some stuff here, but I've probably already derailed this thread enough.
There's obviously a lot that is unclear, but personally I think that Toriko is Kusabi's daughter.
Yeah that's what the game tells you. Toriko seems to be very involved in the destiny of Lospass island though, which is what makes me wonder if Toriko is just a form that some other entity took on.
There's definetly a parallel going on, where Sumio is carrying Catherine around, while Toriko is chasing Christina (who is actually a male) around, like the roles are reversed. I am pretty confident that Christina is Sumio Kodai, which would mean Toriko is, to some extent, Catherine.
You are straight up shown Catherine in the new Placebo chapter acting as a spirit.
And the Famitsu interview does mention that a Silver Eye exists within Catherine the suitcase. https://www.paradisehotel51.com/sin/202 ... interview/
Logically, I think that Catherine (the spirit, and probably the original owner of the silver eye that ended up in the suitcase) is the maiden that prayed for the island to be saved, and eventually called upon the help of a man from the east (Sumio) https://lparchive.org/Flower-Sun-and-Rain/71-15.png
Why would Toriko be playing out that role though? Talking to you, I'm edging more thowards the interpretation that Toriko actually did visit Lospass Island at some point, and inherited the will of Catherine much like Sumio & Step end up inheriting the will of the Sundance people.
Thank you Catherine, thank you for your love!
There seems to be a lot that may hint to the 'it's all a dream' theory, but I think the end of the game makes it clear that the island was real and thus the characters probably went there.
My personal take is that Sundance was the one telling the truth in the end. That is to say that in the game, you're playing through the memories of sixteen different Sumios.
It's a bit hard to explain chronologically because this interpretation relies on information from the 25th ward, but FSR already shows you that people were being straight up manufactured/cloned on lospass island in an effort to reconstruct or weaponize Sundance society. (TSC/FSR/25W show you three different experiments by elites in creating a perfect populace. In TSC you see citizens being mindbroken during childhood through MKUltra style mind control, in FSR citizens are straight up manufactured, and in 25W they are made to behave a certain way as adults through a system of punishment and reward enforced by strict rules.)
At the end of the game, you are told that Tokio's Hyena is used to kickstart the Next Maspro.
I believe Shiroyabu from 25W is part of the Next Maspro. In Whiteout, after Shiroyabu ascends, he remembers multiple lives and you see a flashback set between games where policeman Shiroyabu had to fight a terrorist Shiroyabu. My memory is a bit hazy but I am sure they also mention other Shiroyabus who happened to live normal lives.
In that context, I think it retroactively explains the appearence of the multiple Sumios in FSR. I believe the Sumios (which were manufactured on Lospass based on a template, which was possibly Kodai himself) were leading separate lives until they were all lured on Lospass Island and their personalities were overwritten with the Mondo one. (There's also a line in FSR that describes ELBOW as a mind control operation which sounds out of context until you realize that Mondo is a mindwiped version of Kodai.)
Remy or Sue (I haven't played the game in two years and I'm not looking at my notes so allow me some leeway I am also drunk) mention that the world of Lospass seems to open and close around Sumio. So in a sense it is "all a dream", but not in the proper sense of the word. A dream, depending on your spiritual beliefs, is either a reinterpretation of the day's events dictated by your subconcious, or an out-of-body experience with a deeper meaning.
I think Kodai is being made to experience or live through the memories of all the Sumios who were lured to Lospass island, through some unknown means. (Possibly just using a Silver Eye, considering by the time 25W takes place they're understood as massive data repositories. In Kurayami Dance, Wataru is able to "experience" Akari Tsukiyono's life by absorbing her silver eye. Catherine can also jack into the Sumio body that Sundance was inhabiting which means they're probably all equipped with silver eyes. The mass produced Steps also have a glowing eye.)
Sumio Mondo's role is that of a Searcher, that is to say, that he will find a lost item for his client. Lospass island is a land that has LOST its PAST, so it's only natural that Mondo's true objective would be to FIND its LOST PAST. That being the legacy of the Sundance people, which were genocided & bulldozed over by the Hachisuka clan sponsored by ELBOW (globalist/corporatist consortium of advanced nations). At the end of the game, Sumio is able to uncover the island's past, which is what makes Toriko the winner of the wager with Sundance Shot I guess. Mondo is going to pass on that memory to Step who is currently in France, which will also lead him to inherit the will of the Sundance people, despite neither Sumio nor Step being originally from Lospass. (Ritz seems to be the only actual survivor, Shot doesen't have a body at all. He seems to just exists as a persona within the Sumio collective.)
Within that interpretation, that spooky fucking scene at the end where Edo and the rest of the Hotel staff talk about blowing up the entire island, yet talk about Step's return as if they're gonna be there to see it kind of makes sense. Lospass island is a paradise that only exists as a memory, and that memory will be shared with Step, allowing him to "return" to Lospass.
Tetsugoro's line of there never being any island at all, and how the plane is going to touch down "in the real world" also makes more sense when you look at Lospass as a place that exists in memories. What is Paradise? A place separate from the real world.
Lospass can't move on from its last day of existance because the memories of it have never been shared, and have been erased from history. With Kodai learning the past of Lospass & sharing it with Step, it can finally move forward into tomorrow.
The "When they cry" series of visual novels by Ryukishi07 actually tackles a similar theme, where incidents with no survivors are repeated over and over and over again because noone is alive to tell the tale, so they could have played out in a number of different ways. They usually end with one of the kakera/fragments ending up revealing at least one survivor, who is able to settle the memory of the event. https://07th-expansion.fandom.com/wiki/ ... franchise)
Both seem to be based on the idea of quantum physics where reality does not actually exist until it is observed, or is at least influenced in its existance by being observed. At least I think that's what 25w was going for with the concept of observers who cannot be observed. WTC has similar entities that are defined as witches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_ ... m_physics)
This is an aside but it's so fucking sad to see Sumio as a depressed fuck in 25W lol. His life is still dogshit, his experience on Lospass didn't really change anything for him. It's nice how he hints at the fact that he will some day be able to visit Lospass with his dead lover Ayame though. Even that's depressing though when you consider that Ayames and Kamuis are just naturally attracted to one another, so how real is their love really? They barely interacted before she got killed off off screen, along with her unborn child.
Though I could see some aspects occuring simply in Mondo's head or even a shared dream of some of the characters. You've obviously done way more digging into the game than I have so I'll be interested to read what you put together when you finish it.
Yeah I've been into this shit for 15+ god damn years. I was underage when I imported japanese copies of TSC & FSR, and I even bought a chipped PS2 to play it. (I'm pretty sure there was no pcsx2 at the time, or at least I wasn't aware of it. I do remember playing TSC on an early version of epsxe though.)
I had to get a videogame store in piazza vescovio to special order FSR for me because stores were not stocking on it when the DS version came out lol. So yeah, this stuff has been sitting with me for a while, and I am a complete waste of life.
Anyway the order I was planning of doing things in, was to slowly replay the games while taking notes & writing summaries for each chapter which would organically lead me to write separate in-depth articles. I haven't even gone through all the stuff that Jack wrote for the old website, which was mostly about Killer7, I only rewrote the "What is Kill the past" page. I will carry everything over eventually though.
You can see an example of it here, where I started writing the Silver Case summary: https://www.paradisehotel51.com/sin/202 ... -thoughts/
And I organically spun-off discussion on the game's setting in this other article: https://www.paradisehotel51.com/sin/202 ... planation/
(I would actually appreciate your take on this one because, again. I don't actually know japanese. This is just my understanding of how the translators misunderstood the whole idea of a "24th ward".)
I didn't even finish the summary for the first chapter lol. The issue is that I keep getting distracted by other shit, I actually do a lot of site work but never in the order I plan to. Rake pushed me to play Blood+ ONK and I got so interested in that, played through the game four times to find every single collectable, hunted down interviews etc., then I financed some translations, bought some books for BigManJapan to archive (which I still need to ship, because I have no access to digital currency at the moment, but Rake did say he would pay for shipping so that's happening at some point.) and got involved in all sorts of IRL shit to the point where I haven't replayed the games since summer of 2020.
I am also a complete retard who refuses to advertise anything I do, and the way the website looks it seems like it's abandoned, while in reality I constantly update random pages here and there. My (retarded jewish/italian) logic is that by the time I'm done with it, having space taken up by random updates is going to be worthless. Especially when you consider I have a very clear endpoint, since I don't plan on really covering anything past the original No More Heroes in detail.
I might change my mind in regards to Kurayami Dance, but even then I think my thoughts on that story can be summed up in one page, rather than having a whole expansive section dedicated to different articles on several different concepts.
There's also a slight visual redesign incoming but the person working on the various art assets has been busy with IRL shit. I already did most of the writing for it though. It's just going to affect the aesthetics though, the structure is gonna stay the same. It's gonna make everything even more alien and confusing though lol. The front page is gonna be an invitation to Paradise Hotel, as if it's a real place.
do wonder sometimes if Suda just inserts things just to create mindfucks and mess with the player. Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day seems like it's just a bizarre mishmash of nonsensical crazy stuff with no rhyme or reason.
I honestly don't try to look too hard at anything he worked on after 2007 because I feel he wasn't really trying. Back then (when NMH2 and SOTD released and none of us really liked them, and the following games were equally as disappointing to the point where it looked like a joke. When I say "us", I am referring to a bunch of people that have not hung out here since 2012 or something.) we were all disappointed with GHM's output to the point where the fanbase just sort of disappeared or dispersed.
For example this girl, who is actually the only person who even came close to translating Moonlight Syndrome, used to be on our old forum & we were also friends on facebook lol. https://izzeybee.wordpress.com/2013/10/ ... n-project/
Sal was also originally from our forum. https://www.youtube.com/user/sal4
He did post here a few times and he also showed up on some of my livestreams but I get the feeling from meeting him that he's actually a busy person with a real life lol.
At the time, we all thought he was selling out, but it didn't really make any sense because noone was buying those games at all. Nowadays, I tend to think that the development of Kurayami just broke him and his confidence.
There's also another thing that noone ever talks about, how some of the GHM stuff moved to Spike-Chunsoft to work on Danganronpa after the original No More Heroes. Namely the composer Masafumi Takada & the art director Akihiko Ishizaka (which is why Jabberwock Island from Super Danganronpa 2 looks nearly identical to Lospass Island, to the point of having the airport display a "welcome to paradise" banner LOL!)
Ishizaka in particular is irreplaceable in my opinion, the UI & graphic design from TSC to NMH looks fantastic to this day.
There was some hope for a comeback between 2015 and last year, since The Silver Case & The 25th Ward were re-released with new chapters, one of the Kurayami scripts got adapted into Kurayami Dance (which is great, and I wish Suda would just stop trying to make horrible HD action games and just wrote manga & novels for the rest of his life lol), the Art of GHM & Suda51 Complete book (which also included a reprint of Killer is Dead, the new short story RBG, original scenarios for SOTD & KID and all the shit you already know about) being released, the new Fire Pro campaign and it eventually culminated with Travis Strikes Again acting as an anniversary title referencing nearly every single GHM production. I don't sacrifice baby goats to the altar of that game like most fans do, but I still think it's good.
It's just unfortunate that it all culminated with No More Heroes 3 flopping so hard that the company was bought out by a chinese shovelware producer lol. I don't know if you got anything out of that, but I personally consider it the worst game ever released by the company.
Again, it's sad because even though their games never sold well, whenever GHM does whatever the fuck it wants, the games actually have some staying power to the point where TSA was still being discussed months after its initial release, and Killer7 got a PC re-release just a few years ago. Meanwhile whenever they try to pander to their supposed "fanbase", they get some apparent clout on social media by the same group of 4 or 5 journalists but it never actually resonates with actual audiences. NMH3 was forgotten after a week and I envy those people because I have three copies of that piece of shit sitting in my library, constantly judging me.
I agree. These days, I find that popularity just seems to come from things being shared via social media rather than people actually trying things out. I have never really engaged much online over the years, but lately I have started developing this strange desire to want people to play the games that I think are great, despite knowing that there's no reason anyone should care what I think or vice versa.
You're talking to a guy whose hobby is to run a website that has an actual userbase of maybe five people, that only led to weird american mutants calling me a nazi (I am jewish LOL!)
I don't think there's anything wrong with doing shit for yourself exclusively. I personally got so tired with the structure of the novel that I let a contract expire (I wasn't actually going to make any money out of it regardless. Every time I wrote stuff for an audience of internet mongoloids I only lost time and patience, and never made any real money lol.) and I find writing stuff for the website to be a lot more refreshing.
I almost want to go back to the pre-internet days when my game info came from magazines. I simply explored games myself and didn't give a shit whether they were popular or not.
I never really talked about it before but the way I originally came across Killer7 was because a writer for an italian Nintendo magazine used to be a huge Smiths fan and got really invested in the game due to how it tied into the themes of Smiths songs. I might actually try to find the copy and scan it at some point, since I think I still have all those magazines in storage.
I was never really a music guy so I have no clue how accurate that is. I do know that the game directly references the song "How soon is now" (outside from the obvious, the Smiths being SMITHS) which in and of itself is based on wordplay implying a theme of as above, so below ("I'm the son/sun, I'm the heir/air"). My point is that that's the kind of refreshing perspective you don't get anymore because of an army of mind controlled keyboard warriors constantly moderating WTF you're allowed to say before it's labelled as "fake news" and "nazi propaganda".
Another game that I'm really interested in playing once it comes out, but I imagine will get no love, is Monark.
I never heard about it at all until you brought it up which means you're probably right lol. I don't even know where the fuck I'm supposed to learn about stuff like that because online videogame discussion is just a trojan horse for american racial and sexual politics, that only partain to americans.
I looked up a trailer for it.
I will say I am personally tired of school settings, though I understand in Japan you are supposed to grow out of this shit by the time you're 18 and just sacrifice your life to your company while your wife sets your bed on fire or something. It does look visually stimulating which is more than I can say about most games nowadays.
It reminds me a bit of Caligula, which unfortunately ended up being pretty disappointing.
The story was really a bunch of nothing which surprised me because it was written by Satomi Tadashi (Persona 1&2) and the combat system, while interesting, didn't really live up to its potential because the game was easy enough I never really had to strategise (which is a problem I had with pretty much every japanese rpg I played recently. Even Shin Megami Tensei IV basically had no endgame unless you bought the DLC lol. I have not played SMTV nor anything more recent because I haven't been in the mood to play RPGs for years.)
Monark also seems to have some weird take on its combat system, I just hope they actually build a game around it. It does seem to capture the feeling of living in an insane world pretty well though lol. WHich is probably because of what you said here:
The way the characters in those games persevered in the irrational circumstances they were in, inspired him to keep living in our own irrational world. That interview turned the game into a must play for me.
I might not end up liking it, but the point is that I'll decide that for myself after experiencing it.
Yeah which is the point of a hobby. Which is why it's so alienating to me that the modern humanoid golem seems to take no enjoyment in life whatsoever, and just wastes its time trying to appear "popular" and "cool" to its twitter friends.
That's not even limited to videogames. I personally love being in nature and hanging out with animals, but if you every try to look up locations on the internet, all you'll find is weirdos exploiting that shit for views. Which tells me they don't enjoy what they're doing at all. It's just an identity they decided to take on for the sake of "social" media. It gets fucking crazy when you realize how expensive owning your own luxury boat is, and how people don't enjoy being on them at all, and just use it for clout lol.
I might just do that. I was gonna write some stuff here, but I've probably already derailed this thread enough.
Noone gives a shit don't worry. I only ever move posts if I go on a racial riot for five or six consecutive novel lenght posts. I just do that to keep things in order. Other than that I always thought the overt moderation on forums was fucking weird because when you're speaking with someone IRL, conversations naturally switch between subjects because a human being is not a twitter bot lol.
Xed51 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 3:39 am
There's also a line in FSR that describes ELBOW as a mind control operation which sounds out of context until you realize that Mondo is a mindwiped version of Kodai.
Ah, I remember that. It sounds out of context because it's a mistranslation, unfortunately. In the Japanese it was 先進国首脳機関 (advanced country - leader/top - agency/organisation), nothing to do with brainwashing. Brainwashing is 洗脳, but it's a strange fuck up.
There was another time I noticed a mistake in Sundance's diaglogue. I think it was a mix up with 解放 (kaihou - free/liberate) and 開放 (kaihou - open) or something.
I would actually appreciate your take on this one because, again. I don't actually know japanese. This is just my understanding of how the translators misunderstood the whole idea of a "24th ward".)
I actually have only played it in English up to this point, so I can't really help too much but I think the general consensus is correct in that it's the 24th ward singular. Would make no sense for it to be all of Tokyo, I think. Just seeing 24区 admittedly doesn't tell you shit, but from the context of the actual game and the events that occur in the 24th ward, it's gotta be just one ward (like the 25th).
FSR is the first Suda game I played in Japanese rather than English (and Kurayami Dance I guess) so most of my knowledge at this point would be no different to anyone else. If you have any specific dialogue that you want me to look at though, I'm happy to do it.
Nowadays, I tend to think that the development of Kurayami just broke him and his confidence.
Yeah, some of his comments in the complete book hint towards stuff like that. For Killer is Dead, he mentions that he wasn't in great condition during the development.
There's also another thing that noone ever talks about, how some of the GHM stuff moved to Spike-Chunsoft to work on Danganronpa after the original No More Heroes. Namely the composer Masafumi Takada & the art director Akihiko Ishizaka (which is why Jabberwock Island from Super Danganronpa 2 looks nearly identical to Lospass Island, to the point of having the airport display a "welcome to paradise" banner LOL!)
It's probably meant as an homage. One of the chapters is a straight up reference to twilight syndrome, movement style and all.
It's just unfortunate that it all culminated with No More Heroes 3 flopping so hard that the company was bought out by a chinese shovelware producer lol. I don't know if you got anything out of that, but I personally consider it the worst game ever released by the company.
I enjoyed it but it was kind of just average. I thought it was a huge step up on 2 which I think was worse than the first game in every way. The story was pretty meh, but I just enjoyed the dumb comedic aspects to it and didn't think too much about it. I thought they were actually gonna go hard on the crossover stuff after TSA, but it didn't happen. Strangely enough, I kind of only like the cutscenes between Fuu and his henchmen for some reason.
For more context, I first discovered Suda via No More Heroes in 2011. It was the PS3 version that everyone hates (after playing the switch version, I've realised that it is a very bad port) but I still fell in love with the game. I then tried SotD because it was cheap (was hesitant as I don't really like shooters) and I enjoyed that a lot too. Was hugely hyped for Lollipop chainsaw next but that was a huge letdown and maybe one of my least favourite grasshopper games.
I've bought most everything since then and I actually enjoy the majority of it to some degree. That said, I agree that his older stuff seems much cooler. Silver Case is absolutely my favourite and nothing else comes close for me. NMH1 is still a classic to me, but I really disliked 2. TSA had some cool stuff, but my feelings were a little mixed (great soundtrack though) and I mentioned my thoughts on 3. I would definitely like for Suda to expand on his older worlds or come up with new shit in a similar style. But really, I just want him to make whatever he wants. In gaming I don't like the big budget AAA crap and I don't have any interest in indie either. For me, it's all about the middle or I guess B-tier games that are the most interesting. A lot of it's bad, but this is where developers actually try out new ideas and still have some funding to put together a good product.
I never heard about it at all until you brought it up which means you're probably right lol. I don't even know where the fuck I'm supposed to learn about stuff like that because online videogame discussion is just a trojan horse for american racial and sexual politics, that only partain to americans.
I just use game news sites but my browser addons block comments. It's actually kinda refreshing to visit small japanese sites that post news but don't even have any options for comments or junk like that (or maybe I'm just blocking it without realising).
The story was really a bunch of nothing which surprised me because it was written by Satomi Tadashi (Persona 1&2) and the combat system, while interesting, didn't really live up to its potential because the game was easy enough I never really had to strategise (which is a problem I had with pretty much every japanese rpg I played recently. Even Shin Megami Tensei IV basically had no endgame unless you bought the DLC lol. I have not played SMTV nor anything more recent because I haven't been in the mood to play RPGs for years.)
That's disappointing to hear about Caligula. I actually own the game and it's sequel, but haven't played them yet. Definitely sick of the school setting too, but still interested in trying them out.
I'm actully a big megaten fan. I think SMT V is actually great, and if you play it like I did at least, then I think it offers a good challenge. The game has a lot of quality of life changes that people seemed to bitch about it being made easier but I think it actually had decent balance. That said, I played on hard and was always underleveled compared to the bosses. That's key, as for whatever stupid reason levels matter a lot in the game and if you get too high it just becomes piss easy. I think they fucked that up. Game has like no postgame though and I'm not paying for the dlc.
For comparison, I also played Nocturne (on hard) for the first time last year and I think V is harder except for maybe a couple of bosses in Nocturne. It's pretty different though. In V, I basically just fought bosses and rarely did random battles, while in Nocturne, the difficulty came from staying alive through the dungeons where random battles were unavoidable. Both games require strategy in different ways with a different focus to the gameplay.
For V though, I just find the loop of getting to a boss, getting wiped in a turn or two, adjusting your team and then finally overcoming that boss to be extremely satisfying. If you grind levels though, you just ruin it, which is what I imagine most people did (if they even played on hard). I mean, this is a series where I actually use everything they give me as opposed to many games where you won't use items or half the skills you have.
Ah, I remember that. It sounds out of context because it's a mistranslation, unfortunately. In the Japanese it was 先進国首脳機関 (advanced country - leader/top - agency/organisation), nothing to do with brainwashing. Brainwashing is 洗脳, but it's a strange fuck up.
There was another time I noticed a mistake in Sundance's diaglogue. I think it was a mix up with 解放 (kaihou - free/liberate) and 開放 (kaihou - open) or something.
Well that's interesting. I honestly assumed it was one of many cases where one name refers to multiple different things within the context of the game. I didn't really think it was a mistranslation issue. (Yes I've read your PM as well)
Whenever I finally get around to replaying all the games in order for the website, I'll make sure to take note of any unclear points that might be more understandable in Japanese. For now I'm just working on recording Blood+
It's probably meant as an homage. One of the chapters is a straight up reference to twilight syndrome, movement style and all.
Yeah that's also the result of having returning staff. I'm not sure who exactly just because I haven't researched it, but a lot of Human Entertainment employees went over to Spike and later Spike-Chunsoft. Which is probably where the Takada & Ishizaka connection comes from as well. (Most of GHM was also comprised of ex-Human employees.)
I enjoyed it but it was kind of just average. I thought it was a huge step up on 2 which I think was worse than the first game in every way. The story was pretty meh, but I just enjoyed the dumb comedic aspects to it and didn't think too much about it. I thought they were actually gonna go hard on the crossover stuff after TSA, but it didn't happen. Strangely enough, I kind of only like the cutscenes between Fuu and his henchmen for some reason.
I will say I kind of liked the beginning of the game where it seemed to hint at some interesting stuff with the Deathman mistery & the Fu cutscenes you mentioned. About halfway through I just wanted to end my life when I realized the entire game would be comprised of killing the same six enemies, with the same combos and the same cooldown attacks in the same square rooms to get to boss fights where "funny" "jokes" are told.
We actually had some long ass discussion in a different thread on how apparently most of the game's content was cut during development, to the point where it doesen't even come off as incomplete. It comes off as an alpha demo lol. In that topic I linked to several interviews where Suda comments on all sorts of cut content, the game was originally going to have 15+ bosses, levels, 7 playable characters and a completely different storyline. viewtopic.php?f=14&t=74&start=30
I think they just wrote around whatever they could finish to wrap the game up and hoped for the best. I think the game deserved to fail, but it's still sad that GHM ended up the way it did, because it really seemed like they were going somewhere between 2015-2019. Talking to a friend yesterday night he pointed out how Suda hasn't directed any game that isn't no more heroes for sixteen years and that's just sad lol. (The last one being Blood+ ONK)
I just use game news sites but my browser addons block comments. It's actually kinda refreshing to visit small japanese sites that post news but don't even have any options for comments or junk like that (or maybe I'm just blocking it without realising).
Yeah that's the advantage of knowing Japanese. Every english videogame newssite, is just preoccupied with discussing which supposedly "extremist" (actually all pro-statist) manufactured subgroup a game is pandering to, wether or not it's alt-right or SJW, if it protects trans rights, if the devs donated enough money to Mermaids etc.
I was honestly baffled when I found out because between 2014 and 2017-8 I was barely online at all due to personal job reasons. When I came back to the internet, I could not even look up basic information on a game such as collectable locations, without stumbling into weird-ass amerishart "politics" that had nothing to do with politics at all.
It was an eye-opening moment for me because I realized noone actually enjoys any piece of media anymore. They're just preoccupied on wether or not it panders to a specific subgroup, so that it can be worn as a label. I guess the fact that modern movies are nigh-unwatchable should have clued me in, but there's just so many good movies from the past century that I can't even begin to care, because I probably don't even have enough time on this earth to watch all the good ones lol.
In regards to videogames, I'm mostly focusing on building a digital catalogue of old stuff through emulation that I can just seamlessly move through computers without having to constantly reinstall shit. I was planning to open a thread to get raccomendations for consoles I didn't really explore as much as I could have now that emulation is so accessible (like the sega saturn for example) but I haven't gotten around to it yet for the usual reasons.
That's disappointing to hear about Caligula. I actually own the game and it's sequel, but haven't played them yet. Definitely sick of the school setting too, but still interested in trying them out.
To be fair I only played the base PSvita version way back when. As far as I know, there was a reworked version of it that came out on modern consoles, and that one actually does have the potential to be good if they implemented an actual endgame where strategy is necessary. I might try it someday if I'm ever in the mood for RPGs.
I'm actully a big megaten fan. I think SMT V is actually great, and if you play it like I did at least, then I think it offers a good challenge.
Jack and Krixx were discussing it in the Nintendo thread. It's not like I purposefully avoided it or something, I am a megaten fan myself (I also have an extensive physical collection), I just never feel like playing rpgs recently. I've been meaning to get into the xenoblade games as well but I never did.
I think I was legitimately broken by Persona 5 because while that game is good, it's so fucking long and the characters talk so fucking much (often repeating the same points over and over and over again) that after 110h I was done with anything RPG for years to come LOL! I can't believe they released an expansion pack that makes the game even longer. If anything, they should have gotten an editor to cut 30% of the dialogue.
Xed51 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 1:54 pm
I guess the fact that modern movies are nigh-unwatchable should have clued me in, but there's just so many good movies from the past century that I can't even begin to care, because I probably don't even have enough time on this earth to watch all the good ones lol.
I sort of feel like that with games. I feel like things have been heading in the wrong direction for a while and I imagine the number of new games I wanna play will continue to shrink. The amount of old games that I want to play will probably never run out though. At some point I will just go back to the PS1/2 era and just stay there.
As far as I know, there was a reworked version of it that came out on modern consoles, and that one actually does have the potential to be good if they implemented an actual endgame where strategy is necessary.
Yeah, I have the ps4 version. The sequel is also ps4.
I think I was legitimately broken by Persona 5 because while that game is good, it's so fucking long and the characters talk so fucking much (often repeating the same points over and over and over again) that after 110h I was done with anything RPG for years to come LOL! I can't believe they released an expansion pack that makes the game even longer. If anything, they should have gotten an editor to cut 30% of the dialogue.
I tend to take longer in games at the best of times. Persona 5 took me almost like 140 hours. I really enjoyed it as I played it, but a couple of story beats kinda ruined the game for me. I also think that they just give you way too many options in battle which makes the game too easy.
Then they go and add more content including extra battle options, and I assume the story changes that they made will piss me off even more. That and the growing fanbase have started to kill the series for me a bit. I don't think I'll touch Royal unless I wanna play it in Japanese and I didn't buy Scramble either. It makes me disappointed because Persona 4 was the game that started it all for me, even if I prefer SMT.
I feel like the general consensus is 'more content = better', but I really disagree with that. I can't think of a single Atlus re-release that I think improved upon the original game.
This is a translation of an in-game short story that you collect via one of Aoyama's sidequests.
The story is set in the same city as the game but doesn't have any connection to the main story/characters as far as I can tell. Each chapter just gives a clue as to the location where you can receive the next chapter.
This will be in the playthrough vids as they come out, but I thought I'd collect the story in a pdf in case anyone wanted to read it now.
Deep wrote: ↑Tue Sep 06, 2022 6:27 pm
Wow, neat additon dude! I always wondered what that SMS-spam was, every time you have that bzzz going on. Its were actual side-missons, interesting.
Saya and Aoyama both have a message sidequest that first starts off by talking to an NPC and getting the first message. Then you have to use the clues in each one so you know the location and time where you get the next. Aoyama's is a short story and Saya's is a bunch of newsletters that talk about the town. Both are essentially jokes and don't really matter.
