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Post by Ex on May 16, 2019 21:47:21 GMT -5
I'd love to see your take on Brain Lord again Yeah I have no idea what I'd think of it at 40. I was 19 when I last played/beat it. I can't recall being annoyed at anything in particular with that game, but I also had a lot more patience for BS back then, versus now.
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Post by toei on May 17, 2019 2:44:03 GMT -5
Same, I thought Brain Lord was enjoyable from start to finish. The dungeons, the puzzles, the story.
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Post by Ex on May 17, 2019 11:07:05 GMT -5
When I'm not so pressed for time (later this week), I'll come back and explain why each entry is on my list.
You will see common themes in why I like some of these games. We all have our predispositions...
Demon's Souls = Fantastic challenge, brilliant combat system, wonderfully oppressive and ominous atmosphere, a deep sense of place. Forlorn and lonely in a beautiful way. Dragon Quest VIII = This is likely the best classically designed 3D JRPG ever made. It does all the right things that classic JRPGs are supposed to do, and minimizes the wrong things. It's also gorgeous, and eschews a lot of the stupid crap that Level-5 usually does. Final Fantasy VI = I doubt I can tell anybody here anything they don't already know about this. Easily the greatest non-3D FF ever created. Final Fantasy XII = I have a deep love of exploring and filling out maps, FFXII lets you do that with aplomb. I thought its gambit based battle system was brilliant. Outstanding world design, beautiful character designs, and just pure bliss to play. My only issue is the plot kinda sucks, but that's not uncommon for this series. Front Mission 5: Scars of the War = A culmination of everything awesome about the FM series. Super challenging mission designs, deeply intricate combat, strong cinematic presentation, intense OST, a plot that ties everything up since the first FM... it just couldn't have been better. However FM5 should not be played until beating the earlier games in the series. King's Field: The Ancient City = Fantastic challenge, brilliant combat system (no really), wonderfully oppressive and ominous atmosphere, a deep sense of place. Forlorn and lonely in a beautiful way. Always rewarding exploration. Phantasy Star = The greatest 8-bit JRPG ever produced period, way beyond its time. Long live Rieko Kodama. Shadow Hearts = Brilliant combat system, wonderfully oppressive and ominous atmosphere, forlorn and lonely in a beautiful way. Great characters, a JRPG plot that isn't complete shit. Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne = Fantastic challenge, brilliant combat system, wonderfully oppressive and ominous atmosphere, a deep sense of place. Forlorn and lonely in a beautiful way. Great characters, a JRPG plot that isn't complete shit. The greatest casual-player-swatting gatekeeper of all time; Matador. S kies of Arcadia Legends = Pure joy to play. Just puts a smile on your heart. Always rewarding exploration. Ship battles are so much fun. How can you not want to be a sky pirate? Vagrant Story = Fantastic challenge, brilliant combat system, wonderfully oppressive and ominous atmosphere, a deep sense of place. Forlorn and lonely in a beautiful way. Great characters, a JRPG plot that isn't complete shit. Outstanding dungeon designs. I could have done without seeing Ashley's butt cheeks so much though. Valkyria Chronicles = Pure joy to play. Just puts a smile on your heart. Lovely characters, great world design, outstanding combat system. It's just too easy is my only complaint.
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Post by toei on May 17, 2019 13:00:48 GMT -5
Ex Rieko Kodama only designed the characters and was in charge of the overall art in PS1, though. The lead game designer was actually Kotaro Hayashida, creator of Alex Kidd, and the original story writer was Chieko Aoki. Kodama only graduated to director with PSIV, while still drawing some of the art.
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Post by Ex on May 17, 2019 13:32:46 GMT -5
Ex Rieko Kodama only designed the characters and was in charge of the overall art in PS1, though. The lead game designer was actually Kotaro Hayashida, creator of Alex Kidd, and the original story writer was Chieko Aoki. Kodama only graduated to director with PSIV, while still drawing some of the art. Yes you are correct, I was more inferring this is where Rieko got her start. She started strong in her capacity with PS, then went on to do even greater things from there, mainly as a notable producer. I've got a lot of respect for her. Some places claim she had a lot more influence on PS' design than just graphics though. It gets murky finding good credentials on these old Japanese games. This is what Mobygames claims for PS: Executive Planning = Kotaro Hayashida (Ossale Kohta) Executive Design = Rieko Kodama (Phoehix Rie) Of course "executive design" could just mean in the realm of visuals.
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Post by toei on May 17, 2019 14:00:05 GMT -5
Ex Rieko Kodama only designed the characters and was in charge of the overall art in PS1, though. The lead game designer was actually Kotaro Hayashida, creator of Alex Kidd, and the original story writer was Chieko Aoki. Kodama only graduated to director with PSIV, while still drawing some of the art. Yes you are correct, I was more inferring this is where Rieko got her start. She started strong in her capacity with PS, then went on to do even greater things from there, mainly as a notable producer. I've got a lot of respect for her. Some places claim she had a lot more influence on PS' design than just graphics though. It gets murky finding good credentials on these old Japanese games. This is what Mobygames claims for PS: Executive Planning = Kotaro Hayashida (Ossale Kohta) Executive Design = Rieko Kodama (Phoehix Rie) Of course "executive design" could just mean in the realm of visuals. Yes, executive design in that case referred to art direction. Thankfully we do have a lot of interviews with the PS developers that make that pretty clear (particularly on shmuplations, as usual). The term "planning" was often used for what we call game designers today, while "designer" by itself mostly referred to the graphics artists. This is very common in the case of older Japanese games, but not too many people seem to be aware of this. One way I noticed this is by looking up credits on mobygames and either comparing them to interviews, or looking at particular staffers' histories. You'll see that tons of people who were credited as "designers" in the '80s suddenly become "graphic artists" as some point in the '90s. mobygames itself only seems to be aware of this on some entries, though, probably because it's user-sourced. The term "game designer" did catch on over there eventually, so you'll see that too. Also, Kodama already had a few years' experience when she worked on PS1. She worked on Alex Kidd, too, and various Master System games before it. But there is no doubt that this was the biggest project yet for all involved.
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Post by Ex on May 17, 2019 14:07:26 GMT -5
All good information toei, thanks. I know it can be awful hard sourcing legitimate information concerning Japanese credentials for these old games, especially the 8-bit ones.
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Post by toei on May 17, 2019 14:17:06 GMT -5
I'm thinking more and more of contributing to shmuplations' Patreon, cause they're an amazing source and just a great site in general. They just published a translation of a twitter thread by some of the developers involved with the original Castlevania trilogy, for example - very interesting stuff, even though I don't care for these games. I never knew the director for those three games was actually demoted by Konami cause 2 and 3 didn't sell enough - they sent him to work in one of their Game Centers, so he just quit. Those games are basically sacred to NES fans, to the point that there's a Western-made Netflix cartoon series based on Castlevania III today, so that's especially shocking. I don't know if other companies were necessarily better, but this and all the more recent stuff we've heard about Konami's treatment of its employees (and even of its star developers) makes it sound like their management has always been horrible.
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Post by bonesnapdeez on May 17, 2019 14:49:29 GMT -5
Brain Lord seems awesome. I gave it a go a few years ago, but got stuck somewhere, due to my colorblindness I believe (this happens more often than you'd think). I'll get back into it someday. Produce is a boss developer.
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Post by toei on May 17, 2019 15:35:36 GMT -5
Brain Lord seems awesome. I gave it a go a few years ago, but got stuck somewhere, due to my colorblindness I believe (this happens more often than you'd think). I'll get back into it someday. Produce is a boss developer. I vaguely seem to remember some color-based puzzles, so that wouldn't surprise me. Brain Lord definitely went harder with the puzzles than most ARPGs, and there was a good variety of them.
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