Phantasy Star Universe. X play

[OrangeTippedGun]

http://g4tv.com/videos/14277/Phantasy-Star-Universe-Review/
Good times...

[Kylie]

Pfft, who plays story mode?

[The_Brimada]

lol Xplay

[OrangeTippedGun]

Pfft, who plays story mode?

You would be surprised. You really would...

[DAMASCUS]

Pfft, who plays story mode?

Now that I think about it...PSU's story mode is like reality TV. Sometimes its funny to watch characters act stupid :D

[Gen2000]

I didn't even think Xplay gave this game a chance in reviewing it back then. I forgot how awful the dub voice actors were. *shivers*.

[pinkace]

I am still in chapter one of story mode. I really want to know what happens, and I want to play the online quests very badly but... its like... so tedious.

[Somnia]

I didn't even think Xplay gave this game a chance in reviewing it back then. I forgot how awful the dub voice actors were. *shivers*.

I'd say that review was a lot more fair than what they usually do for games they don't like. But basically, lolreviews and LOLxplay.

[Noblewine]

I remember watching that. Man x-play bashed the game alot.

Cinematech was the only thing worth watching back then.

[The_Brimada]

I remember watching that. Man x-play bashed the game alot.

Cinematech was the only thing worth watching back then.

QFT

I want to play with Sess! Lol

[OrangeTippedGun]

To the posters here, is this your first time seeing this review?
X-play's the shit.
Well, the really used to be. Alot of their stuff now seems really biased. Like their the fox news of gaming or something.
AOTS, Attack of the Show is the best show on G4 though.
Keven Periera and Olivia Munn = awshum.

[pinkace]

They are entertaining and funny, but no one on that network is a real 'gamer'. It is a casual gaming network for casual gamers that need to be told what to buy.

I buy games based on other gamer's opinions (message boards), but also mostly on who made it; I bought Phantom Dust because I knew the geniuses behind it were once part of Team Andromeda. I knew BioShock was gonna be the shiznitz because it was made by some of the Looking Glass guys.

[Waki Miko Syamemaru!]

Actually I'm not a fan of G4 at all. They seem very biased against small time games and whore out to all the big names. Personally, I hate Halo, Final Fantasy, and WoW. Yet they make them to be godlike. X-Play to me, WAS the shit. Now it's crap. I ignore all of they're reviews and I'll be the judge of the game myself. They gave FF12 a high score yet to me it was more of like along the lines of getting socks for Christmas. I thought it was that bad. Oh and enjoy this.
http://i32.tinypic.com/511x7n.jpg

[Noblewine]

the posters here, is this your first time seeing this

I saw tha episode and yes x-play was good but the repeats ruined it.
The episode where they did a segment about the hate mail they recieved when they bashed Fullmetal Alchemist was funny.

[OrangeTippedGun]

I saw tha episode and yes x-play was good but the repeats ruined it.
The episode where they did a segment about the hate mail they recieved when they bashed Fullmetal Alchemist was funny.

Lol I actually kinda remember that. That was funny.
They did something very similar to that when they gave FF7 Crisis Core a 2 or 3 out of 5 because the game sucked. lol

[autumn]

That was reasonably polite for how bad offline mode is and how far behind the times the online mode is.

[Calsetes]

They are entertaining and funny, but no one on that network is a real 'gamer'. It is a casual gaming network for casual gamers that need to be told what to buy.

I buy games based on other gamer's opinions (message boards), but also mostly on who made it; I bought Phantom Dust because I knew the geniuses behind it were once part of Team Andromeda. I knew BioShock was gonna be the shiznitz because it was made by some of the Looking Glass guys.

Yeah, I used to like it when people reviewed games and used nothing but the game as a scale of itself. Most reviews nowadays (hell, for the past 5 years or so, maybe?) just do a basic "This game is a carbon copy of this other really popular game, and we're in a bad mood, so it fails to imitate the game exactly and gets a 1/5." Sometimes, it's "This game imitates this game, but it imitates it too much, and therefore sucks by proxy. 1/5." Other times, "This game is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from any other game out there, despite the fact that it's made with the same setup and play style as this other really popular game we use as a measuring stick! 80/5!"

Now granted, if it's something that's in a similar vein as something else, like any of the Warriors games (I'm talking Samurai Warriors, Dynasty Warriors, Gundam Dynasty Warriors, etc.), then it's perfectly reasonable to relate them to themselves, as they are almost the same game by design. However, relating something like... let's say Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl to something like Halo isn't really too viable an option - on one hand, you have a level-based shooter that's very linear in its presentation (which isn't a bad thing), and on the other, you have an open-ended shooter with almost an RPG-esque system of interacting with people, buying and selling loot, etc. They're both shooters, but they're still different games.

Plus, the VG Cats comic pretty much hit it square on the head as to what's wrong with X-Play specifically. It's a video game review show, not a video game SNL. We have Code Monkeys for that....


Anyway, sorry for the rant - it's just something that bothers me a bit about how reviewers do stuff nowadays. Things like the Tomb Raider / Kane & Lynch thing don't help matters much, either.

[Syndrome]

I personally can't watch G4 anymore...I mean, almost all they show on that channel is Cops and Cheaters. Attack of the Show gets on my nerves cause they try to be so funny, but they just can't seem to pull it off imo. Remember before TechTV ruined themselves by merging with G4? Man, Screensavers was the best...

[OrangeTippedGun]

I personally can't watch G4 anymore...I mean, almost all they show on that channel is Cops and Cheaters. Attack of the Show gets on my nerves cause they try to be so funny, but they just can't seem to pull it off imo. Remember before TechTV ruined themselves by merging with G4? Man, Screensavers was the best...

That's funny because G4 is more successful now than it or TechTV has ever been.

[Calsetes]

That's funny because G4 is more successful now than it or TechTV has ever been.

That's because they have Ninja Warrior and Banzuke and all those other japanese game shows that people watch because (people usually fall into one or two of the following):

1. They like to laugh at the silly Japanese people getting hurt,

2. They want to be Japanese,

3. They actually think the stuff they do is impressive.

Back when it was all technical stuff, the only people who watched it were people who said, "I want to learn more about how this 'computer' thing works. You mean that's a CD drive, and not a cup holder?" It was good, but it was catering to a somewhat small demographic. Like anyone else, they tried to expand and get bigger, and it just got out of hand and became some kind of "technology-oriented non-technological network."

At least, that's what I seem to see on it anymore - like the other guys said, nothing but Cops, Cheaters, X-Play (which has gone really far downhill), and some random Japanese game show brought over here. I don't think they even show Code Monkeys anymore, and that was somewhat decent, if a bit raunchy.

[Waki Miko Syamemaru!]

G4 is pretty much nothing but the stereotypical gamer program. I'm glad I have basic cable. The only networks I watch are Comedy Central, Discovery, and FOX News (for the lulz). I was watching it yesterday after Kendo practice and I gotta say I wanted to chuck a computer moniter at the producer's heads. Hell at one point I wanted to sell off my PS3,PSP, and DS along with all the games because it made me feel so dirty being a gamer.

To me G4 is this: "We dry hump all the new and cool games like WoW, Halo, Final Fantasy, and Gears of War. What's this? An innovative and fresh 3-party game? BLASPHEMY! It doesn't have Master Chief in it! OMGWTFCOPTER! It automatically sucks and we don't like it! Now here is a show with a buncha Japanese people gettin beat up! Ha ha ha! He's such a baka! Now its time for Adam-kun and Morgan-chan to act all wacky like! BYE-NEE!"

[RemiusTA]

Only channels i watch are Science Channel and Nickelodeon now. I used to spam Cartoon Network all day until (GASP) the bitches stopped playing cartoons. Even Kids' WB saturdays kicked the bucket.

Animation is dead. I dont know how kids survive these days. -_-;

[Calsetes]

I usually just use my TV to record episodes of stuff like Burn Notice and Monk, don't even bother going to check G4 or Cartoon Network, or even the Nicktoons channel anymore, since they've stopped showing everything good that I found to like. Hell, even Sci-Fi got all gayed up when they changed to "SyFy," to (better broaden their scope of hopeful viewers, and dispel any negative connotations that the average idiot has about science fiction." You'd think all they did was show Dr. Who 24/7 or something (which is a good show, but even then man needs breaks for eating, sleeping, and... well.... the "opposite of eating.")


Anyway, back to X-Play. It sucks. I'd rather watch that old video game gameshow that was on when I was a kid, where they had pretty much nothing but a few video game questions, competitions to who got the highest scores in a set amount of time, and at the end the winner had like 2 minutes to run through a maze getting as many games as possible (and I'm not talking about that one on Nickelodeon, this was before I had cable - back in the 80's or early 90's).

[Waki Miko Syamemaru!]

Only channels i watch are Science Channel and Nickelodeon now. I used to spam Cartoon Network all day until (GASP) the bitches stopped playing cartoons. Even Kids' WB saturdays kicked the bucket.

Animation is dead. I dont know how kids survive these days. -_-;

Thats easy, they're gettin fat and stupid in front of the gaming consols screaming into the microphone during online play while demanding from the mother that they "Get them they're goddamn chocolate milk.".

Oh how do I pray for Doomsday.

[Calsetes]

Thats easy, they're gettin fat and stupid in front of the gaming consols screaming into the microphone during online play while demanding from the mother that they "Get them they're goddamn chocolate milk.".

Oh how do I pray for Doomsday.

Very sad, yet very true.

Let's not mention the fact that most of the cartoons they DO have nowadays are all lovey-dovey touchey-feely cartoons, no transformers who are trying to kill the bad guys, no GI Joe who are trying to kill Cobra, none of that - now they just sit around and wax philosophic about how we need to save the planet and stop the bad guys without killing or otherwise hurting them. You know, because war is all about fuzzy puppies and rainbows. I don't think any shows anymore have main characters who just "die." They get hurt and are healed for the next episode, or they just don't get hurt at all.

[RemiusTA]

Very sad, yet very true.

Let's not mention the fact that most of the cartoons they DO have nowadays are all lovey-dovey touchey-feely cartoons, no transformers who are trying to kill the bad guys, no GI Joe who are trying to kill Cobra, none of that - now they just sit around and wax philosophic about how we need to save the planet and stop the bad guys without killing or otherwise hurting them. You know, because war is all about fuzzy puppies and rainbows. I don't think any shows anymore have main characters who just "die." They get hurt and are healed for the next episode, or they just don't get hurt at all.

This is hardly the problem. The problem is that they dont care anymore -- i have yet to see just genuine animation in a long time. In fact, the last animated series in the longest thats been worth anything in its weight of paper would be that Avatar series nickelodeon ran...which sounds alot like your description of a "fuzzy puppy" cartoon. Doesn't matter, it was the best non-japanese animated series i think ive watched in my entire life. Never cared for it, but sister was a fanatic of it. She had all 3 seasons on DVD, i got sick and was in bed for a week and was bored and was like "oh what the hell", popped it in my DVD player and watched the whole series in 2 days. The animation was top-notch through the whole series, there was no filler bullshit, the comedy was actually quite hilarious. Not to mention it had the most impressive fight scenes in any animated show. Ever. (Yes, im including Dragon Ball Z.) Good stuffs.

Stories dont have to murder all their characters off to be good. In fact, most of the time characters are killed off in a story to facilitiate a certian emotion about the story in general -- skilled writers can do this without killing off main characters.


I'd bitch about animation all day, but really thats not what saddens me about entertainment today. What REALLY pisses me off is what it's been replaced with -- fucking Hannah Montana and High School Musical. Entertainment is just dying. Its easier to program a cute child into being a Cash Cow into actually creating something genuine. And lets not forget that FUCKING stupid "Twilight" bullshit all these Teen dumbasses are into these days. And now every female between the ages of 15 and 23 wants to cut themselves, shop at Hot Topic and marry vampires.

Im just sad kids have no reason to wake up early on Saturday Morning anymore. Do you people realize we used to actually be AWAKE at 8:00 AM to watch television? Off the subject of children...do you realize how every celebrity and their MOTHER (yes, literately) has a "REALITY" tv show now? Everytime someone turns to or holds a conversation about a TV Show on VH1 or MTV, I die a little inside.


So yeah, my TV consists of nothing but Spongebob, Tom & Jerry, and various Science/Discovery Channel shows that show intelligent people actually advancing mankind in one way or another. However, the fact that there is no equilivent of Animaniacs or anything these days is quite sad.

[Somnia]

I used to spam Cartoon Network all day until (GASP) the bitches stopped playing cartoons.


???

Cartoon Network shows TV programs with actors now?

[Calsetes]

Stuff about what I said, and disagreeing with part of it.



Yeah, you're right. They don't need to kill off anyone, and from the little pieces of what I've seen of Avatar (I honestly haven't watched it), it's not what I'd consider "fuzzy puppy" stuff. I'm referring more to the stuff where the only conflict the characters ever experience is "oh no, NOW how will I be liked in school????" There's a sad amount of that stuff in animated form, too, mainly because as you said it's all High School Musical and Hannah Montannah and crap like that. I was just ranting and raving because I remember seeing a newer Transformers series that was pretty much all about them trying to make nice with the Decepticons, as opposed to fighting them like they were sworn enemies or something.

But yeah, I'm not sure if they even have the concept of Saturday Morning Cartoons anymore. It's kind of gone the way of the dodo.

(I like Tom and Jerry too, but the ones by Chuck Jones. No idea why, maybe it's the facial animations or something - they just seem more expressive...)


Edit: Yeah, they have live-action movies and shows, which made me say the first time I saw it "Wait, isn't it called CARTOON Network? Hooray oxymoron!" Same thing on Nicktoons too, I think - they have some show with puppets and stuff, so I guess it's just a matter of time until they have "cartoons" filmed with real live people in real live places that have NO animators whatsoever.

[Mikura]

For all the reasons listed above is why I watch anime more than anything else right now. At least there's still creative stories and great animation being done in Japan it seems. But it's practically dead here in America.

[AlephZero]

X play is so stupid all they do is bash good games plus they gave .hack//G.U. a really bad review .hack//G.U. is one of the most epic games I know and it has a really fun battle system I just love using arts on those stupid PKs I just wish that sega changed PSU skills to make them cooler

Plus Haseo is one of the coolest characters in gaming history because of how he changes and becomes a better person as the story moves on and the hairstyle for I chose for Aayla is similar to Haseos

But Anyway X play is just beyond logic for Red Ninja they just complained about the fact that the main character has no pants (no shes not Nude she has part of her clothes covering that part) and gave it a bad score

[Calsetes]

X play is so stupid all they do is bash good games plus they gave .hack//G.U. a really bad review .hack//G.U. is one of the most epic games I know and it has a really fun battle system I just love using arts on those stupid PKs I just wish that sega changed PSU skills to make them cooler

Plus Haseo is one of the coolest characters in gaming history because of how he changes and becomes a better person as the story moves on and the hairstyle for I chose for Aayla is similar to Haseos

But Anyway X play is just beyond logic for Red Ninja they just complained about the fact that the main character has no pants (no shes not Nude she has part of her clothes covering that part) and gave it a bad score

Breathe... remember to use periods every so often... they can be your friends.

But yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if they review a game based solely on watching a clip on youtube and going, "That game looks like shit. Give it a bad score, and come up with some jokes that we can use to make fun of it. I heard OJ jokes are making a comeback..."

[Waki Miko Syamemaru!]

This is hardly the problem. The problem is that they dont care anymore -- i have yet to see just genuine animation in a long time. In fact, the last animated series in the longest thats been worth anything in its weight of paper would be that Avatar series nickelodeon ran...which sounds alot like your description of a "fuzzy puppy" cartoon. Doesn't matter, it was the best non-japanese animated series i think ive watched in my entire life. Never cared for it, but sister was a fanatic of it. She had all 3 seasons on DVD, i got sick and was in bed for a week and was bored and was like "oh what the hell", popped it in my DVD player and watched the whole series in 2 days. The animation was top-notch through the whole series, there was no filler bullshit, the comedy was actually quite hilarious. Not to mention it had the most impressive fight scenes in any animated show. Ever. (Yes, im including Dragon Ball Z.) Good stuffs.

Stories dont have to murder all their characters off to be good. In fact, most of the time characters are killed off in a story to facilitiate a certian emotion about the story in general -- skilled writers can do this without killing off main characters.


I'd bitch about animation all day, but really thats not what saddens me about entertainment today. What REALLY pisses me off is what it's been replaced with -- fucking Hannah Montana and High School Musical. Entertainment is just dying. Its easier to program a cute child into being a Cash Cow into actually creating something genuine. And lets not forget that FUCKING stupid "Twilight" bullshit all these Teen dumbasses are into these days. And now every female between the ages of 15 and 23 wants to cut themselves, shop at Hot Topic and marry vampires.

Im just sad kids have no reason to wake up early on Saturday Morning anymore. Do you people realize we used to actually be AWAKE at 8:00 AM to watch television? Off the subject of children...do you realize how every celebrity and their MOTHER (yes, literately) has a "REALITY" tv show now? Everytime someone turns to or holds a conversation about a TV Show on VH1 or MTV, I die a little inside.


So yeah, my TV consists of nothing but Spongebob, Tom & Jerry, and various Science/Discovery Channel shows that show intelligent people actually advancing mankind in one way or another. However, the fact that there is no equilivent of Animaniacs or anything these days is quite sad.

Reimus. The part I underlined is how I truley feel. In fact, it's like you read my very soul. For this. I shall go into a complete and utter rant about this as soon as I get some lemonade.

*ahem*Twiligh. The name itself is true. For it has darkened the very being of the Vampire mythos and human romantization. To be a true vampire fan one must look back at the earliest stories of vampires. To name one and the greatest would be Brahm Stoker's Dracula. A dark and twisted tale that has survived countless years and is well known around the world. Another would be the movie "Dracula" starring Bella Legosi (I believe was his name it's been awhile) from the 1930s. This what vampires truley are. The undead. The bane of humanity. The dark stalker of the night who feeds on the blood of the innocent. The one who perverts the holy and feasts on the just.

Vampires cannot just simply walk about in the day without adequate protection from the sun or else they would burn "alive". They're skin does not sparkle like diamands and IT DOESN'T LOOK FUDGING PRETTY EITHER! For one thing they sure as hell don't care about is they're own immortality they just find it an added bonus for the amount of power they have. They don't get all emo and cut they're wrists and all this other emo BS because quite frankly if I hear one more god damned "Oh my life is so terrible because I live forever. Wait hold on I gotta call the WAAAAAAAAHBULANCE!". As for one thing when a vampire DOES make whoopee with a human chick the baby (and for the love of god I'm not making this up JESUSWHYDIDTHISTHINGBECOMESOGODDAMNPOPULAR!?!?!?)d oes not eat it's way out of the mother's stomach thats just repulsive. Also it reminds me too much of the Chest Burster from the Aliens movies. Whats next Twilight? Do vampires have a super form where they're hair turns a gold color? Will they're power level go over 9000? The author should get eaten alive by sharks while getting struck by lightning. God this day and age wouldn't know good entertainment if it pulled down it's pants and T-Bagged em! During the summer. With sweaty balls. And good entertainment is a hobo.

[pinkace]

I personally can't watch G4 anymore...I mean, almost all they show on that channel is Cops and Cheaters. Attack of the Show gets on my nerves cause they try to be so funny, but they just can't seem to pull it off imo. Remember before TechTV ruined themselves by merging with G4? Man, Screensavers was the best...


That's funny because G4 is more successful now than it or TechTV has ever been.


Screensavers was GOOD. the rule of TV world is, if a show is good, then it must die. That's them rules, sorry.

[Blueblur]

That X-Play review is spot on. Aside from the online mode, PSU is a terrible RPG.

[pinkace]

That X-Play review is spot on. Aside from the online mode, PSU is a terrible RPG.

That is true.

However, that is not where all the vile on this thread is coming from. The show (and the network itself) is as mass-market and common denominator-appeal as it gets. That girl that reviewed PSU, whatever her name is... she is not a gamer. She never owned or even heard of a Dreamcast. She was given a script to read. She is there for sex appeal purposes, same reason why IGN brought in Chobot and made her into the 'face' of their site. It is a cheap trick and I am not buying it. She also never owned a Dreamcast, even though she was jumping for joy at the Dux E3 booth (nice try). It is all a facade.

I can buy it that Trixie from Xbox Live is a gamer (even though she is not) and I it troubles me that Microsoft would in fact do better by putting a pretty girl on camera instead of her, but that is the vapid country we live in.

In any case, as far as reviews go, x-play is the very last place anyone should seek advice from.

[Calsetes]

In any case, as far as reviews go, x-play is the very last place anyone should seek advice from.



Not true! Don't you DARE try to ask Pong Master Fong to review a game for you - he'll just talk your ear off all day with his funny accent and complain about how much the game isn't like Pong - too many buttons, too many sticks, not enough rotary controls, too many colors....

[TecherRamen]

lmao.

[RemiusTA]

That X-Play review is spot on. Aside from the online mode, PSU is a terrible RPG.

PSU's story mode was not that bad, really. The corny shit was annoying, but aside from that the game was...decent, anyway.

Its story drove me to finish it, and as cliche as it was, it was better than most of the shit shat out today. At least, its better than ANYTHING Sonic Team has written since SA2.

[Calsetes]

The only corny thing that drove me nuts in it was towards the beginning, when you see Ethan on the hoverboard or whatever. He's screaming his head off "woo, woah, wee, yay, hahaha, woah!" but his lips, they no-a move at all. Just a bit over the top for me, but aside from that, it was overall pretty good. I never finished it though, just got to the last or next to last chapter before saying screw it.

[The_Brimada]

Reimus. The part I underlined is how I truley feel. In fact, it's like you read my very soul. For this. I shall go into a complete and utter rant about this as soon as I get some lemonade.

*ahem*Twiligh. The name itself is true. For it has darkened the very being of the Vampire mythos and human romantization. To be a true vampire fan one must look back at the earliest stories of vampires. To name one and the greatest would be Brahm Stoker's Dracula. A dark and twisted tale that has survived countless years and is well known around the world. Another would be the movie "Dracula" starring Bella Legosi (I believe was his name it's been awhile) from the 1930s. This what vampires truley are. The undead. The bane of humanity. The dark stalker of the night who feeds on the blood of the innocent. The one who perverts the holy and feasts on the just.

Vampires cannot just simply walk about in the day without adequate protection from the sun or else they would burn "alive". They're skin does not sparkle like diamands and IT DOESN'T LOOK FUDGING PRETTY EITHER! For one thing they sure as hell don't care about is they're own immortality they just find it an added bonus for the amount of power they have. They don't get all emo and cut they're wrists and all this other emo BS because quite frankly if I hear one more god damned "Oh my life is so terrible because I live forever. Wait hold on I gotta call the WAAAAAAAAHBULANCE!". As for one thing when a vampire DOES make whoopee with a human chick the baby (and for the love of god I'm not making this up JESUSWHYDIDTHISTHINGBECOMESOGODDAMNPOPULAR!?!?!?)d oes not eat it's way out of the mother's stomach thats just repulsive. Also it reminds me too much of the Chest Burster from the Aliens movies. Whats next Twilight? Do vampires have a super form where they're hair turns a gold color? Will they're power level go over 9000? The author should get eaten alive by sharks while getting struck by lightning. God this day and age wouldn't know good entertainment if it pulled down it's pants and T-Bagged em! During the summer. With sweaty balls. And good entertainment is a hobo.

Omg lol. Man you have me laughing so hard right now that I'm going to have clients I have on the phone thinking I'm laughing at them. XD

What you say is so damn true though, but the way you said it is just freakin hilarious.

[Calsetes]

http://thewastebasket.blogspot.com/2006/10/lord-byron-vampire.html

Pretty much before this novel came out, vampires were more or less werewolf-like creatures - very brutal, barbaric, almost feral and extremely violent. They made a change from beast-like man to nobility, then from there they just kinda went off in a bunch of different directions. For the most part, they went from looking like Nosferatu (from Vampire: The Masquerade or from the film Nosferatu, take your pick) to looking like Toby Maguire.

Of course, this is assuming that site is true (which I know I read something similar to that somewhere else, I think it was one of those Uncle John's Bathroom Readers). But yeah, vampires should be bloodthirsty killers, not whiny emo kids who twinkle like this guy in sunlight:

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb161/NGR_album/fma488.jpg

........He seemed so perfect as an example.

[Blueblur]

PSU's story mode was not that bad, really. The corny shit was annoying, but aside from that the game was...decent, anyway.

Its story drove me to finish it, and as cliche as it was, it was better than most of the shit shat out today. At least, its better than ANYTHING Sonic Team has written since SA2.

Well, the only games Sonic Team developed between Sonic Adventure 2's and PSU's releases were a load of crappy Sonic games, including the horrid Sonic 2006, and Billy Hatcher. Not exactly top quality material so your last point is moot.

Honestly, I could write a better plot and I'm nothing but a college undergrad.

[Waki Miko Syamemaru!]

Hell I could write a better storyline and I haven't even taken college writing courses! I'd LOVE to see how Vivienne comes back from...wherever she went. I think she ended up in Ragol (cute tie in with PSO. But I woulda LOVED if she wound up in the dimension where the SEED are spawning from. Kinda like the bad end to Half Life where you wind up in another dimension with all of these monsters with no weapons. Who knows? Honestly Sonic Team needs to go back to it's roots. Also hire a new writing staff and shit-can that 15 year old fangirl that seems to be writing the story to all the recent Sonic games. Seriously. A love triangle between Sonic, Amy, and Anise nearly made me go bald from tearing out my hair in shear frustration. That was gross man. The only saving grace of that game was Shadow jump kicking Silver upside the head. But other than that the game made me wonder.

[Kanju]

Honestly Sonic Team needs to go back to it's roots.

You mean going back to developing simplistic games that have little to no story whatsoever? That would be the best advice to give to Sonic Team.

Otherwise, that's the kiss of death. We've seen how that turned out(Sonic Heroes, Sonic 2006, PSU, etc.).

[Volcompat321]

PSU is not a bad game, it's just ran horribly.

[Waki Miko Syamemaru!]

PSU is not a bad game, it's just ran horribly.

Yea. Also where the hell are our vehicles? I enjoyed blowing the hell out of Lungas in that tank in Ep.1 story mode. I actually replayed that stage with the sound muted while playing my GTA:San Andreas OST. Fun times.

[Calsetes]

PSU is not a bad game, it's just ran horribly.

I have to agree with you. Those 060 errors for a week or two straight should really have been taken care of by Monday at the latest, but then again I'm the kind of guy who goes "holy crap we have a big issue, call someone in for overtime, like... NOW!" The content being delayed isn't so bad, but they should try to work on getting it caught back up to a reasonable amount of time behind the PC JP servers. Oh, and maybe a web campaign with some ads to get people interested in it again.

And that's just some stuff off the top of my head. Imagine if I was actually getting paid to come up with these ideas.

[Volcompat321]

I think the people that play will be the last to play. I doubt there will ever be any huge amounts of new players because they saw ad advertisement.
If SEGA wanted to, they could have had a wonderful game from the beginning, and they screwed that up, and they repeated it with PS: P.
The English/European game gets no DLC, and no character transfer. If you ask why, you wont get any GOOD reason other than Japan hates Americans, and since Europe doesn't speak Japanese they get screwed with us Americans. (just my opinion)
Truthfully, there is no valid reason why the US/EU version of either game should get left in the shadows while the game in Japan still has a HUGE amount of players compared to the US/EU version.
I could get more into this, but I've said enough, I think.

[Calsetes]

I think the people that play will be the last to play. I doubt there will ever be any huge amounts of new players because they saw ad advertisement.
If SEGA wanted to, they could have had a wonderful game from the beginning, and they screwed that up, and they repeated it with PS: P.
The English/European game gets no DLC, and no character transfer. If you ask why, you wont get any GOOD reason other than Japan hates Americans, and since Europe doesn't speak Japanese they get screwed with us Americans. (just my opinion)
Truthfully, there is no valid reason why the US/EU version of either game should get left in the shadows while the game in Japan still has a HUGE amount of players compared to the US/EU version.
I could get more into this, but I've said enough, I think.

No, I know the reality of it, just wishful thinking on my part. Who knows, maybe some day they'll just discontinue support for the PS2 version and merge the Japanese and International servers, much like how it is for 360.

But that's probably my mind playing tricks on me again, with all this "hope" and "positive outlook" stuff.

[Waki Miko Syamemaru!]

Ya know Calsetes, you should share some of my negativity. This "hope" junk will only hurt you in the long run. SoJ has no intentions of sharing the "good stuff" with us Westerners. Truthfully I'm starting to look towards signing up for Blade and Soul when it comes out. I heard them Koreans actually treat us Westerners with some respect. PSU could have been up there with WoW or FF11 but nooooo. This is our punishment for wanting to be friends with the "cool kids".

[MadDogg]

Ya know Calsetes, you should share some of my negativity. This "hope" junk will only hurt you in the long run. SoJ has no intentions of sharing the "good stuff" with us Westerners. Truthfully I'm starting to look towards signing up for Blade and Soul when it comes out. I heard them Koreans actually treat us Westerners with some respect. PSU could have been up there with WoW or FF11 but nooooo. This is our punishment for wanting to be friends with the "cool kids".

Trust me man, this is coming from someone that played both Maplestory back in 05' to 07', and Latale for a little bit when it first released, koreans treat the american/european version of their games like absolute shit, way worse then what sega pulled with blue burst and this game.

The worst offender I can think off the top of my head is cheating/hacking in maplestory. Someone cheats in our version? Those cheaters are going to run rampant, it also didn't help the GMs they hired had public working hours, so you could just hop on like 2am to 8am eastern to cheat your ass off. When we did get a half ass patched to fix cheating (our maple uses gameguard), that shit was cracked in the next week or so. Repeat the process till god knows when they felt like making a patch.

Now cheaters in the japanese maple? Holy crap man, stop the presses, this has to be taken care of ASAP. Its so damn funny how quick they hop on problems with the korean/japanese maple, you can't help but laugh. Also to keep out us dirty foreigners, the korean version requires a social security number, while the japanese version, the players or the gms catch you typing in english your ass is banned on the spot.

Its sad to say, but it is the truth. The only way american/european players are getting equal treatment is playing the games we make, a.k.a. World of warcraft, city of heroes, etc.

[Volcompat321]

[SPOILER-BOX]Trust me man, this is coming from someone that played both Maplestory back in 05' to 07', and Latale for a little bit when it first released, koreans treat the american/european version of their games like absolute shit, way worse then what sega pulled with blue burst and this game.

The worst offender I can think off the top of my head is cheating/hacking in maplestory. Someone cheats in our version? Those cheaters are going to run rampant, it also didn't help the GMs they hired had public working hours, so you could just hop on like 2am to 8am eastern to cheat your ass off. When we did get a half ass patched to fix cheating (our maple uses gameguard), that shit was cracked in the next week or so. Repeat the process till god knows when they felt like making a patch.

Now cheaters in the japanese maple? Holy crap man, stop the presses, this has to be taken care of ASAP. Its so damn funny how quick they hop on problems with the korean/japanese maple, you can't help but laugh. Also to keep out us dirty foreigners, the korean version requires a social security number, while the japanese version, the players or the gms catch you typing in english your ass is banned on the spot.

Its sad to say, but it is the truth. The only way american/european players are getting equal treatment is playing the games we make, a.k.a. World of warcraft, city of heroes, etc.[/SPOILER-BOX]

This supports my theory that Japans hate Americans/Europeans, huh?

[Waki Miko Syamemaru!]

Wooooooow holy crap. And yea I do remember when I was playin MS that during a contest the winner was a well known hacker at the time. Also some of the people were infamous for they're KSing. Jesus, them foreigners sure do hate us! But saddens me is that even with PS:P we still get shafted. I mean, we aren't THAT bad.

Also for those of you who have played FF11, how is it? I mean aside for the whole "Gotta pay 20 dollars extra in order to properly play the damn game". I'm talking about how does SE treat they're western audiences?

[Calsetes]

They treat their Western audiences the same way as their Eastern ones, as it's all on one series of servers (not like PSU with their "Japanese PC, Non-Japanese PC, and International 360" stuff), which means if they screw one section of the world, they screw them all.

Plus, Square knows that if they add "Final Fantasy" to ANYTHING they make, roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of their total sales of said thing will come from outside Japan, so they keep it well-maintained for that reason. They can't have rumors of them spreading that they make shoddy stuff (oh, and they re-re-re-released some Final Fantasy game for the umpteen-trillionth time today, better go buy it and see the 4 pixels they changed in it from the original!)


Edit: I actually found one of those free games that's set up a bit like Maple Story (where it's 2d action), but with less of a super-deformed look to it called LaTale. Apparently it was out for a while from one company (that I heard treats it like crap), but another company, Aeria Games, has it in Beta right now. Pretty fun.

[Somnia]

Also for those of you who have played FF11, how is it? I mean aside for the whole "Gotta pay 20 dollars extra in order to properly play the damn game". I'm talking about how does SE treat they're western audiences?


Not too bad. Often, they will release patch notes in Japanese slightly before English, or will make a critical bad translation somewhere. Doesn't sound too bad, until you see that the JP players already got a jump start on buying the items you'll need and drove the price up.

Maintenance hours are almost never during JP time. Typically during Euro prime time.
Sometimes they'll schedule the maintenance so that world bosses respawn timers are conveniently in in the JP's favor. (Benefit of the doubt that this is unintentional)

Can't think of anything else. None of that stuff is nearly as bad as it sounds. Certainly not as bad as waiting for months to get content, only to not get all of it or have certain things changed.

[Waki Miko Syamemaru!]

They treat their Western audiences the same way as their Eastern ones, as it's all on one series of servers (not like PSU with their "Japanese PC, Non-Japanese PC, and International 360" stuff), which means if they screw one section of the world, they screw them all.

Plus, Square knows that if they add "Final Fantasy" to ANYTHING they make, roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of their total sales of said thing will come from outside Japan, so they keep it well-maintained for that reason. They can't have rumors of them spreading that they make shoddy stuff (oh, and they re-re-re-released some Final Fantasy game for the umpteen-trillionth time today, better go buy it and see the 4 pixels they changed in it from the original!)


Edit: I actually found one of those free games that's set up a bit like Maple Story (where it's 2d action), but with less of a super-deformed look to it called LaTale. Apparently it was out for a while from one company (that I heard treats it like crap), but another company, Aeria Games, has it in Beta right now. Pretty fun.

Yea I used to play LaTale by OGPlanet (who hosted it) and the game was treated like the black sheep of the family. The only games it treated like gold was Cabal. Fun game but was riddled with PKers. I have to try out the Aeria version. Aeria games always took good care of they're stuff along with it's audience. Also its a shame that FF11 never came out for the PS3. I'm sure it woulda found a great audience.

Oh and Calsetes are you talking about Final Fantasy 4: The After Years? I saw a movie of it and was disgusted. It sounded like a college sitcom or something. The onlything SE re-released was Chrono Trigger for the DS.

BTW I was watching X-Play for the first time in a year. Let's just say I kept shaking my head. Madness I say. Madness.

[Calsetes]

Nah, I was talking about FF4, which was on SNES, then put on PS1, then put on GBA, then put on DS (and that's just 4, let's not get into any of the others). To me, they're just milking Final Fantasy for anything and everything it's worth - slap it on a game or movie and people will buy it because it's Final Fantasy, and therefore immediately good.

Ironically enough, while I have grown to dislike, maybe even hate Final Fantasy stuff, only one thing is worth it that I can stand (and will probably get nothing but scorn for me in the eyes of its fans), and that's the original Final Fantasy movie - the one made in the US. Yeah, it has nothing to do with Final Fantasy, but that's probably why I like it - it's like Ghostbusters meets Starship Troopers or something. But whatever, to each his own.

[RemiusTA]

Square Enix doesn't fuck over their playerbase. Ever. If anything, they add in more content when they release stuff outside the country, looking at the international version of FFX released in the EU and such.

The only thing SE does that pisses people off is simply deny us certain things. Like the KH1/KH2 Final Mix series, or the FFX-2 International series. They brought over KH:Re COM, but not the final mix that came with it. Square simply enjoys being a respected name when it comes to what they do. Either that, or they just have the money to throw around to assure it gets here how its supposed to.

They dont do stupid shit like release Expansion discs for PS2 that features Voice Acting during the cutscenes, but on the american/EU version the mouths move but no sounds come out.

[Calsetes]

I'm summarizing and paraphrasing what you said:


Square Enix doesn't fuck over their playerbase. Ever.

They do good things like releasing the same game 6 different times to the same people with the same stuff in the game, except that the sprite for character A now has 17 different colors as opposed to the original 15, and doing that with every single Final Fantasy-related game.

Yeah, you do make a very good point. I know I'd love buying the same game several times so I can see that one scene they added that has 15 seconds of unseen footage that I can't find off of Youtube or something.

(Don't take this as an attack on you, it's more an attack on Square - really, do we need 6 different versions of FF6? Aren't the previous 5 games enough of the same?)


Edit: I saw this on Gamestop from a link from Gamefaqs, some lady was trying to file a class-action lawsuit against Square for 5 million in damages, because her FFXI characters got deleted and Square didn't tell her she had to continuously pay fees every 3 months to prevent said characters from being deleted until AFTER opening and agreeing to the game's terms. I made a comment on the story saying it won't work because:

1. They'll use the same excuse they use with RMT and such - it's their game, their data, their everything, you just pay for access to the servers, you "own" nothing.

2. They have that "Return to Vana'diel" thing on a pretty permanent basis, meaning you pay a fee and get your stuff back. No harm, no foul.

[MadDogg]

Oh man do not get me started on kingdom hearts. Ok, its one thing if a region gets added stuff like, a measly little optional boss or a couple of items. But when they start adding more damn story to a rpg a.k.a. kingdom hearts 1 and 2 final mixes, that pisses me the hell off. Whats even crazier is that kingdom hearts sells the most in america, you would think they would throw us a bone and give us the final mixes like how capcom gave everyone devil may cry 3 special edition. Man those international versions piss me off so much lol.

Whats even more hilarious, those final mixes has english voice acting in them, come on man...

[RemiusTA]

FF6 was only released 3 times. SNES, PSX, GBA. I still havent played it, though.

If you're talking about FF7...well, Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core, and Advent Children are all separate entities. Only one of those ive actually gotten would be FF7 itself and Advent children off the internet.

Square Enix badly they milks the Fanservice market, they do exceptionally well with it. FFX-2 could almost be viewed as Fanservice, but it had the best damn battle engine out of the entire series. It may be annoying, but the fact stands that recently, all of their games have been worth playing.

...unless its a GBA/DS remake or re-release. I usually stray away from those, regardless of how good they are.


Whats even more hilarious, those final mixes has english voice acting in them, come on man...

Im guessing that was just a huge plus for them, as much as we would view it if we were allowed to play in japanese. Although i dont know why any of us would, the English voice acting on Kingdom Hearts was 10 million times better than in japanese, simply because the ORIGINAL disney characters got casted to do the part. (exception of the bigger celebs, like robin williams for Genie.)

[Calsetes]

Alright, see my original point of "slap Final Fantasy on it and watch it sell." Just because it has Final Fantasy slapped on as a part of the title doesn't mean it's good, it just means they're using the equivalency method - "Final Fantasy is good, therefore this game with Final Fantasy in the title must also be good." For some people, it works. For others, not so much.

Anyway, I guess we agree to disagree, nothing wrong with that. I just hate most of what they put out now is a Final Fantasy remake, somehow relates to Final Fantasy 7, is a Final Fantasy game that's extremely similar to the other 12 released so far, or something along those lines. Then again, maybe that's why I've started to "outgrow" it, in a sense - I like a story that has a start and an end, and if it's a sequel or a prequel, make it relate to the others (like that new Star Ocean - played maybe an hour of it, then BAM! - two references to other Star Ocean games that aren't outlandish stretches of the imagination.)

[MadDogg]

Yeah, I know how it is with final fantasy lately. I've been playing final fantasies since part 1 on nintendo, and I actually enjoyed them all up to part 9, yep thats right, I actually liked part 8 too, even though I never replayed that one. Part 10 on up is when I started to get, ummmm...yeah.

I don't know, I wasn't feelin' the cast at all with final fantasy 10, to me, a rpg's cast is the most important thing, battle system 2nd, story 3rd. Every single character in 10 besides auron, I wanted to punch them in the face. And part 12, I'm sorry man, but I have a limit on how god damn pretty a dude can be. Cloud was ok, squall was whatever, zidane is like lolz holy crap a monkey that is a pimp, tidus was pushin' the envelope in boy bandness, but god dammit man, I swear I thought to god that thing in final fantasy 12 was a chick. Every single friggin' character in that game is so damn pretty, like they all are a bunch of models for playboy/playgirl.

Surprisingly I'm actually waiting for final fantasy 13. A female main plus a potential black guy love interest? Hell that alone is already breaking the stereotypical final fantasy, hell, japanese rpg cliche. Can't wait to see how this game is going to play out. Lets just hope they don't make the female main a walking pile of emotional love mush towards the end up the game.

[Waki Miko Syamemaru!]

Gruh! THat would suck if Lightning ended up a "Damsel in distress". I mean from what I hear she is a bit manly. Thats right. Manly. She walks away from explosions without even looking back. She whups arse without even thinking twice about it. If applicable, she'd have a "Nut Crunch" ability. FF13 maybe a saving grace after the torture that was 12. And I bought the limited edition to FF12. What a waste. If I see another odd spelling of "Magic" I'd go nuts and rip out all my hair. It seriously got annoying. "Oh the magicks in this sword blah blah blah Mr.Freeman!". No. Stop it. NOW!

[Calsetes]

Yeah, I played 1 on NES, 7, and 8. I attempted to play 10, but said screw it about halfway through when you learn vital plot things about the main character and his homeland. I just said "HE'S A WHAT?!?!!?!? Screw this crap, I'm gonna go play something that's not totally retarded." I've adopted a "wait and see" approach to them now - I'll rent it first, then buy it only if it's a bargain bin game that I like.