It depends, I guess. Having played the first two when I played Y3, it was certainly a really cool dynamic to see Kazuma acting as a father figure to this motley little group of kids. It probably made me care more than I would have otherwise, if Y3 were my first game in the series or something.
Seeing him get some level of peace after the first two games (despite the punks you constantly have to beat up :P ) was different and interesting to me, and dealing with the kids never came off as a chore in my eyes.
I think it's one of those cases where you just have to approach it almost as a point-and-click adventure game in a way, not expecting explosive action, but rather character development and a more laid-back atmosphere.
It might just not be for some people, and that's perfectly understandable.

You guys are either retarded or former bully victims. Kids with gay parents = constant and easy target. Bullyin the likes of poor kids is situation specific, bullyin Muslims isn't likely to have as much effect due to the chances of there being much more than one at the school, kids with difficulties are usually in 'special' classes and generally don't interact with everyone else as they have different schedules.

Kids with gay parents though... How many does anyone here know? Chances are, they'd be the only one at their school who has, as it'll take a good few generations before there's a large enough number of them.

I don't care what anyone says, it's flat out unfair on the child. You can argue the fuck all you want about gay people having rights n shit, fair enough, I don't have a problem with that, but kids? You can't honestly condemn one to an absolute certainty of constant bullying throughout their childhood. Peeps say every kid gets bullied anyway, and that's bullshit. Only bully victims say that.

I usually joke about and say that anyone who opposes my opinion is automatically wrong, but in this case it's true, and if you think otherwise, then you really need to re-evaluate your bedroom level knowledge of society and social hierarchy.

Seriously, some of the self-righteous bullshit on the internet about how socially inept idiots reckon the world should be is flat out ridiculous, and is really startin to grind my fucking gears.

Actually when I was teaching I had a fair number or children being raised by gay couples. For the most part I haven't seen much bullying, but homosexuality is mostly accepted here. Even so, saying gay people shouldn't have kids, because those kids will be bullied is like saying women who get raped were asking for it by being women. No matter how many people try to accept it, its not right. Also depending on the household, it could be the best thing to ever happen to a child that was born from a druggie and a rapist, or through incest. Allowing responsible adults raise a child should never be an issue and in my experience hasn't been.

Beyond that, I have been bullied for being a short, bisexual, nerd, Carib with light skin. I got bullied because I was smaller, and because I was "gay", and because of my hobbies, and snooty white kids hated me for being an "injun" while dumb black kids called me a "honky". Even so I don't think I'd ever change it, I wasn't a victim, I took what happened and let it make me stronger. The biggest thing I got out of it is that I stopped caring about what I thought the world should be, and started caring about what I think it is. Understanding hardship allows a person to speak from experience, granted its important to stay objective and fix the problem, it is not an automatic detractor from a person's input, they may still be able to see the situation rationally and be able to do good.

If I let social norms dictate how I live my life, I'd have let that Spaniard prick beat me to death in Condado. I resist the things I see as wrong not only for my own sake but for those around me.

at the end of the day, you can say I'm wrong, but I've dealt with these issues first hand, and seen good come of it, I've got experience.

All of it comes down to an assumption. Do you know for certain kids will be bullied?

Of course he does. The same way people knew desegregating the army was going to break down cohesion in the unit/be the harbinger of our destruction. The same way people knew allowing gays to enlist openly in her majesty's royal army and years later in the US army was going to break down cohesion in the unit/be the harbinger of our destruction. The same way people knew allowing gays to marry, have the same rights as everyone else and even adopt children was going to be a disaster when it went down in Britain. There really isn't any need for any of us to debate further. Trying to convince Mittens otherwise may as well be as successful as trying to convince Dorian to adopt a chipper attitude towards life. :P

Its okay Mitts, I understand where you're coming from. I understand that you're taking into account what you've seen, where you live and your heart is in the right place, with the kids themselves.

I care about the little ones too, and while I have different experiences and perhaps have just been lucky I've always thought that an active approach was necessary. I understand you want to shield them from the bullying, but instead of removing them from the situation, I wish to remove the situation, and if unable, teach them to shield themselves.

Dorian wrote:Ironically, tri-Ace was forced to help with FFXIII-2 because of financial troubles.

Knowing things like this keeps me up at night.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtWGCxqrjJU[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWEWCWljaBU[/youtube]

Thats why i feel that Shenmue III done on its original engine, and released as DLC would be the cheapest and most efficent way to go. Much more of a realistic approach, but still one that gets neglected.

I think I'm one of those people who doesn't really like playing video games all that much. I love them, but the actual gameplay is not the most important thing to me. I like atmosphere and design... and I tend to have fun in ways very different than most people. It's sort of why Shenmue is the perfect game for me.

I'm posting too many random and pointless posts right now. It's because I'm procrastinating. Time to get off of the dojo and go do some work.

What the hell are you proposing to create? Mitts you should know this aint ever gonna happen, we've seen it a hundred times or more.

Who is Bysby and why is he a mod?

A very old and respected member.

What websites are these, and what is it you actually do?

gay porn?

Fucking anonymous have hacked GoDaddy shutting down sites I run for people. May have lost me a customer as well. Pricks.

They do waaay more harm then good.

I didn't expect it initially, but Tanimura may have ended up as my favorite character to play as in the game. I'd love to see more of him in the series, but it's kind of iffy since he's modeled after a real person. Image-licensing issues and all that. Be nice if Hiroki Narimiya wanted to come back at some point in the future.

But yeah, you're playing likely my favorite in the series. This is the whole reason I have such high hopes for Y5, since Y4 is already so damn big and complex and involved, and the next game is supposed to be even bigger.

^That game looks really good.

I bought:

I might not mind it so much if it actualy came off as a cultural thing. But instead it comes off as an incredibly odd attempt at sudden redemption for these characters, which just doesn't really work in the wake of all the rest of the guys that Kenshiro has plowed through and brutally dispatched.
Actually, that's one of the things I love most about the show; Kenshiro's usual cold-bloodedness when it comes to the majority of his enemies. He's not one of these new-age, politically correct "spare the villain, because I won't stoop to his level!" kinds of heroes (which I've been booing since I was a kid). If you're a bad guy and Kenshiro knows it, he will fuck you up and make your damn head explode.
And because I love that about him so much, it was just disappointing to see him being forgiving to a select few of them, especially when they were usually the worst ones of all.
Still absolutely love the show, I was just disappointed with those parts.

Seriously can't decide on launch games. Darksiders 2, Sega Racing 2, Mario Wiiu (I have a soft spot for Yoshi), Zombiu, and Ninja Gaiden 3
Earn a little cash suck some dick get them all everybody wins...except some of those men might give you a cold sore....hmmmm
I'm getting the 32GB Wii U and so far Wii U is really stepping up to the plate I'm pretty excited too. When I get a job I'll definitely pick one up.


The Wii U storage media is confirmed to be Blu-ray based and support up to 25 GB of data per disc, at 22.5 MB/s data transfer rate. Nintendo might reveal more Wii U specs tomorrow at the event in New York. Here's hoping that means it will play Blurays too. I mean, only PS3 does right now so they'd be silly not to. (Course, they were silly not to let Wii play DVDs.)
No it won't Nintendo doesn't like to pay license fee's. Also remember Wii discs were not DVD but Wii Optical media. Wii U will also be proprietary. Good thing is like Wii I bet homebrew let's you play blu ray like DVD on Wii.
Looking at the launch window this might be one of the better launch lineup in quite some time. Sure some are ports but ports of some good games. Also very varied. Are you more the casual type? They have some of those for that/ Are you more of the Call of Duty type they got that also. Are you just in for varied genres like Action Adventure sports strategy (well sorta but not really) Horror? RPG? It's there at launch.

I think Nintendo finally got it where they failed with 3DS,DS,Wii, GCN and N64. Yeah all those had a weak launch.
Hope they talk about monolith's game soon.
http://s14.postimage.org/vrdwmomgx/combo_breaker.jpg

God I miss Japan!

Its possible the reason they keep bringing up GWAFIX is because they're planning to bring it over and hype that feature. Hate to say it but when it comes to the West we're kinda gullible when it comes to that.
I been avoiding Demon Souls as to me it looks like a blatant attempt to be an overly serious gritty game trying to appeal to a western crowd. Visually dull to me and I just keep hearing they made it so hard just for the sake of it however I remember From Software always makes tough games. So people are whimpering because they forget how tough games used to be.

Nah, I think I said it once before, its the same extremely Japanese game From has been putting out for years. The thing is most people never played stuff like Evergrace and king's Field so this is like super new to them, then again that ties into the whole gullible thing. Like "I haven't seen it so its new to me" even if stuff like it is easy to find most people won't bother going back and playing older (sometimes better) versions of the same game.

Whatever happened to these colours?

I recently went for a short break on the Isle of Wight, there are a few cool game shops over there which i visited, i bought a brand new dreamcast and i also picked up 4 games for my collection, these were; Test Drive 2: The Duel, Skeleton Crew, Record of Lodoss War & Looney Toons space race.

http://shenmue-uk.com/Cars/NewDreamcast.jpg
Brand new DC, sexy! Note the colour difference on the second controller connection, one of the controllers from my old console. The Whole console was yellowed to fuck.

http://shenmue-uk.com/Cars/NewGamesAugust2012.jpg

Test Drive 2: The Duel (Genesis) - I picked this up on a whim, i dident go out my way to find this game, but saw it sitting there on the shelf and it jumped out at me because i used to rent it when i was a kid so nostalgia made me buy it, was very risky at a fiver lol i was actually pleasently surprised, it was better than i remember it being! i love the fact its one of the very first "driving sims" rather than arcade racer, as you get an in car view with steering wheel and gauges, and rather than circuits its open road (like the first NFS) with a rival car, traffic, roadside cops and the need to stop for Gas! superb cheap buy.

Skeleton Crew (Megadrive) - another impulse buy just out of curiosity, more risky at a tenner, but i saw the "Core" logo and knew it couldent be bad. Turns out this is an awesome game, Isometric shooter with co-op mode or single player. Pumping soundtrack and lots of action, how had i not played or heard of this before? it has made me want to go out and buy "The Chaos Engine" on Megadrive, otherwise known as "Soldiers of Fortune" to your Americans, made by Bitmap Brothers so has got to be good (and it does look and sound excellent from video's ive seen)

Record of Lodoss War - This was on my "wants" , think i paid about £15 but was well worth it, was just as good as i remember it being 10 years ago, an awesome action rpg, am loving it again!

Looney Toons space race - Only ever played this as a Demo back in the day of ODM & loved it, always wanted the full version. Finally picked it up for a tenner , bargain IMO ive seen it go for more on Ebay, top game aswell, not disapointed at all with this one either.

Good haul this time round, very pleased. Its nice to actually go out and buy games in a shop for a change rather than ebay, and nice to buy retro games in a shop. Ashame GAME ruined GameStation by taking away their retro, i really miss browsing retro stuff. Love the Independants, but they are hard to find.

Dorian wrote: I can't decide between Yakuza: Dead Souls and DMC HD Collection. Any thoughts?

Capcom don't need the money.

To be fair though, the Wii had a lot of shovelware. Then again, so did the DS and that's one of the best gaming systems I've ever owned.

Just canceled my Wiiu pre order and I'll be getting an iPhone 5. Nothing interests me on it other then Pikmin 3 and that won't be out for a few months. I'll most likely get the Wiiu on the day Pikmin comes out or soon after.

This whole iPhone v Wiiu debate is ridiculous anyway. They are two separate things one's a games console and ones a phone/mp3 player. It's like debating that people who buy a new mattress this year aren't real fans of freezers.

The fact that you missed the point makes this a bit comical. The stories I keep telling have to do with people not buying a Wiiu because its not a big enough change from current gen consoles and isn't a big upgrade over the wii.

But an iphone 5 is nominally different in terms of hardware and even features. Its mostly aesthetically different.

So its like saying "Man this new thing is just like this old thing, so I'm going to buy this new other thing thats almost exactly like the one I have"

(for future reference I don't think Nintendo or the wiiu is infallible, I'm just really excited for the launch since its shaping up pretty well. I'm worried about what comes after the launch window. i've pretty much abandoned the ps3, 360 and especially wii for pc gaming,so a new console that looks like it'll get a lot of exclusives in interesting to me. )

@Riku

Well both are tech with similar price points and based in entertainment. Yea they don't directly compete, they do have buyers that are overlapping.

Its the general hypocrisy that I'm pointing out, and it exists. People saying "Don't waste money on games" then buying sneakers, or saying the wiiu isn't a meaningful upgrade and buying a new iphone.

Like said before you're not saying you won't get one because its stupid, but you want the game you want for it. (i also though you bought more iOS stuff because i remember one time we were talking about you trying to offload some iphones you got a hold of)

Yes, they are idiots and they make the economy as shitty as it is with their over-blown egos and pettiness.

Erm... buying things actually works in favor of the economy...

Well for us as Americans it doesn't mean much since Foxconn is underpaying foreign workers to make em. A majority of that money is actually getting removed from our economy which is hurting it pretty bad.

Yeaaaa but distributors make a very small piece of the pie. Retail and shipment workers often make minimum wage or slightly above, even if they were pulling in tons of money, not much of it makes it down to middle class workers. In order to spend more money those are the people that need to have disposable income.

The other problem with what you've said is that unemployment rates are going up.

The vast majority of the money being made on stuff like iphones, ipads, heck even consoles and sneakers isn't getting put back into the American economy(or even Europeon), and aren't helping to build South American, African or the Chinese economy. Its a lot of rich people putting money in their pockets.

Game companies are the same, if a big publisher fails and loses money, executives don't take a pay cut, they make layoffs even if the reason for failure was an executive decision.

Big business demonizes itself, doesn't really need much help.

(if you need proof theres tons of articles and lawsuits against walmart, gamestop and other retailers over cost of living)

I'm not trying to debate as I know diddly poo about economics and this was years ago I heard it but people relying to much on credit cards really hurt economy. Remember Credit Cards are fake money. It's just saying I will pay you later..hopefully. Now with gas prices going up and food prices and pay checks are staying the same it's harder for people to buy with actual money. People buying iPhones and Wii U are rarely dropping a few bills on a table but a piece of plastic.

Dorian wrote:

nzk0 wrote: I just just started playing Yakuza 4 for and so far so good, I hope it'll be as good as Yakuza 3

As good?

It's way better.

ohhhh yayyy Ive been playing it for a few hours now. Time for a break

You know, now that I think about it, all three of this gen's western Yakuza releases have already provided me with nostalgia (or, at the very least, memories that will eventually become nostalgia).
With Y3, 4, and Dead Souls, I can very clearly remember getting up early, buying them on release day, making lunch while the install process goes on, playing them as much as I could before work, all the way through to the days (usually sometime in the morning) that I would end up beating them. It really only just dawned on me now, but most current gen releases didn't do that for me. I remember the games themselves, of course, but I don't necessarily have fond memories of what was going on while I was playing them.
The Yakuza releases (and Binary Domain as well) all gave me that sort of "Christmas morning" sense of excitement at finally getting to play them all, kind of like how I can still remember my first time playing MGS or Wonder Boy in Monster World.
That's something special.

May I just say that this might be the greatest thread I've ever seen on a forum. You guys rock, and it's nice to be able to post again.

Yes they want to attract more gamers buy ignoring the Millions who own a 360/PS3/PC and of course the people who bought the first game.

Just finished watching Donnie Darko for the first time, whoa.

Dorian wrote:

When I see weird stuff and it's in Japan I'm not even amazed anymore, it just seems absolutely ANYTHING is possible there lol

That's because the Yakuza team (which is pretty much the Shenmue team, or rather what's left of it) makes games for... FUN. Not that they don't want to cash on them. Of course they want to! But they want to earn the cash fairly. You know, doing their best given the time and budge and actually appreciating the gaming culture with in-game treats. Not like... say... creating interactive movies that mask their true identity with pseudo-artistic nonsense about human emotions and lies about reinventing the wheel. Ironically, the Yakuza games feature far more human drama than something like Heavy Rain. Maybe that's because SEGA actually takes the effort to hire genuine writers instead of relying on self-appointed scribblers? Just sayin'.

It's amazing to me how the Yakuza games can exist in the west. It almost seems like they just want to make the fans happy as if it was a passion for them. I don't have any numbers but I doubt these games sell well here.

They make the games how they like it and don't try to please a western audience or anything, something which is very rare these days. It seems most developers just want to make money and that's it (see the rising P2P or F2P Item mall model, or even RMAH that was in Diablo 3) pure crap just to make money.

Bluecast wrote: http://gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=185545


Broken Wii U Gamepads will be replaced for free

Fee not free

Because vegetarians act like they are better than everyone else.

The minority do and minorities are often loud and seem like they are the majority. Most black guys don't steal either. Most gays don't want to advertise it. Most short people don't have a chip on their shoulder. Most religious people don't act like protesting nut jobs. It's easy to make assumptions based on small but loud groups.

Was writing a melody in the Dorian mode... thought of this place.

I admit I laughed out loud.

I thought I was going to have to woop your ass Dorian, I thought it sad badness for a second, not badass.

^Pretty much. I'm honestly surprised that Orange thinks that looks like Kaneko, like at all . It doesn't. In the least. It's actually Masayuki Doi; the artist for the Trauma Centre series, definitely. And yeah, his art is fine there since he isn't trying to do an (frankly terrible) imitation of another artist in those games. I wouldn't mind the change in art style, as much, if Doi was employing a new style instead of imitation. I'm not a fan of the actual designs of them either...like Segata said, they're very modern anime-like.

I honestly think at this stage that Kaneko has either: A) left Atlus (you've got to be shitting me if you think Kaneko wouldn't work on a mainline SMT title). Or B) Atlus has other projects up there sleeve, such as a new Devil Summoner game, which Kaneko is heading the art on. I so hope it's the latter, since the thought of Doi simply replacing Kaneko just sucks. I'm all for giving the new guy a job, but shoving the lead artist of the series away like that to make room for the new guy, (Kaneko has been at the company since the beginning) is kind of nasty. Or maybe Kaneko flat out refused to help make the game, not liking what the team has in mind? Guess we'll never know. Either way, major blow to the series, to be sure.

As far the game goes, I like that they're trying to strive for the best of both worlds by combining both third person exploration and first person combat. I'd even go as far as to say that the environments look absolutely incredible. The music is also brilliant. A shame they're cutting corners with the certain factors when it comes to presentation; animations of the demons (static one moment then massive shaking, the next, guess I'll get used to it). I'm a bit worried about the storyline being really anime inspired at this stage. No offence to Persona, they're great too, but I like to draw the line between the mainline SMT and Persona, it would be the same if Persona suddenly changed dramatically. They're both great series, but ultimately different.

I'm sure I'll like the game, Atlus have never let me down, I really like the settings and music, but at this stage, it'll take a lot for me to love it .

I don't want to keep going on like a negative nancy, but those terrible anime artworks will be the cutscenes of the game. So it's not like it won't be a factor into the presentation of the game.

And I still don't see how Doi's art is anywhere near Kaneko's, not on quality (I actually think Doi is good; not when he's imitating Soejima or Kaneko, though) but in similarity. Doi isn't using the same techniques at all, he's just sort of trying to imitate (badly), whilst also trying to do his own style at the same time, and it is pretty jarring to me. Doi's art doesn't try to convey the same disturbed look on the character's faces (look at the "villain" of SMT4, he doesn't look disturbed or anything of the sort, he just looks plain evil), look at the Demi-Fiend and compare him to the main protagonist of SMT4; it's a stark difference. Night and day, really. I also miss Kaneko's vibrant colour palette vs. Doi's monotonous colours. The big close ups of the demons make them look ugly, too. Aesthetics of the series are part and parcel of why I like this series so much, if the artist is gone, it won't be long till I stop giving a shit about it.

As far as Kaneko goes, the guy's gone from Atlus, no doubt about it. It's an end of an era, but it's no use crying over spilt milk, the damage is done and I've got to live with it. Oh well.

It's to me, like the soul of Shin Megami Tensei is gone now. It'll more than likely be a great fun game to play, but the themes will probably be shallow (by the looks of the anime inspired storyline and cliche characters; time travelling, oooh, that isn't overdone in JRPGs, or anything; the only positive will be the variety of beautiful environments we'll get) and the art mediocre.

I like apple cider. Just felt everyone should know that.

Oh I've got to be on topic? uhhh well. Regardless of if his tools changed or ir if his fingers got cut off, or if he had some kind of epiphany. His TOOLS changed, which is to be expected.

Personally I'm down with the 80/90s anime look because it was more vibrant to me.

How bout now?

So there were two things on my mind.

The first is Japanese games; I was listening to the Japanese version of the Dragon's dogma OP. I'll give Capcom this much, just like Sengoku Basara 3 used T.M.Revolution's English vocals, the English version has B'z singing in English. Now we have a bit of a problem, why make a Japanese band sing a Japanese song in English? Its hard to even understand whats being said and for the most part its gibberish. Why? Dragon's Dogma (like Dark Souls and Xanadu) is similar to many RPGs made in the west and even started with a western idea. Thing is, you still have a Japanese band performing the intro song that has lyrics. Which leads me to my point. Be Japanese. The west is the west, trying to be like the west is pointless. So many Japanese studios keep trying to make these games that appeal to westerners but in the end they often fall flat because they are neither distinctly Eastern or Western. The Japanese often pride themselves on taking ideas and making them better, that is perhaps its olden tradition and it should be no different for gaming. Take the ideas that are being introduced and instead of trying to copy them, make them better. We got stuff like Record of Lodoss War, Final Fantasy, and ESPECIALLY Shin Megami Tensei from games like DnD, Ultima and Wizardry and I think if Capcom threw its support behind Dragon's Dogma and decided to evolve the genre it could be something special, instead its mostly half cooked ideas taken from other games with the original ideas muddled and hidden by bugs or straight up bad decisions.

The other thing that will inevitably make this a massive wall of text is teaching in games. So many games suck at it. I'm pretty sure a few of you guys got stuck in Arkham city because you forgot how to slide, theres no shame alot of people have. The reason why is simple, they never drill it in. You do it once as part of a tutorial and thats that. Instead you should do it a few times, get used to it and then keep it relevant by adding it once or twice to every "dungeon". Zelda is no different. Fi in is so completely useless because she'll tell you how to press a button but won't tell you button combinations. Rolling a damn bomb requires 2 motions and a button press, why tell the player after its necessary to use this? While searching for the Earth Temple Link needs to roll a bomb across some bones and explode a platform. Fi does not tell you how to roll bombs there? NONONO, instead she teaches you to roll bombs when you reach a hill which is beyond the bone bridge. This isn't a puzzle, its obscurity. The player isn't properly taught what powers they have, and they have no real guide for experimentation. Hitting every button shouldn't be the way to figure out a puzzle. Lets take, Lufia as an example. it has puzzle and specific items for use in dungeons, however the item is a one button thing. You can say "I placed a bomb here" you don't need to worry about rolling, throwing or anything like that until the game specifically gives you a power to do that, and often the game makes you use that power to get out of the room. Metroid is good for that as well. Games now seem to have lost that. Not to say every old game used it, but today's games are terrible at teaching and often offer tons of tutorials that don't really teach or offer lasting advice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh_t2fFF3B0
Captain Picard can act his way out of being buried alive.
He can deflect missiles out of the sky with his bold philosophical statements.
He never got controlled by the Borg. He controlled the Borg with his acting. (for real though)

"He is... the most interesting man in Space."
"I dont always act well, but when I do, Im Captain Picard of the USS enterprise"
"Stay sober my friends"