Messages

1581

Gaming Discussion / Re: So school me on Vagrant Story.

« on: May 09, 2012, 01:20:37 pm »

If it's based on the English translation, then yeah, that would explain why it sucked.  It was a step up from the train wreck that was BOFII, but not by much.  And again, the text speed...  gah.

1582

Gaming Discussion / Re: So school me on Vagrant Story.

« on: May 09, 2012, 01:14:47 pm »

BOFIII was...  yeah, I liked BOFII better.  And BOFIV is probably my favorite of the series.  Never finished Dragon Quarter, but it does some interesting stuff.

1583

Gaming Discussion / Re: So school me on Vagrant Story.

« on: May 09, 2012, 12:55:54 pm »

Just do so on an emulator with a fast forward button, or with that patch that lets you fast-forward the text. 'cuz seriously, goddamn.

Agreed on that.  It and Breath of Fire III are two of the worst offenders in that regard.  Except Xenogears has many, many more reams of text.

EDIT:  Speaking of BOFIII, is there a patch out there for it as well?  I'd love to finish that off someday.

1584

Gaming Discussion / Re: Phantasy Star poll

« on: May 09, 2012, 12:54:47 pm »

Agreed on that.  It seemed highly competent, to be sure.  It is, overall, a much better game than its imitators.  Heck, I just finished Star Odyssey, as most of y'all know, and while PSIII is much maligned, it's a much better game overall.  The plot was crazy-interesting in SO, though.  (And honestly, I'd always been fascinated by the game.  The generational thing was awesome, and I got to play it once at a friend's who had a Genesis.  It was one of the first games I tracked down after being exposed to emulation.)

1585

Gaming Discussion / Re: Phantasy Star poll

« on: May 09, 2012, 12:41:49 pm »

Heh.  Well, I never finished it...  so I suppose I could continue to talk about it. 

I still want to finish PSIII as well, I had a really advanced save game that I never finished.    I think I'd set my personal record if I could find that old save.  I probably have it somewhere.

1586

Gaming Discussion / Re: Consoles possibly selling cheaper with a contract like cell phones

« on: May 09, 2012, 12:29:25 pm »

I probably should...  I've got a lot of old PCs that I don't use anymore.  But I don't know many people that would want those old rigs, in the state of disrepair they're in now.  I usually run my PCs to the point where no one would want them anymore.    And I've got something of a sentimental attachment to my original rig.  Best thing I've ever seen for playing older DOS games.  Only thing that failed in it was the HDD.

I remember wanting a Zip drive so badly...  and then they finally came out with flash drives.  I bought a 64MB one, and was amazed that I could tote around that much storage in my pocket.  Now I've got a 16GB stick in my pocket.  Pure insanity (and awesomeness).

My first burner, on the other hand, absolutely sucked.  It was a Philips, and it was a piece of trash.  Definitely no longer working.  It wouldn't even read its own burns. 

1587

Gaming Discussion / Re: Phantasy Star poll

« on: May 09, 2012, 12:24:27 pm »

You know, the release schedule for these games was all sorts of screwed up here in the States.  We got Phantasy Star a year before Dragon Warrior, but in Japan, they got Dragon Quest a year-and-a-half before PS.  DQII came before it as well, by almost a year.  (Only six-ish months after the first?  Crazy.)  Even DQIII follows the game by only three months.  I can see how the Japanese cottoned to Dragon Quest, given that they were able to grow with the series, and I can also see how Sega stalwarts in the US (what few there were in the face of the Nintendo juggernaut) were completely unimpressed by Dragon Warrior.

That Sega even managed to come close (or in some eyes, exceed) the quality of Dragon Quest III with their first go at the RPG genre is seriously amazing.  And while the Sega we all knew and loved (or hated, if you were a Nintendo-ite) no longer exists, I'd love to see them revisit the roots of the genre.  Heck, let some fan team put together a Phantasy Star V.  I'll bet you someone out there could get it right.

1588

Gaming Discussion / Re: Consoles possibly selling cheaper with a contract like cell phones

« on: May 09, 2012, 12:10:18 pm »

AOL was my prime source of blank diskettes back in the day.

Definitely useful for that.  Besides, I needed all the disks I could get back in the day.  I had ROMs that I needed to span across multiple disks. 

1589

General Discussion / Re: ITT: We see who owns the police

« on: May 09, 2012, 10:58:26 am »

Hence my statement that we're using the exceptions as the rule.  I know a few cops.  They're good guys.  I also happen to know a few that I wonder how in the heck they became one.  But I'm not going to hold them up as examples that they're all that corrupt.  That's just absurd.  That'd be like me claiming that OWS is completely representative of the typical liberal, when they're not.

Also, as for racism and whatnot, there are a ton of black cops in my state.  Most of those guys do a fine job, too.  And they could probably tell you which folks they have the most trouble with, and if they said it, it wouldn't be racist.  (Not to say if there were a gigantic threat from, say, Scotch-Irish-descended terrorists, that I would be in the least surprised to have more attention directed my way.  As it should be.)

1590

Gaming Discussion / Re: So school me on Vagrant Story.

« on: May 08, 2012, 11:34:13 pm »

Xenogears**.

*Never played
**Played for only 3 hours

I played for about 10 hours. Seriously wish I could have told myself not to play it...

Ha.  I beat the game.  It's pretty awesome until it hits the second disc, where it's amazingly clear that they ran out of time and money and just cobbled an ending together.  Reach.  Exceeds.  Grasp.

And seriously, the plot takes a gigantic turn into WTF territory.  Too many plot twists too quickly takes something that may have made sense into something that destroyed everything they had carefully built up.

Also, as cool as it is to see giant mechs in the game, the mech battles are pretty uninteresting.  The on-foot combat, though, is much like Chrono Cross, except I like it better, it's almost got a bit of a Legend of Legaia mechanic going there.

1591

Gaming Discussion / Re: Phantasy Star poll

« on: May 08, 2012, 11:29:41 pm »

Well, you can buy it off of Steam for $2.99.  Or get a five-pack for like $7.50 with it in there.

1592

Gaming Discussion / Re: Re: Victoly!

« on: May 08, 2012, 11:28:23 pm »

Good thing I didn't get a copy yet, huh?

1593

Gaming Discussion / Re: Phantasy Star poll

« on: May 08, 2012, 05:49:19 pm »

It appears that it's also in the aforementioned Sega Genesis Collection for PSP, as well.

1594

Gaming Discussion / Re: Your choices for the best -portable- JRPGs of all time?

« on: May 08, 2012, 04:47:28 pm »

Oh, yeah, and it's not comedy, but Poirot is awesome.  David Suchet will forever be the Hercule Poirot.

1595

Gaming Discussion / Re: Nintendo posts $530 million in losses

« on: May 08, 2012, 04:33:41 pm »

I guess I have to do that at home, as I do enough research at work. 

I've done my share of historical stuff, too, but my recent reading just hasn't skewed that way.  There are a few things I really need to catch up on.  (I've been telling myself I'd get around to reading Shelby Foote's stuff on the Civil War.  Too many options, too little time!)

Yeah, we're kinda diverging, aren't we...  Nintendo.  Losing money.  Bad, but expected.  Carry on, people.  Carry on.

1596

Gaming Discussion / Re: Your choices for the best -portable- JRPGs of all time?

« on: May 08, 2012, 04:32:53 pm »

I absolutely loved some of the British comedies they ran on PBS growing up.  Red Dwarf and Are You Being Served? were hilarious. 

1597

Gaming Discussion / Re: Nintendo posts $530 million in losses

« on: May 08, 2012, 04:15:55 pm »

I've not read as much recently, as I vacillate between bouts of reading and video gaming.  I've probably done more writing than reading as of late.  The most recent for-fun reading has been the Barsoom series.  Interesting stuff, that.  I enjoyed the movie, and wanted to see how much they strayed from the source.  I'm also working my way through the latest GameSpite Journals (10 & 11), and probably going to start on David Weber's The Excalibur Alternative on recommendation from my brother, who reads even more than I do.

Oh, yeah, before that, it was all the Sherlock Holmes stuff.  I chipped away at that for a while.  It's kinda built for reading a case or two before going to bed.  And then there's my Bible reading / book studies, but you're probably not too interested in that. 

1598

Gaming Discussion / Re: Nintendo posts $530 million in losses

« on: May 08, 2012, 04:08:18 pm »

Ditto, Dank.  I suspect there are quite a few readers here.  It absolutely helps our conversations here. 

1599

Gaming Discussion / Re: Phantasy Star poll

« on: May 08, 2012, 04:00:39 pm »

I think it's part of Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection, as well.

1600

Gaming Discussion / Re: Your choices for the best -portable- JRPGs of all time?

« on: May 08, 2012, 03:59:18 pm »

If I had anything resembling decent Internet, I'd get Netflix for sure.  As it is...  yeah, cell internet (at 3G) doesn't cut it.  Granted, my work connection is waaaaaaaay faster, but I don't think they'd look too kindly on me torrenting anime at work.  Just a sneaking suspicion I have.

(And before anyone asks, no, I don't have any other options, and haven't for a long time.  No DSL, no cable.)