41

Gaming Discussion / Re: Can someone explain Chrono Cross' battle system?

« on: January 10, 2016, 02:33:31 pm »

So ideally you'd equip all spells of the same element to all character to put as much as that colour as possible in the metter and make your spells stronger? But then, the enemy will cast spells of his element, typically oposite of the one that'd be effective against him. Mmh.

I'd suggest you to specialize each character on a specific element colour, with some other mixed in supporting elements.

42

Gaming Discussion / Re: Is Xenoblade for me?

« on: January 10, 2016, 02:24:40 pm »

Are you talking about Xenoblade Wii/3DS or the new Xenoblade for the Wii U? But anyway, I don't think there's a difference.

As long as you don't do every secondary quest and overlevel at all, then I'd say yes, probably yes. Overleveling just a bit quickly kills any and all difficulty.
But don't expect high levels of strategy as in strategy RPGs, of course.

43

Personal Projects / Re: Is it worth updating my Final Fantasy VI GBA sound restoration ?

« on: January 09, 2016, 01:42:49 pm »

When the line of fire gets drawn through the middle of the screen, the plagal cadence on the organ (in a diminished chord?) should be in its "rise." Then, as the logo "floats" up, the cadence "falls," and then the organ is silent.

Next, as soon as the picture of Terra riding the Magitek Armor appears in the background, the plagal diminished (?) cadence repeats, holding the "rise" until the "Copyright Square X year" message appears below, and we have our title screen, punctuated by the music.

I hope this helps.

Yeah, exactly that, probably! Sorry for lacking the musical jargon myself. 

44

Personal Projects / Re: Is it worth updating my Final Fantasy VI GBA sound restoration ?

« on: January 08, 2016, 01:22:49 pm »

I am unsure about which synchronization you are talking about. Synchronization has been one of the major issues with version 1.0 and had to be reworked for version 1.1. I'll attempt to do my best for version 2.0.

I mean synchronization between the intro logo animation and the intro logo music. Just comparing side by side it is very evident that your old patches broke it.
It was also synchronized in the original Super Famicom version and it creates an interesting visual/audio effect for the player (was very probably intended to
be like that by Yoshinori Kitase and Nobuo Uematsu), so that's why I  think it is important for this patch.

45

Gaming Discussion / Re: Graphics Mods for the Steam versions of FF5 and 6?

« on: January 07, 2016, 02:10:34 pm »

These PC ports are almost broken beyond repair.

They would need at least (in order of importance):

• Fixes to brand new, sometimes crashing, bugs.
• Menu system overhaul.
• Graphical fix/restoration/replacement.
• Audio lossless restoration.

Then one could think of nice additions:

• Proper display resolution and aspect ratio management.
• Original game bugfixes.
• Antialiased text.
• Some high quality FMV intro and/or ending.
• Proper musical arrangements.

And the ultimate, after all that:

• Custom game mods.

But none of the "at least" items are going to happen, probably.
Only some super stubborn x86-specialized hackers would be able to enable all that happening ... or Square Enix if they took ports seriously. 

46

Gaming Discussion / Re: Is Castlevania: Symphony of the Night overrated?

« on: January 07, 2016, 01:52:29 pm »

For me it feels overrated and kind of obsolete compared to the Nintendo DS entries.

Dawn of Sorrow
Just an evolved form of SotN & AoS, new screen touch gimmick, better level design overall.
Nice music overall.

Portrait of Ruin
A new iteration on the level design format: independent different worlds linked to
by the main castle and with many small visual and/or interactive details (take the Victorian level interior as example), very cool.
New two character setup: you play with two different characters "at the same time" with some different skills each. Cool but gimmicky.
Nice music overall.

Order of Ecclesia
A new iteration on the level design format trying to be a mix of "ancient" and "new" Castlevanias.
Only one character again but with new ability gimmick.
Some good music tracks among many mediocre ones, and weird backtracking choice on audio quality.

For me at least DoS and PoR are already better than SotN in gameplay and level design.
Still, SotN is superior in terms of audio quality (obviously) and musical composition to the point I can some times actually enjoy the OST out of context.

If you want some light insight into the development of SotN, see an interview here: http://shmuplations.com/symphony/

Unrelated: then later came Lords of Shadow (the first one, 2010), which was kind of an "old style" linear Castlevania mixed in
with 3D and other gameplay gimmicks (like the magic system) and a good, mostly ambient style OST.
Best 3D game in the series for me. I don't understand why some people hate it.

47

Personal Projects / Re: Final Fantasy IV Graphics Update (SNES)

« on: January 07, 2016, 10:48:51 am »

Nice! For some time I thought this was reaching stuck or dead status. 

Let's hope you continue delivering this level of awesomeness to ancient FF4.

48

Personal Projects / Re: Final Fantasy VI SNES Woolsey Uncensored Edition (Updated - Version 1.8)

« on: January 07, 2016, 10:45:50 am »

There's still a small issue in the Ultima Weapon monologue at the floating continent where it automatically quickly skips one or two lines.
I don't know if there's more issues like that after that plot point, though.

Should be quick & simple to fix.

By the way, I'll seize this opportunity to say that this is the best FF6 english version for the Super Famicom.
Whenever I want to play old FF6 in english, this is what delivers the best experience.

49

Personal Projects / Re: Final Fantasy IV Graphics Update (SNES)

« on: January 05, 2016, 10:58:13 am »

Any update on this? I've been secretly longing for the evolution on this awesome project!

50

Personal Projects / Re: Is it worth updating my Final Fantasy VI GBA sound restoration ?

« on: January 05, 2016, 10:55:34 am »

I support this too! I've been expecting it anyway after the last time you updated FF5.

Also a good chance to fix the intro logo sequence synchronization with the music.
Might be more obvious if you compare the unpatched version side by side with the patched version.

As for the no fades, I think the GBA version had that problem originally ... ? 

 

51

Gaming Discussion / Re: ZSNES has been comprimised.

« on: June 28, 2015, 03:24:07 pm »

I like my emulators to have an integrated, non-system interface. like ZSNES, Nesticle or MEKA, off the top of my head.
ZSNES was always working pretty damn well enough for everything I could throw at it. perhaps with a few rare exceptions I can't remember atm, some minor curiosities or something. aaand it's cool that I don't have to use a mouse to do everything I want.

Why not use bsnes on RetroArch, for example? You can even choose what kind of UI you want there.
I still cannot understand why some people cling to old emulators when the RetroArch+Cores combo is so superior, specially if you set it up well.
Only thing I can think of is some very rare emulator feature lacking in the RetroArch cores, like Super Famicom SPC dumps maybe?

ZSNES is so incredibly outdated now... the minimum I'd use would be Snes9x latest version, but why would I when bsnes exists in 3 profiles and is well integrated with RetroArch?
There's always the real thing anyway, though people tend to prefer emulators because of feature lists...

Back on topic now: I am more interested in how these 3 bugs were discovered. Any info or good story on that matter?

52

Personal Projects / Re: Mario's Nightmare Quest (currently in graphics ripping stages)

« on: June 25, 2015, 09:48:46 am »

This has been bothering me for a while, the HP border doesn't have a wooden texture. Do you have an extra palette at hand or a brown to use? What's also bugging me is that the coin palette in the HUD shares the palette with the health meter, meaning the coin constantly changes color. I assume you're low on color :-/

I'm going to fix the status bar later.  There's a much more urgent issue to fix first.

So it will eventually be fixed, I guess.

53

News Submissions / Re: ROM Hacks: New Mapper Hacks Added to the Database

« on: June 19, 2015, 04:48:41 pm »

F-Zero MSU-1 (Complete)(F-Zero)(SNES)

The actual download is still not present for that hack.

54

Gaming Discussion / Re: Favourite overall arcade game series or arcade games?

« on: June 11, 2015, 08:06:28 pm »

You somehow forgot the title of Bubble Bobble or Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move

THIS! But still not sure of its original name...
How could I forget the name?! Thank you!

55

Gaming Discussion / Re: Favourite overall arcade game series or arcade games?

« on: June 11, 2015, 06:35:50 pm »

Knights of the Round

That's it! That's one of the games whose title I didn't remember!
IIRC, it had nice gameplay and great graphics and sound!

Now, what was the name of that old Taito game where you control some kind of little dragon...?
It's a timeless classic for me!

56

Gaming Discussion / Re: Favourite overall arcade game series or arcade games?

« on: June 07, 2015, 04:03:02 pm »

All of Metal Slug series.
Street Fighter III: The Third Strike.
Street Fighter Zero 3.

Though there's probably some more whose name I cannot currently remember.

57

Gaming Discussion / Re: 32-bit era music: Looping vs starting over

« on: June 03, 2015, 10:45:39 am »

Also, you must consider the difference between XA audio and the midi based audio formats in the PlayStation.
Some games like Suikoden II and Wild Arms 1 have both, usually reserving arranged tracks for special scenes.

There's a vital difference in audio formats: data size.

58

Personal Projects / Re: Mario's Nightmare Quest (currently in graphics ripping stages)

« on: May 30, 2015, 06:43:56 pm »

Wow, these two weeks are going to feel slow, boring, tedious, and painful... with both the waiting for this heavily content-packed demo and my own real-life duties.
But it will be a fun (and hot...) summer after that!!!

I wished for something more specific on that list, but I guess that will be secret and you don't want to spoil it to us.

BTW, what will you expect us to report/criticize (if anything) from the upcoming demo?
And most importantly... am I asking too many questions?

59

Personal Projects / Re: Mario's Nightmare Quest (currently in graphics ripping stages)

« on: May 30, 2015, 01:43:39 pm »

Yes. Yes it is.

Which of the previous two choices? I guess both.
Sorry, I didn't get it at first so I had to search for it and I found this:



LOL

@CM30:
Can't wait to play a demo or something!
What's your design/hacking roadmap right now?
Can you provide a list of features (such as gameplay innovations like wall-jump, custom bosses, imported SPC music tracks or MSU-1 support, etc...) to expect or something?

PS: I think there's been too much off-topic lately here...

60

Newcomer's Board / Re: Final Fantasy III (NES/ Famicom) GBA Hack

« on: May 27, 2015, 05:53:44 pm »

The biggest problem I see here is...
Is there any info, tool(s), or whatever which allows you to edit the game's (best bet FF5a) maps and events?
No? Then there is no hope.

This would be a great project if there was the chance to actually edit these two things, along with text (easy).