Lurker > Paratroopa1

TVs. TVs nowadays always seem to have really bad lag for me that makes most games pretty unplayable, and it's been the reason that I haven't really done any console gaming in the last, like, ten years. But for some reason, I've never been able to find answers on how to fix this, and it doesn't seem to be an issue that people in the community bring up very often, despite the fact that I KNOW it must be a thing that people worry about, especially the fighting game community. Even if I found an answer I wouldn't have enough money to buy a new TV right now, it's just not a high enough priority. I feel like I've lost a lot of time enjoying my hobby properly to this. I also haven't been able to stream games from console due to not having a setup for it, which is a frustration because it prevents me from trying to submit things to GDQ and the like.

I have little hope for the survival of this wretched hellhole of a country's democracy.

Just bumping this for now. Sorry for the slow rate of my updates

Leonhart4 posted...

3-1 Winston is a pleasant surprise because you learn that he actually was competent at one point before Mia destroyed his confidence.

Yeah this is why Winston Payne in 3-1 is so cool. They're great in every appearance, but 3-1 Payne is really memorable because he's almost Edgeworth-lite in his competence and swagger until Mia just fucking destroys his career

Winston Payne's breakdown is majestic. He's such a lowkey MVP of 3-1 that people so infrequently talk about

hockeydude15 posted...

W actually read quite a lot and i recall him saying he made it a point to read through the bible once a year.

I don't believe him

Today I learned that the Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise is higher grossing than the Terminator franchise

LeonhartFour posted...

Nah, he kinda transforms in his breakdown, but he mostly stays the same even after you expose him.

Yeah he has like... he has a proper breakdown but I didn't really feel like he ever has a proper 'transformation' moment

Mr Lasastryke posted...

on the other hand, with W, i was always like "yeah, this is totally a guy who knows every letter of the bible by heart."

That is not even remotely the vibe I get from W

dude probably does actually go to church (there's no way that trump does) but I doubt he reads the bible, most people don't

The weird thing about 'best villain transformation' is that it's actually a surprisingly rare event, a lot of the times it's just a slow unmasking as opposed to a huge reveal, and like pretty much half the times it happened were in the later games (AA6 is OBSESSED with villain reveals lol, AA6 alone accounts for like half the times that a character has a really flashy animation to let you know they're the villain now). By my count, everyone who has a significant 'mask off' moment where their personality permanently changes (including people who play a 'villain role' even if they are not ultimately the villain, but NOT including people who really don't fit that role at all):

AA1: Frank Sahwit, April May, Yanni Yogi
AA2: Ini Miney, Matt Engarde
AA3: Dahlia Hawthorne
AA4: Olga Orly
AA5: Aristotle Means, Clonco, Bobby Fulbright, Marlon Rimes
AA6: Pees'lubn Andistan'dhin, Betty de Famme, Roger Retinz, Geiru Toneido, Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in, Amara Sigatar Khura'in, Pierce Nichody
AAI: Cammy Meele, Shih-na, Quercus Alba
AAI2: Simon Keyes
LvW: Kira, Jean Greyerl

I haven't played the GAA games obviously

I'm still laughing at "Mr. Car" by the way

My answer to the topic is AI: The Somnium Files, I don't think I've ever been more disappointed in a story-driven game

KamikazePotato posted...

Also real talk, the actual worst reason to avoid Abyss is that the soundtrack is ass. Meaning of Birth is lit and the rest is, well, not

My weird hot take is that I really don't like Meaning of Birth but I think the rest of the soundtrack is pretty good

All this is doing is proving to me that Tales of the Abyss has a really good story

I can't help but feel like the judges should have gotten their own poll

45. Metal Man (Mega Man 2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WJXkL9dPk4

Every time I have to eliminate a theme from Mega Man 2 I feel like I'm committing some sort of religious blasphemy but then I remember that the series just has a lot of really good music. Anyway, I don't have a lot to say about Metal Man, so I want to say a word about Takashi Tateishi. Tateishi worked at Capcom from 1988 to 1990 and composed just a few game soundtracks in his time there - between that and his subsequent ten or so years at Konami I only know of maybe five or six games that he was the principal composer of. The only ones I know beyond a shadow of a doubt are entirely him are LED Storm and Willow for the arcade and Cocoron for the NES. (Some people seem to think he composed Batman Returns for the NES, but I strongly suspect it was his coworker Shigemasa Matsuo who did most if not all of the composition. Anyway, that's beside the point.) Oh, and of course, a little game you might have heard of known as Mega Man 2. Anyway, as I said, he left Capcom after 1990 (side note: he wanted to do Mega Man 3 but didn't get the job). As it turns out, he didn't compose a lot of music after this, mostly doing production work at Konami, and some time in the early 00's he left the gaming industry altogether. While he does still do audio-related work, he left music composition altogether, and for a long time didn't even own a keyboard (this is why he has no tracks in MM10). It wasn't until just a few years ago that he even learned that Mega Man 2's music was super popular after hearing about it from fellow MM composer Ippo Yamada, and going to see a cover band playing the music that he had written well over 20 years ago. He had no idea! He was actually pretty excited about it and it sparked an interest in composing again, and I think he wrote some tunes for Mighty No 9 or something, I didn't really look into it. Anyway, the absolute nerve of this guy. He wrote a soundtrack that fostered a love for music in my heart as a young child and he had no fucking idea what he'd even done. Oh, sure, just casually change the landscape of video game music forever and just go about your life like nothing happened. Fucking hell.

44. Dr. Wily 2 (Mega Man V)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTHXNFZmVvg

Again, I apologize for all of the suddenly dead Mega Man V links that I don't think I can fix at this point, the Youtube account hosting them got nuked. And I apologize for the shitty rip in this video, it was literally the best one I could find. Anyway, all of the GB Mega Man games, EVEN II, have banger Wily stage themes and this one is no exception - it is, in fact, my favorite one! It's a fittingly epic finale for the Rockman World series, and I love how slow and dramatically this one builds up - it has a different, more ominous feel from other Wily stage themes and it really earns that 'drop' at :45 into the exciting climax.

43. Fire Man (Mega Man 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S4mi1jH9ds

Accuse me of grading on a curve for Mega Man 1 here if you want, after I just praised Mega Man 5 for the beautiful shaping of its lead instruments; here you have Fire Man's theme, where the lead square wave couldn't be more flat. It just turns on and plays notes - it has no shape to it at all. Regardless, I don't care, this theme is dope. I love that menacing bassline in the first half and I think it's interesting how withholding the second square wave for the first part makes the second half of the theme sound more full. I just like how this one sounds aggressive, yet classy. Like all of the tracks in MM1, for something written in 1987 I feel like it was ahead of its time.

42. Snake Man (Mega Man 3)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqGLXispP08

To be totally honest with you, whenever I hear the first 15 seconds of this track, for a second I go 'wait, why do I like this track that much? It's just ok' then that B section kicks in and it's just pure MM3 goodness. I dunno if any other track in MM3 sounds more like MM3 than this track. That whole second half of the track is so smooth you could literally spread it on toast. Everything in MM3 is just mixed so impeccably well and this track is no exception, it's just really pleasing on the ears. A classic that I'm sure everyone will think I ranked 30 spots too low, like Pharaoh Man.

41. Dr. Wily 1 (Mega Man 3)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfOE4rJnYYc

Improbably, this is only the second highest ranked Dr. Wily stage that makes me think of turtles.

Simon Blackquill is my favorite character in the series, without needing to exclude Edgeworth

Dancedreamer posted...

I'd love to hear the thoughts of the insurrectionists who did this for Trump reaction to being called secret leftists. My best guess is they rationalize it as their conservative buddies trying to pin it on the Democrats.

a lot of them were pretty pissed about it, actually!

My biggest complaint about AAI1 is that it doesn't feel like it has any reason to be Edgeworth specifically - you could replace Edgeworth with Phoenix and the game wouldn't be any different at all aside from a few of the particulars like the location of E1-1, Edgeworth really doesn't have a huge stake in any of it and he doesn't really change how the story goes at all, aside from arguably E1-4 I guess. AAI2 completely changes that - it is specifically an Edgeworth story and nobody else.

E2-3 is great. It has some small pacing issues as the Investigations games tend to, but I think it's great that it actually builds upon the lore of the world instead of just being a completely contained side-story - I think it's really just hilarious to have the added context to AA1 of "when Gregory Edgeworth met Manfred von Karma for the first time, von Karma was storming out of a giant dessert castle." The fact that this case has actual stakes for Edgeworth in a way that AAI games have previously failed to and that it actually gives him character development makes it wonderful.

Nanis23 posted...

https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1395894122569945088

:|
Who is this moron

oh, only the face of modern american conservatism, no biggie

LordoftheMorons posted...

Donald Trump is a total moron. I don't think Bush or Reagan were, but my point isn't that it's impossible to be elected to the Presidency without being smart. My point was that being President is hard, and doing a good job requires more than just being "right" on some set of issues.

It's completely bizarre that people recognize that intelligence and experience are valuable for basically any normal job, but then turn around and pretend they're completely irrelevant to governance.

If you don't think Ronald Reagan was a moron then you are simply not familiar enough with him

was writing some tonight, I should be able to get back to doing this more regularly so I can finish this off after taking like two weeks off

oh and I've played 18 of them, I didn't make a list because it wouldn't be an interesting list

I've never even heard of LBX and I was unaware that Sword Art Online had games

why

tyder21 posted...

Hell yeah, Paper Mario hasn't made the schedule in so long.

I'm just gonna tell you right now, before you get disappointed, that this run may not be what you are looking forward to.

It's going to principally be an Ocarina of Time run

I decided to not include any game beginning with The at all, not for T or for the next letter, just for aesthetic purposes.

Every single letter of the alphabet - including numerals - had an easy candidate for a favorite game of mine to plug right in, with some letters (M, P, S) having a hilarious pileup of great candidates. And then there was Q. I struggled for a while to think of something that wasn't Quiplash (copout, and I used "Jackbox Party Pack" already), a game that I hold in high regard but am not strongly familiar with (Quake, Q*Bert, Quantum Conundrum), or that wasn't Quest 64, because it's Quest 64. And I came up with... Quarth??? Alright.

Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising
Blast Corps
Crypt of the NecroDancer
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest
Elsinore
Final Fantasy V
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Hades
Into The Breach
Jackbox Party Pack 3
Katamari Damacy
Life Is Strange
Mega Man 2
Night in the Woods
Outer Wilds
Paper Mario
Quarth
Return of the Obra Dinn
Super Mario Bros. 3
Team Fortress 2
Undertale
VVVVVV
WarioWare: Twisted!
Xenoblade Chronicles
Yoku's Island Express
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
30XX

Anagram posted...

In complete honesty, I actually do sort of wonder how LGBT people view characters like this, but I also suspect that a dorky waifu topic is probably not the appropriate venue for that discussion, so, so be it.

Surprisingly, I've never heard of this character, but the answer for trans women is probably going to be 'positively, due to wish fulfillment' with a dash of 'could we ever just have one normal trans person though', though how respectfully the story treats the issue will determine whether it's idolization or reclamation (hi, danganronpa 1)

LeonhartFour posted...

Yeah, if you take the time to think about it, it's pretty obvious, but I was so sucked into the moment that I wasn't thinking about it.

I think the reason it catches people off guard is because Dahlia is initially introduced as Iris, so at first, you don't have reason to suspect that she is Dahlia, so you don't suspect that there's someone who needs to be channeling her, either. The reveal of Iris being Dahlia in disguise is a huge enough reveal on its own that it functions as a sleight of hand that keeps you from asking the real question - "wait, how is it POSSIBLE for dahlia to be here?" It's just not a question that comes up unless you're thinking about it, or until the game brings it up for you. It's really well done.

Only going by names that have a number in the title that is used to denote a sequel:

The Legend of Zelda (Valid because in the credits in the english version, it says "Zelda 1")
Mega Man 2
Super Mario Bros. 3
Monster World IV
Final Fantasy V
Final Fantasy VI
Jackbox Party Pack 7
Mario Kart 8
Mega Man 9
Mega Man 10
Mega Man 11

I can't think of any games with a 12 or higher that I have played

I thought it was a running gag too but then he said Delicia Crepes and I felt like I was being gaslit into having remember the names of every cast member of E2-3 wrong somehow

Wait, did characters' names change since the last time I played this?

By the way, I just want to bitch about the fact that the Youtube account hosting the ONLY good rips of MMV GB (that I can find) got nuked the other day. All those links are now broken and the next best rip of the soundtrack kind of sucks. I'm not happy!

Sorry it's been so long! I've been busy with other stuff and haven't given myself the time to just sit through and pound some of these out, especially as I'm running out of stuff to say the more I like these songs. Sorry if the writeups get a little repetitive! But anyway I'm back in the swing of things now.

50. Pharaoh Man (Mega Man 4)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok5I0Yp-7fo

Ah, good ol' Mega Man 4. Inspired, exciting riffs, completely bonkers execution. Pharaoh Man, despite its bouncing off the walls pacing, is somehow still one of the more reined-in and less experimental MM4 themes. If the goal of a Mega Man theme is to create excitement while playing the level then Pharaoh Man passes that test with flying colors. I feel like at this point in the list I'm running out of ways to say "oh, I like this," so I have to just nitpick at like really specific things I like. For instance, that harmonization at :08 and then at :14 is really dope. I really like what happens at :16 - the previous line ends on this harmonization, and the bass takes over as the lead for a few seconds while the second square wave drops out and starts this little polymelody that catches up to the bass - it's a nice little sleight of hand. Despite really liking this theme, I expect to get razzed for having it as low as #50.

49. Stone Man (Mega Man 5)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o8VHKE2lpM

Even the least memorable tracks out of Mega Man 5 display what I think is artistic mastery of the 2A03 soundchip. Mari Yamaguchi's soundtrack is characterized by crisp, well-produced sounds and well considered use of the limited space provided by the four sound channels; 'instruments' fade in and out of the two square wave channels with new ideas, harmonies come in and out to provide extra color to the melody without overstaying their welcome and making the song sound too empty, and the bassline provides an interesting polymelody that's interesting to listen to on its own. There's just a lot of really nice, small attentions to detail in this track. Listen to the melody at :22; a lesser NES game would just play those notes flatly, but Yamaguchi adds a little bit of shaping here with a soft attack that gives the notes some much needed texture. It's the kind of choice a lot of other songs in the NES era just wouldn't make and it's why I've used this game as the blueprint for my own works. Stone Man doesn't usually come to mind when I think of great tracks from this game, but every time I hear it I'm reminded that I like it and I'm reminded why this game holds a particular place in my heart.

48. Astro Man (Mega Man 8)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIWyZSbNYik

Bringing an MM8 track all the way into the top 50 might seem a little bit like affirmative action on my part, but this track is a really great example of Mega Man 8's aesthetic just really clicking and creating a memorable track that just works for me. It's got all the good synths without any of the brass samples that I don't care for. It's got MM8's low-key good percussion but in the service of something that actually grooves. It's got that chill vibe of Aqua Man's theme but with an actual hook that I can hang my hat on. That main riff is just so damn funky! It's one of the tracks in this game that really stands out as memorable to me and it's probably the only robot master stage in this game I'd be excited to go to for the music alone.

Final Mega Man 8 ranking:

1. Astro Man (48)
2. Dr. Wily 1 (71)
3. Search Man (97)
4. Intro Stage 1 (117)
5. Frost Man (124)
6. Tengu Man (PS1) (134)
7. Grenade Man (151)
8. Tengu Man (Saturn) (171)
9. Sword Man (174)
10. Aqua Man (178)
11. Dr. Wily 3 (180)
12. Intro Stage 2 (181)
13. Dr. Wily 2 (183)
14. Clown Man (184)
15. Dr. Wily 4 (189)

Thoughts: Mega Man 8 would be a more or less fine soundtrack if it was another game, but it has a really strong pedigree to live up to and it just comes out not really sounding like a Mega Man game. Obviously, that isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but given that I have a particular sort of sound that I particularly favor, MM8 didn't have much of a chance. That said, I like to think I'm pretty open-minded, and to be honest I just don't like most of these tracks that much - not a huge fan of the soundfonts used or a lot of the sort of awkwardly half-formed melodies. Just not really my style, I'm afraid to say. I'll keep the top three on this list but I'll leave everything else.

Regrets?: Maybe giving Aqua Man a slight reprieve since it's awfully low (I think I like it more than Sword Man), but not much. There's nothing here that I've ended up coming to appreciate more in retrospect and the order seems about right.

47. Centaur Man (Mega Man 6)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0h5kOuxuFM

I recall more than one expression of surprise that this theme in particular was ranked this high, but yeah duh, because it's rad as fuck. I think it's pretty cool that, especially out of the MM1-6 era, this really sounds a lot different from anything else - it's slow and ponderous, defined by this strangely bright ostinato at the start that has an almost lydian character to it which sort of suggests an ancient Greek flair. The main body of the song does a pretty strong job of capturing the character of the level - if you were going to set a Mega Man theme in Atlantis this is roughly what I would expect it so sound like. Also, because I'm a sucker for good basslines, this one's got a hook I really like in the A section - I find myself humming to it a lot. Really neat track that fits with MM6's whole 'world music' vibe.

46. Dive Man (Mega Man 4)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bXE8ldC2DA

A lot of Mega Man 4's tracks create this weird effect for me where the main melody is so memorable that I've always had this weird deja vu where I feel like I've experienced it somewhere else before, even though that's absolutely not the case and this theme is entirely original to Mega Man 4. I dunno, something just feels really quintessential about this headbanging surfer-rock track. It doesn't actually sound like any surf rock track that I'm familiar with, but it somehow captures that vibe really well. I have nothing to complain about with the track's catchy and eminently hummable melody but I do have to nitpick the percussion a bit. MM4 goes a little extra heavy on the snares and that's as true as ever in this track and there's just a little more noise in my noise channel than I would like. Minor complaint. Anyway this song's still great.

Yesmar_ posted...

Braun, Cramer, Johnson and Paul are the 4 No's in the Senate I believe. Johnson and Paul say they don't need it, since they already got COVID.\

Edit: Braun and Cramer refuse to say publicly if they have gotten the vaccine; not a definitive no.

What's the source on this?

FFDragon posted...

we fought a world war to make sure everyone knew ethnic cleansing was bad

how have we regressed so far

that's certainly not why the US fought the war

it's ok I'm sure the free speech squad will rise up to defend them

any... moment... now

It is worth noting that 4-3's victim is the only one we meet aside from the obvious other ones

It's so weird that the trailer has music from AA3 in it

I'm really curious if anyone will for some bizarre reason vote for the two random muggers from L-2, probably the most obscure named characters in the franchise

I think logic chess was a cool idea that they never really use all that well.

Or they got caught with their pants down and are scrambling for any excuse to make their answer look reasonable, this isn't that hard, lol

There is just no situation that anyone could interpret as owning a home for less than 100k. I mean, you can rent an apartment for a year for less than 100k, but nobody would ever think that's what you meant.

masterplum posted...

For instance if he was thinking everyone in an apartment counted as $0 that might be a reasonable number.

Nobody thinks the media home price anywhere is $100k

imagine thinking the rich couldn't possibly be this out of touch

Sorry I haven't updated in a few days btw, been busy with other shit, will get back to this soon

Hey Leon, do you still have all the data? I could actually really make use of it for a friend who's streaming AA1-3 on a schedule and wants to know both how long each case is and how many lines of dialog everyone has (for splitting up voice acting).

can't believe that someone named lightning strikes is a fan of 1-5's culprit

5-6 is legit my favorite character out of any of these haha, I love them so much