Lurker > AxemRedRanger

Missed Baten Kaitos because Story wasn't in the topic title.

Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean - 8

5

UshiromiyaEva posted...

The funds distribution for the stretch goals in the newest chart sure is confusing me.

IIRC the ratio is kind of similar to the backers breakdown earlier between those backing exclusively Armed Fantasia and those just backing Penny Blood.
Which would be really stupid when most people are backing both but it's the only explanation I could come up with.

Also, less than 48 hours to go. They'll be across two million shortly and look like they're also going to more than triple the initial goal.

6
The first half of the game is decent. It did a lot of pretty standard-ish JRPG stuff with its plot and goofy characters, I liked a good deal of it (I didn't even mind the character everyone hates, but no, they weren't great), but loved almost none of it, it was alright. The conclusion sort of works as an ending albeit one that leaves a lot of the character threads unresolved. But that's what the second half is for.

The second half no longer has English voice acting for the story scenes outside the brief anime sequences, which is a shame, though it does have voice acted skits which Symphonia and Abyss's western versions didn't. It mostly focus on character development. I guess it makes enough sense that the non-main party members would wait until the big threat has been removed to focus on their personal issues and drama rather than drag everyone else in while there are bigger fish to try. The explicit sectioning off of these was maybe a little on the nose but whatever, these were generally good enough too. There's not really much there to tie the whole thing together though.

And really, if you're already going to commit the main plot of the first half so hard to a weirdass anime Not Blood Related sibling romance, you might as well actually go for it. This thing they do in the second half where they're still not really in a relationship YET despite all the stuff in the first half and having time now was just kind of eye-rolling but might actually be even MORE anime.

Unfortunately the story arc the second half ends on is pretty bad. It's using a lot of standard JRPG end-of-game themes and ideas, except executed poorly and without compelling context to differentiate itself. And then after it's resolved the game just...kind of ends. That's sort of sensible here given that between chapters the characters have been living their life mostly at peace for like months by that point and presumably will continue to do so with occasional adventures. But it's just not very satisfying in itself and particularly after a meandering second half and poor final arc it doesn't feel like ~60+ hours of game added up to nearly as much as it should have.

I did still like a lot of the game though so 6. This game doesn't have the best reputation and the story definitely isn't great but I feel the gameplay was a much bigger problem..

fft

Seasons: 5
Ages: 6
Overall: 6

8

MMX probably wins. MMX was virtually tied with Tifa and this seems relatively consistent with his usual strength. Kirby is an okay near-elite and all but when he doesn't get some special bandwagon or circumstances going he is just not super-strong. Alucard did much better on Bowser last contest, even, but Alucard's strength itself is gonna be a big question mark.

Based on last contest Zero would probably be # 4 but Sora-in-Smash has a good shot and if Ryu decides not to suck this time he's up there too. None of them probably loses to Donkey Kong, Dante, Big Boss, Sub-Zero, Magus, Frog, Bayonetta, 2B, Geralt, Knuckles, Fox, or whoever. Geralt would have a shot if it's the one from 2018 but after Cyberpunk some of the air's probably gone out from CD Projekt Red.

Nominate Dragon Age II

Nominate:
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Pokemon Sword & Shield
Mega Man Legends
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
Disgaia: Hour of Darkness
Lost Odyssey

Nominate (sorry if I already nominated some of these):
Zero Wing
Lunar: Eternal Blue
Tomb Raider (2013)
Terranigma

4

The end section is really cool and it has a few other neat parts and nice touches (the end of the Romaly quest!) but it doesn't really have party members with characterization or a real main plot, a lot of the time towns and dungeons and stuff are just "places to go with people."

Also, weird nitpick, but I don't recall ever figuring out why people started trying to defeat Baramos in the first place. Sure, he seems to be connected with all the monsters appearing or something but how did anyone in the world even find out who and where he is and that he is doing that? At least Dracolord and Hargon are established as having done stuff that would have put them on the radar as threats.

6

The intro is reasonably good and the followup on what happened to the princess is an okay idea. Nice to have the Dragon Quest callbacks around Tantagel once you get the ship. The final dungeon has a couple things?
...But really, there's just very little here.
2.

Nominate:
Ever17
Suikoden V

I take it this was your source for Sonic Adventure 2?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1BRZg0GG0A

looks like you didn't search very hard. Sonic Adventure 2 main theme with 10 times the views:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gPBmDptqlQ

Common sense should have really said something was up if you were getting SA2 was only 9th. Even this version has over a million:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6jbMdWaeXY

5

https://twitter.com/War_Mapper

this guy is the best way I've seen to look at changes in who controls what territory.

Fiop posted...

Was hoping to see what other people thought of this. I haven't played it either.

Kind of surprised a game like this is so unplayed while FF7 Dirge Of Cerberus got 11 votes. Every other spinoff from a mainline FF game, at least that I can think of, aside from mobile games, would have a decent play rate. Edit: just remembered that X-2 dungeon crawler game exists; that probably wouldn't get many votes either.

FFVII is the #1 FF game.
FFXII is the...uh. Hmmm. VII, VI, X, IX, VIII, T, IV, probably V...#9 FF game?

4

Might want to get the topic day numbers back to correct next topic.

nominate Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa

6
it does its job well of emphasizing the threat of Nemesis so it's hard not to call it at least decent even if it's not otherwise the strongest story out there.

just barely made it to a million in 48 hours.

Where Backers Come From
Top Cities
(5th) Tsuruga-shi
Japan
57 backers

Huh. Never heard of it.

As of 29 June 2018, the city had an estimated population of 66,123 in 28,604 households

Uh.
I'm guessing the staff has some personal connections there? Otherwise, all credit to them if they're just the JRPG capital of the world or whatever but that looks real fishy.

Zelda
Suikoden

transience posted...

someone can make a new topic if you want.

looks like Japan woke up. the UK and Canada were ahead of them in donations and Japan is in a clear second now. I feel like I'm analyzing the Nintendo hour or something.

where do you find this information?

Edit: oh. figured it out.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doublekickstarter/armed-fantasia-and-penny-blood/community

KamikazePotato posted... I'm trying to figure out how this early performance indicates what the final total will be. Eiyuden Chronicles seems like the closest analogue, being another JRPG revival, and it made around $1.4 million on its first day and ended up at over $4 million by the end of 30 days. Also how the fuck did a Suikoden revival do so well, it's the 3rd-most popular video game kickstarter of all time.

Suikoden II has been celebrated as one of the top PS1 JRPGs by critics and fans for like 20 years now and it's even available on PSN. Its audience might not have sufficiently been there for it in 1999 or even for V in 2006 but I gotta assume that's had some beneficial effect. Anyone in the 2020s who's still interested in "good ole days" JRPGs or whatever should know about that franchise by this point.

one more
nominate Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

In going yo wrap up these topics soon, so if anybody could help get in major games Ive missed, that would be great.

Not sure how major some of these are but:

Nominate:
Dragon Quest IX
Dragon Quest II (If you want to bother? I really wouldn't have considered it if we hadn't already humored DQ1.)
Dragon Quest III (see above)
Resident Evil 3
Resident Evil 0
Suikoden IV
Suikoden V
Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages & Seasons
Tales of Legendia
Earthbound Beginnings
Lunar 2: Eternal Blue
Legend of Dragoon
Demon's Souls
Okami
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean
Shin Megami Tensei IV
Shin Megami Tensei V
(we could do several other Megami Tensei games but not sure how good of a playrate those will have?)
Xenoblade 3 (but like, if Elden Ring's the very last game, maybe make this one the second last or something so people can finish it?)
Wild Arms
Breath of Fire III

Super Metroid - 6

Pretty much all the well known sidescrolling platformers hold up aside from the ones that go too far with exploration or RPG elements.
Kid Icarus and Ghosts n Goblins probably being among the few that don't, and the latter has the partial excuse of being a port of dubious quality.

Various things about how Zelda 1 uses bombs are annoying and that's probably the game's biggest issue. But as for needing to bomb random walls to beat it though, what? Maybe finding the last dungeon was a little too obscure? That's about it. If the game's not for you then cool but maybe quit with the inaccurate meme opinions? This isn't too far removed from calling Contra "one of the hardest games ever" or something.

But yeah, I do see problems with Zelda 1 bombs. Mario 1 has no comparable issues and is a good game so I could seeing going with it. But Mario 1 has been copied, iterated, and improved on so much that it stands out much less at this point. Zelda's franchise took different directions so Zelda 1 stands out much more as it's own, good thing than Mario 1 at this point.

Mario 1 is more accessible to the absolute newbie but I don't put much stock in that.

FFV probably beats FFXV

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/8813-whats-your-all-time-favorite-5-game

I'd take it over Xenosaga 2. Maybe 1 and 3 as well.

Xenoblade 3 vs. Pokemon Legends Arceus, who ya got?

Dracula was a real person and therefore should have been ineligible for the poll.
(King Arthur is contentious but was probably a poor choice regardless.)

Super Mario RPG

The way I see it, pro wrestling hasnt been a big force in pop culture since the early 2000s or so and is generally considered trashy and stupid.

The man on the street probably cant pit much if any detail to Vinces name but his products reputation is in the gutter regardless.

SFII LOST is not the last time we saw Street Fighter II in a contest match, though.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3450-division-2-round-1-castlevania-3-civilization-sonic-1-sfii
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3480-division-2-round-2-sonic-1-sfii-smb-3-monkey-island

I'd go Persona => Street Fighter > Tales.

Street Fighter in general isn't very impressive on gamefaqs game-for-game barring maybe Street Fighter II being decent but the legacy of how it popularized and carried fighting games gives it considerable strength beyond that - and after all, it did rise to the occasion and give RE a fight back in the day. Even if RE's part of the match picture sucked and all!

What might be a problem is whether Street Fighter V has soured people on the franchise. And more generally, whether typical gamefaqs users still actively follow or care about non-Smash fighting game series - some of the issue might have been bad choices by nominators who just picked whatever entry they were playing currently but non-Smash fighting games in general suffered several embarrassing blowouts in 2020. And I guess people probably split their noms among the different versions or something but Street Fighter II not making it into 2015 isn't a great look for it either.

Persona has two reasonable strength midcarders that both probably beat Tales' one. Tales has the bigger backbench admittedly. And while gamefaqs is typically slow in embracing newer trends even in stuff it likes and probably never fully converges, it has shown to not be totally immune. It's hard to ignore how much more popular and beloved Persona is on the internet in general than Tales of, whether in explicitly JRPGish spaces or more mainstream ones. Since Persona 5's launch, that franchise has escaped the JRPG ghetto.

Fire Emblem probably loses to MMX and neither of those are beating KH.

Persona/Street Fighter could go either way.

Nothing says to me how long it's been since the Series Contest quite like Star Ocean getting into the bracket while Tales of did not manage to do so.

3
Basically might as well not exist past the opening.

4

Nominate Dragon Quest/Warrior III.

Metal Gear didn't start on the NES so it shouldn't be in the poll.
I suppose you could argue that Ninja Gaiden didn't either but NES NG seems to have been developed around the same time as the arcade game and came out within a couple months of it - so while the NES game wasn't the first NG game released, it might be said to have begun development and therefore "started" on the NES/Famicom at the same time as or even before the arcade game. Also Ninja Gaiden is getting whipped so thoroughly it barely matters.

Star Fox
Doom

9

red13n posted...

The news keeps saying "has no vital signs" but isn't saying dead.

That sounds pretty fucking dead.

IIRC there's something about Japan where only a medical examiner or something can officially pronounce someone dead so until that happens they often use euphemisms that basically amount to the same thing.

Not that I've played any of the games involved, but I'd assume Mega Man already undershot that with the DOS games.