The New Season

Proof that even Japan has no taste

2007-05-12T18:03:00.000-05:00

Kotaku has a rather depressing post up featuring a mass of sticky notes from the ever-so-hot Square Enix party. Attendees were invited to post up what remake they'd most like to see and then stick the notes up on the board.

Now, of course, proving that even Japan has its share of totally tasteless fanbrats, the response was apparently overwhelming in favor of seeing--what else--Final Fantasy VII yet again. Granted, we're already supposed to have ten more years of Cloud and friends, but seriously...

Like I said earlier, I'm as big a Square fan as they come, but FFVII is the one game in the main continuity I'd be more than glad to have struck from the record. I can't understand why anyone likes this game, to be perfectly honest. And yet time and time again, it's hailed as "OMG THE BEST THING EVAR."

Let it go, people. It's hard enough getting Square to work on a different IP without you drooling all over the hawt emo bois every two seconds.

Why, Square, why?!

2007-05-12T16:56:00.000-05:00

I was chatting with a friend of mine in IRC today, or rather, was chatting with another friend, when a link from Joystiq caught my eye. This link, posted by the aforementioned first friend, had "Parasite Eve" in the name. Time stopped. All was silent. My heart skipped a beat. Was it? Could it really be? Sweet, sweet Aya coming back once again after so many years?

Alas...no, it is not to be. All hope of Square actually focusing on a property other than Final Fantasy are tossed by the wayside. Those tech-savvy among you will recognize the name under "WIP" on the image, and realize what I'm getting at. Yes...Parasite Eve 3 is a cell phone game...

I cannot even begin to grasp why Square would do this to such a stellar title, other than that they really, truly don't care about anything but precious Final Fantasy any longer. I'm as big a FF fan as they come, but this is unforgivable.

Not only will being on a cellphone totally ruin the game, but this completely screws any chance of the US ever seeing it released. Way to go, Square. I could forgive FFI and II being released yet again. I could forgive the ruination of Brave Fencer Musashi. But this? I just don't know.

As if wiimotes didn't cause enough injury...

2007-05-11T14:04:00.000-05:00

Apparently, Wii's added yet another game to its large list of "It's coming, we promise!" titles that have yet to see the light of day. Old-school gamers and PS2-generation nooblets alike will probably be familiar with the hero by now, none other that diskarmor wielding Rygar.

For all two of you not in the know, the diskarmor is basically a giant bladed disc (Surprise!) on the end of a massively long chain. I'd say the videos of Heavenly Sword in action replicate a lot of Rygar's moves, if you're looking for a comparison.

So, with this being on the Wii, you can rest assured people are going to be flinging their wiimotes around with abandon in whip-like fashion, sending small children and animals alike for the nearest bit of cover. I can't wait!

And Sony strikes again...

2007-04-07T13:47:00.000-05:00

So everyone knows by now that Sony is keeping retailers from getting their hands on the 20GB PS3 model. As it turns out now, they're even being pulled from Sony's own online store on top of that. Why? Hell if I know. Some people like to claim there is speculation that this is because of an impending price drop. I highly doubt it. With how long it took Sony to drop price on the PSP, there's no way they would drop the PS3's so soon. Then again, the PSP wasn't a total failure against its competitors, so the playing field isn't exactly the same.

Seriously though, this is such an asinine move, I can't fathom why they'd do it at all. There has to be hundreds, if not thousands of 20GB models still on warehouse shelves, why aren't they getting sold? Even if they marked them down to the price of a Wii (Yeah right!), they'd still make more than if they just let them sit there and rot. Unless, that is, they're scrapping them all for parts in the 60GB models.

Even so, are so few people really buying the 20GB model that this cancellation is needed? I'm beginning to think Sony made so few 20GB models to begin with just so they could claim they're selling so much lower than the 60GB version. Me, I'd much rather take the 20GB version. I don't need all these HD bells and whistles, memory card readers, HDM-whatever ports, and so on. Some of us are still using SD TVs, Sony, strange as it may be. We're not all sheep, dropping several grand on your fancy Hi-Def flatscreens.

Pokemon Diamond and Pearl...secrets?

2007-04-06T12:37:00.000-05:00

Over at 1UP, there's a recent article tossed up labeled a "Pokemon Diamond and Pearl cheat sheet." Now, in my twenties I may be, but I've been following the little monsters since they first came out back in '98, so I naturally went to give this a read. After all, it could have something new, right? Maybe? Well, turns out not so much. The article merely throws together everything pretty much any fan already knows, even the fans that aren't so hardcore.

We get told stuff like "It's pseudo 3-D!" and "There's a day/night system!" Here I'd been hoping for a real inside scoop on some new detail that's been kept under wraps or something. Unfortunately, this "cheat sheet" seems more like "Let's throw everything together that someone else has already said and take credit for it!" Way to go, 1UP. Then again, I do wonder if some people may actually not know some of these facts. I mean, I'm still seeing people today wondering if the main character of FFXIII is a female or not. I thought that would have been common sense by now!

Guitar Hero? Illegal? Bzuh?!

2007-04-05T15:45:00.000-05:00

So over at Joystiq they have a story from Game Stooge, in which they (The stooges, not Joystiq!) make the absolutely ludicrous claim that Guitar Hero is illegal. Their reasoning appears to be that because the game does not give you its entire content in one fell swoop, then it is false advertising. In this respect, that would presumably make just about every game ever made illegal, since nary a one actually gives you everything unlockable all at once.

Now, I'm not familiar with Game Stooge in the least, in fact until now I don't think I've even heard of them. Judging by the name, though, you'd think they're at least a site involved with, naturally, video games. Explain to me why then, they would even try to claim a game should unlock everything from the start! The very lasting value of a game is based--often enough--on how much unlockable content it might have!

This really has to be one of the dumbest suggestions I've ever heard in the almost twenty years I've been a gamer. The idiot over at Game Stooge (yes, I could be a little nicer, but the incredible stupidity kind of tosses that out the window) even goes on to compare the practice of unlockable content to such things as being forced to watch TV stations to gain other channels, DVDs requiring a quota of various companies' discs being watched, and so on.

Quite honestly I can't believe this "jonahfalcon" has ever played a game in his life. Either that or he's the type of person that downloads the latest game save as soon as he gets a new disc just so he doesn't have to work for anything. As much as I hate to use this phrase, I don't think it could possibly fit the moment any better: QQ more, jonahfalcon.

2007-04-05T14:46:00.000-05:00

So aside from covering news related bits, I mentioned I was going to write up bits about what games I'm playing at the moment as well. Being a huge fan of RPGs and SRPGs, and anime-styled ones especially, I've been trying to get my hands on NIS' Spectral Souls for some time now. I'd heard almost nothing but bad about it, mostly in regards to the "insane" and "game-ruining" loading times the UMD provides us with. Still, I bit the bullet, and finally found a copy of it on Amazon a few days ago.

Just yesterday it arrived, and after putting about three hours in or so, I've got just one thing to say to all the loading-haters: WHAT? In all seriousness, I have yet to see a load time that's more than 3-4 seconds at most, and probably 90% of the load times are barely a second long. I can't believe people are so impatient that they'd bitch this much about things!

It would be different if the game itself was bad on top of the load times, but so far it's very fun, and definitely one of the more enjoyable NIS titles I've played--which is most of them. The battle system is great, and the music is simply fantastic. The only improvements I'd really wish for would have to be voice acting. I'm a sucker for good voices, and they really make a game for me.

Besides, how could you hate an RPG that doesn't feature a generic adolescent protagonist for once?! That alone is a breath of air fresh enough to make almost any problem worth ignoring!

Also, check here for more screenies and artwork, it's definitely worth a look!

And so it begins!

2007-04-05T03:08:00.000-05:00

Right, well, here I am. And here we are. The start of yet another blogging endeavor by yours truly. I've had a few less-than-serious blogs in the past, but I believe I'm going to try and keep this one as "serious" as possible. Of course by serious I mean incredibly relaxed, but I digress.

Why am I starting this? Well, mainly because I want to write. I love to write, and anyone that's known me for more than ten minutes will probably tell you the same thing. They'll also tell you I'm incredibly stubborn and opinionated, and if that doesn't say "HEY, WRITE A BLOG," well, I don't know what does.

This blog, though, I owe mainly to the suggestion of Ishaan over at Flame War Advance, who I've been working with over at Japanator for a short while now. I've wanted to write about games for awhile, and I realized that there's nothing really stopping me from doing so myself, even if I do write at two other sites at the same time. So, with that said, here I am, and here I will be for hopefully some time. Time long enough to spruce things up past this default layout, especially.

Why "The New Season," anyway? Well, it's a short, but irritating story. I spent ages trying to come up with just the right name for this site, and everything I thought of was taken. From Guilty Gear references to Lunar references to anything else, all taken and not even posted in since 2002. Oh yes, I was pissed. But, eventually, like all good ideas, this one hit me out of nowhere as I finished watching tonight's episode of the new anime Heroic Age.

The Spring season--be it games or anime--has always been a high point in regards to its respective medium. Great RPGs always come out around Spring, great new anime often air...so I thought, why not carry that idea over to the title of my site. So, quite obviously, I did! Now that it's all set up, I'll be covering just about everything game and anime related I can think of, be it news, my own personal opinions on my gaming and anime-watching life, and so on.

Hopefully people will pick this up along the way at some point, but if they don't, that's okay too. Me and my newfound obsession with Shakugan no Shana up there will be just fine!