Etrian Odyssey is a 3D dungeon crawler created by Atlus.
While you listen, I just want to muse a bit about E3, or rather the prerelease.
E3 is in a few weeks. Every company is gearing up for the show. Some companies, such as Nintendo and Playstation, are going to have halls full of people. So, why are they announcing their products ahead of time?
One of the earliest official release of items was the Kingdom Hearts 3D English Trailer. With E3 only a short time away, people believed the trailer would be hid until then. However, the trailer was released last week.
PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale was announced before that, but that should have been held off until E3. It's a big deal. We still don't have a trailer for it. We have a partial characters list, we have video of battles, we have a rundown of how the released characters fight.... but we don't have a trailer.
Why didn't Sony wait until E3? Why didn't Square Enix wait for the KH3D trailer?
The KH3D trailer is 10 minutes long (No, I'm not kidding) so Square Enix may have released it early for that reason, but Nintendo could have shown it off at E3. Kingdom Hearts is a big property and the 3DS is still looking for games. And the time would be more manageable if they cut out the battle stuff in the middle.
But Sony has no excuse. The game is big. The game is a fanboy/girl's dream. Why not wait until E3 to surprise everyone? Where they afraid of being scooped? Is it not good?
Or do they have something bigger planned? Sony is announcing 20 games at E3, what are they? Where they afraid the game would get lost in the shuffle?
I'm just not sure. Why do you think they released it early?
I won't focus on the basic puzzle room. A white box with implements to open and close doors is scary, but not overtly interesting.
I'm talking about the bits and pieces that make up the room. I'm talking about walking into Chamber 16 and seeing the wall propped open by Cubes. I'm talking about entering the viewing chambers while escaping and finding them completely empty. I'm talking about the cheerful announcer over the destroyed and rusted rooms.
Specifically, I'm talking about the places in between tests in the middle of Portal 2. (Spoilers)
After Wheatley is corrupted by GLaDOS' harness, he sends Chell and POTaDOS (GLaDOS' mind in a potato battery) down into the sealed off sections of Aperture. Once they arrive down there, Chell begins to go through the tests in an attempt to get back up to Wheatley since it is very likely he is going to destroy the facility. As she goes through the old tests, she triggers radio messages. The messages, along with various "Set Decoration" help explain Aperture's history.
When we first arrive, Chell must make her way through unidentifiable ruins. Railways have fallen down with age, doors have been sealed off, fires burn, and as she makes her way through what appears to be a fallen silo she (and the player) see signs that say "Keep Out". Clearly, things have not gone well.
As time goes on, we enter into the first segment of the game. Cave and Caroline (The CEO and his assistant) starts talking, and the areas look very nice... for the fifties. Awards are displayed (notably, Aperture continually gets second place. It's hinted they lost to Black Mesa) the floor is marble, there are some prototypes for computers and the subjects are all heroes who are volunteering for a charity. It looks great! Until you actually get into testing. While it is still maintained reasonably well, Cave is clearly being haphazard with the science... like how he gives his test subjects tumors in order to see what would happen to the tumors. He also flagrantly ignores normal science procedure by talking about the control group and laughing over how someone got hurt. It's a good way to set up the dichotomy that is Aperture.
When we're traveling between the areas we notice some signs. The sign I wish to bring your attention to is this one.
Apparently, they put anti matter in with Allergens. They were advanced enough to get antimatter without destroying everything but... they apparently created people who were allergic to it. Or they could have considered their blowing up to be an allergy. Either way, some science issues there.
When we go on, Cave Johnson has gotten older, and the company's monetary value has significantly dropped. Instead of having war heroes do it for charity, they are taking hobos from the street and paying them 60 dollars. Cave is very obviously dismissive of them. Most importantly, the chairs have been downgraded to plastic. They do not have the money to keep it going anymore. They simply wish to test and go on. To emphasize, here is a sign seen in the entry and exit rooms:
Finally, we reach the latest testing area. It looks modern, functional, and Cave Johnson is dying. He's more then dying, the company is broke, employees must "Volunteer" for testing, and he seriously campaigns for his and Caroline's brains to be put onto a computer. The test chambers are purely functional now, and they are blank. The chambers are so empty it is actually creepy. When we finish, Cave rants about lemons and we move on. This is the sign of the era:
We see the fall of Aperture in the fate of Caroline (forcibly turned into GLaDOS), the finances, and the quality of the subjects. It may have experienced a brief resurgence later - they obviously had the money to make GLaDOS and perfect other items- but then GLaDOS was activated and she killed almost every scientist. The one who did survive- Doug Rattmann- has been hallucinating inside Aperture ever since.
None of this is ever stated in game. We can simply tell. Cave explains a lot of it, but signs about robot bosses contrast heavily with the plush chairs and thanking war heroes for participating in the test.
Valve excels in the subtext. And that is all that is needed to show how a once great company fell.
One of the interesting things about this song is that it's US only. It has also appeared in Super Smash Brothers Brawl as one of the songs that can play during the "Green Zone" stage.
Also: you now have this song stuck in your head all day.
I've stated before Mewtwo is my favorite character. Mewtwo was also in Super Smash Brother Melee. Since I have never played Melee, I usually main Lucario in Brawl despite being better at Samus.
But Mewtwo was almost in Brawl.
After the game was released, hackers started going through the code. In it they found a few very interesting things. Mewtwo had some sound files and a winning screen. Well, that wouldn't be unusual, they could have imported it for some reason during development.
But Mewtwo also had a Final Smash yell. Proof that he had actually had some programming done before he was cut from the playlist.
(The model appears to be a reskinned Lucario, ignore that. The second voice clip is from Mewtwo)
He doesn't have a model (that I can find. The Smash wiki states he does have a working model but I can't find a video of it) , so the trophy model is from another game (I can't find the title at the moment, but it was something like Pokemon Colosseum) but it is interesting to see how much they actually got done.
Maybe he can come back in a future release... if his stats got tweaked. From what I understand, he didn't live up to his legendary status at all.
I was trying to figure out what to analyze, but then I realized that today was my 100 post! Wow... I know I may be slow right now, but I do really enjoy this blog. I just get busy and forget to do it.
So, in honor of the 100th post, I will
I'll come up with something good tomorrow since I have some duties I need to do today. Again.
I'm going to talk about why I love video games.
My earliest memory of them consists of me in the basement with one of my mom's cousins. He has a Sonic game on. The next memory I have is of my entire block gathered around a TV in our basement. We were playing Banjo Tooie. We just sat around and talked to eachother. One one person got stuck, he passed it to the next person.
This is what gaming is for me. It's playing with family and friends around. It's talking about all sorts of things (gaming related or not) it's theorizing with your brother only to find out your perfect theory was wrong.
It may include shipping, fangirl/boying, and yelling in rage when you don't have the money. But, most of all, it is fun.
No, no, you must be mistaken. I didn't miss Musical Monday.
Happy?
I am, sort of. I really like this theme. But I'm not here to talk about the theme.
Final Fantasy VS XIII was announced at E3 in 2006. The trailer, seen above, knocked everyone's socks off. It was more desired then Final Fantasy XIII itself, and then it fell off the map.
This is understandable. The Final Fantasy XIII trilogy of the time (XIII, Agito XIII (later became Type 0) and Versus XIII) were being developed in one office, and XIII then Agito/Type0 had more of the focus. XIII would be their basic title, and Agito was in turmoil. It first started as a mobile phone game before switching to PSP.
Agito came out to rave reviews. XIII was... mixed. (For the record, I liked it. I am at the final level. I can see some complaints, but anyone who claims all the character are unlikeable did NOT give them a chance to develop. Especially Hope.) So Square Enix decided to create XIII-2. That's also been... mixed.
Which brings us back to Versus. Very little has been released about Versus since it's announcement in 2006. Things have been mentioned, like there will be airships and cutscene and ingame models will be practically identical, and a few very incomplete trailers have been released.
And they have explained that not only has Noctis' clothes changed, they ended up switching the entire engine to another one, and the lighting effects changed so they were very realistic.
(I have since found out that that article was an April Fools Day joke. My apologies)
Admittedly, he says it's because the fans are frustrated, but this is just stupid and sets a REALLY bad precedent.
May I direct your attention to Capcom and Valve?
Capcom had announced post release DLC for Street Fighter. People were annoyed, but accepted it. Then people started digging into the files and found fully working models, costumes, and sound. To say people are spitting mad is an understatement. It might have been better if they were incomplete, but you could hack them in no problem. At this time, several people have registered reports with the Better Business Bureau and Capcom has stated:
"While Capcom is sorry that some of its fans are not happy about the
chosen method of delivery for the DLC, we believe that this method will
provide more flexible and efficient gameplay throughout the game's
lifecycle. There is effectively no distinction between the DLC being
''locked'' behind the disc and available for unlocking at a later date,
or being available through a full download at a later date, other than
delivery mechanism."
Valve for Half-Life 2 switched to an episodic model in order to save development time. Half 2 Episode 2 was released in 2007 with NO updates since then. At least XIII releases trailers.
Square Enix, if you want to relieve frustration, the answer is very simple.
Release information. I will NOT buy a game like this in installments. You have no idea how much I was looking forward to it, but putting 2/3 of the game as DLC has pretty much killed my interest. The game looks fascinating, complex, has a heavy focus on relationships, and... it will mostly be DLC. If you want people to get excited, start by saying EXACTLY how far you are along. The most recent trailer did not have complete voice acting! VAing is all or nothing for trailer cut scenes, otherwise it just comes across as unprofessional. You can release screenshots, talk about characters, over view the battle system, etc.
This also sets a VERY bad precedent. Valve at the very least has been upfront with how they were going to do episodes in the beginning and how the idea that it was supposed to cut down on development time didn't work. But look at something like Kingdom Hearts, the other FF's or just games in general. "We know you wanted it out sooner, so here is a third of the game. The rest is $20 DLC on top of the $60 price tag". "You can't beat the game unless you pay us more money" I'm sorry, but gaming does not work that way, especially for a longer game. You will lose your customers. People buy DLC. I've bought some. But changing a game style to mostly DLC is frustrating and insulting. (This also ties into getting rid of used games). You'll make money now, but you'll lose your customers in the long run. Capcom may often talk to it's community, but this DLC issue is using up a lot of good will very quickly. Square, you will lose even more. And what about Kingdom Hearts? People are getting VERY frustrated waiting for that, will you release that mostly as DLC?
This is coming out negative, but one point remains. If you want to reduce frustration, SE, don't release the game in installments and release more (non trailer) information in the mean time. I love trailers, but I'd rather an interview that gives background to the characters more then a new trailer right now.
