Niahak's Place

How… random. Right after a post full of random stuff, I have more random stuff to share.

• New page: Der Langrisser Guide

The game series has long been one of my favorites, so it was only a matter of time until this happened anyways. Basically, if you took a “normal” strategy RPG and made it actually feel like a battle rather than a skirmish, then you’d have Langrisser. The first one came stateside as the Genesis game Warsong. Sad that nobody does it, though. I got my hands on the official Japanese guide for DL, the only Super Famicon game in the series (and a remake of L2), so I’ve been translating some stuff in it. The game should have a translation out in a couple months, hopefully.

So I’ve seen a bunch of cool stuff over the past few weeks that I couldn’t really fit into any other entries. Having it all in one big post is better than making a half-dozen little ones.

• Nintendo wanted to do Miis for a long time.

Shigeru Miyamoto revealed this in his GDC keynote (available at IGN – it’s part 2), but it was not in the news, because evidently everyone was too busy whining about how Nintendo didn’t announce game information to consumers at a conference for game developers. Nintendo had been planning the Mii thing since the original NES / Famicom, but never implemented it until the Wii (probably because of the Wii’s internet friendliness). In his keynote, he showed off an early version for the DS that was scrapped as well as a version for Famicom that never got past the early prototypes. It’ll be interesting to see how a long-held dream works out in the end. If third-party games start using them, they could be really cool. As it is they seem to be a proof-of-concept.

So yesterday I heard about a great-sounding game called Puzzle Quest for the DS and PSP.  I hadn’t heard anything about it before, and the most unusual thing was that I heard about it from 3 different sources; vl, GAF, and SoSZ.  It was described as a “RPG/Puzzle hybrid” and that is, more or less, what it is.

I visited the official site for the game last night.  They have a downloadable demo that lets you reach up to level 7 (and a certain point in the plot).  From the look of it, there’ll be two kinds of multiplayer, and the interview at GAF said that it has 40+ hours of gameplay (though it is the developers talking, and that’s almost never accurate).

Basically, if you take something like Bejeweled and add an open-ended storyline system along with stats, special abilities, and equipment that affect the game board, opponent, and the effects of actions, you’d have this game.  You take turns with your opponent, each switching two gems and trying to get 3+ in a row or column.  Depending on what object type you match up, you get mana, gold, or experience, or damage your opponent.  If you get 4+ in a row, you get an extra turn, and like Yoshi’s Cookie (I’ve only seen a bit of Bejeweled) you can and should chain together combos to get even more stuff.

This game’s from the company that made the Warlords games for PC.  If that means anything to you, let me know, because I have only heard of the series maybe once or twice, long ago.

So yeah.  Try the demo.  It kept me interested for more than 2 hours last night, and I’m already planning on getting the game.

Other than Puzzle Quest, finished Suikoden 2 (with a couple hours to spare on Clive even at the ending… how did that happen?) and I’m 6 hours into Suikoden 3.  This time around, I’m going to play through each character’s first 3 chapters all at once, because I’ve heard it can help you understand the characters better.   Suiko3 has had a lot of criticism, but I really like a lot of the features – The Trinity View system allows for a deeper plot, and the battle positioning/timing system along with skills makes for more strategic normal battles.  I’m not enjoying the plot as much this time around (since it’s my 4th time through), but I’m playing my least favorite chapters first, so we’ll see if that changes.

So one of the Wii’s many random features is the “Everybody Votes Channel”. Basically, this is a polling system where you register 6 voters. There are a few polls at a time and each voter can pick one of the two options offered (and predict the majority response). After a poll is finished and results are in, they can be viewed by anyone – you can view percentage of each answer by gender or region.

One of the international polls recently was “Do you like your name?”. The response was “Yes” by a large majority, but of interest – the country that, in general, disliked their names the most was Japan.

I beat Luca Blight yesterday. The scene where you have the confrontation with him is absolutely my favorite single scene in a Playstation game. The buildup, the previous scenes with Luca, and the fact that you need 18 of your very best fighters (I don’t think I’ve ever beat him all 3 times on the first try), a few quivers of arrows, and finally a duel against him to defeat him has convinced me he is my favorite villain of all-time. Too bad you only find out the reason he’s a maniac so indirectly.

Little touches in other scenes flesh out the story wonderfully. For example, if you load data from the first game and get McDohl with Kasumi in your party, you get a (rather sad) scene between her and McDohl. I didn’t have time to experiment, although Viktor had some brief dialogue with him right when you first talk to him.

So now I’m wondering what happens to all these main characters after the games. I mean, McDohl wanders off somewhere, obviously. But he’s probably got a long life ahead of him. After S2, in the “best” ending, if I’m remembering right, the main character keeps a true rune (trying to avoid spoilers). I also recall in S3, all the characters still had their true runes at the end. What do they do then? Is an eventual Suikoden going to involve lots of True Rune-wielding heroes taking down the power-hungry Harmonian empire (which had a subplot in S3 about their hunger for the True Runes)?

Back to my current run-through of S2.  Beating Luca was the 11-hour mark, if I’m remembering right. 2 hours earlier than most of my previous times.

Now I’m at the 16-hour mark and just past the Rockaxe Castle stuff. I’ve seen the second Clive scene at Muse and I also know I pulled off the 108 stars / reaction-time thing at Rockaxe correctly, so now it’s time to hurry up and wait, I guess.

Should finish this one tomorrow mid-evening, and I’ll probably start up number 3 tomorrow as well.