Everyone: Buy Skies Of Arcadia!!!

[Laser Link]

Sega recently held a conference call where they revealed what upgrades were made to the GC version, and also commented on the possibility of a sequel. I'll let you go read about the upgrades and additions (which sound really great) at PGC on your own time, but here's the important thing. Both Sega and Overworks say they would love to make a sequel, but they are waiting to see how SoA:Legends sells. So please, I beg you, buy this game, tell everyone you know about this game, and then buy it again. You'll be happy, your friends will be happy, Sega and Overworks will be happy, you'll make me very happy, and I won't expect any birthday presents this year.

It should be out tomorrow. Clear your schedule!!!

[A Black Falcon]

I almost certainly will, eventually... it won't be before summer, though. I won't have money for it until then... but I do want this game. Playing the DC version made me want it...

[OB1]

I might get it after I beat Xenosaga. I can handle only one RPG in a four month period, and I'd rather get something new.

[The Former DMiller]

Of course you didn't read about the conference call until you read it at PGC. Nintendophiles posted about it the day before. :p

[A Black Falcon]

But does anyone here except you go to Nintendophiles? I know I don't...

Anyway, hasn't this been at PGC for a while too?

[OB1]

So when did you move from nintesity to nintendophiles?

Do you guys think that we should add a small link to nintendophiles at the TC main page since Derek works there?

[Great Rumbler]

Originally posted by A Black Falcon
But does anyone here except you go to Nintendophiles?

I do.

[A Black Falcon]

TC Main Page? There is one?

Or do you mean the forums list?

[OB1]

Right.

[Sacred Jellybean]

Random, repetitive battles make my head ache and rattle. But I may rent it, just to see what all this Laser Link hype is all aboot.

Can anyone confirm whether any elements of the game have still been dumbed down, along with the additional features? Just curious...

[OB1]

Nothing has been dumbed down. They've lowered the number or random battles, you now get more experience points to make up for the lower number of battles, there are some new characters, the battle system has supposedly been sped up, and there are some new enemies which are supposed to be really tough. And then some other stuff.

[Dark Jaguar]

So the rumors of censorship and dumb down-ification were false? Good news!

Anyway, I too will eventually get it, since it's certainly got LL's seal of approval.

However, and this is to LL, I will only experience this game IF you can get one game I think YOU need to play. I know you don't have a PS2 or XBox, but you must have a PC if you are taking programming classes (unless you do everything at school). So, I ask you to get either Starcraft or Warcraft 3, depending on your PC's power level. Will you do this thing?

[OB1]

I'm not sure about the censorship issue, though. I haven't heard anything about that.

[Smoke]

Originally posted by A Black Falcon
But does anyone here except you go to Nintendophiles?

I do too. It's a good site.

Originally posted by OB1
Do you guys think that we should add a small link to nintendophiles at the TC main page since Derek works there?

I think once we have a frontpage again we should have a links page with all good/relevent sites linked. We should also work on getting TC linked to by more sites.

[Smoke]

And because I completly forget the topic of this thread in my last post:

I'm getting Skies of Arcadia Legends ASAP. I've been wanting to try this game for a long time now and the more I read about it the better it sounds.

[Nintendarse]

the N64 has left me in dire need for a decent RPG. I mean, even in my youth, I loved to roam sprawling space with my cool little sprites. I would play the first hour of Final Fantasy II(US) over and over and over and never get bored of it. It was crazy. It was saddening to go from Super Nintendo (FFII, FFIII, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG) to N64(Paper Mario, Ogre Battle), and Gamecube might bring my rebirth into the RPG fold. So check me off on your list of people to bother, because I already wants me some Vyse. And I mean that in a completely platonic way...really.

[The Former DMiller]

Originally posted by OB1
So when did you move from nintesity to nintendophiles?

I started working at NPhiles last November. It's great working for a big site because I get free stuff. :) I'm getting the Afterburner installed on my GBA for free so I can do a review of it. I know the SP is coming out, but I probably won't get it right away.

[Laser Link]

Oh oh oh! PGC is streaming 24 hours of Skies music!!! WOOO! I'm listening to a battle theme right now, I think. The music wasn't BEST EVAR, but still good stuff. Especially the opening theme.

Oooh, now this is definently Valuan of some kind. Yes, it's so sinister. I can almost feel the rays of the Yellow Moon shining down on me.

Sorry Derek, I will start reading N-Philes. *slaps self*

DJ, I would absolutely love Warcraft 3. I greatly enjoyed WCII, and was looking forward to WC3 for a long time. But as of right now my PC can't handle it. :( I will get it eventually. And enjoy it immensly, I'm sure. Especially since it sounds like they forced you to make party sizes smaller. I have trouble multitasking. :)

[Laser Link]

Oh, this is the "End of Battle Theme". Too bad it's short.

And there is the ship overworld theme. You hear this a lot, but at least it's good. I think I better stop now.

[A Black Falcon]

LL... oh, don't worry. DJ's PC can't really handle War3 either... that's why we have to play Starcraft -- he cannot run War3 online at playable framerates. :(

How bad is your computer? If it was released in the last 5 years it'd run SC... and SC is almost as good as WC3, even now. Unless you have something really big against Sci-Fi you have no excuse not to have it...

I think once we have a frontpage again we should have a links page with all good/relevent sites linked. We should also work on getting TC linked to by more sites.

Yes, the frontpage really needs to be brought back... why not just update the old one with new links to pages?

Also. We don't just need to be linked on MORE sites. We need to be linked on ANY sites. I checked Yahoo and Google... all the mentions I found linked to the now-defunct Tendocity.net. Could someone explain why we had to get a new domain? It makes people who might have found us there (because that one was actually listed in a few places) not be able to find us and completely cuts us off from any hope of getting new members until we get listed SOMEWHERE again... I don't want floods of newbies, but a few now and then would be great. I mean, we DO have people leave every so often (as every site does), so if we want to maintain a decent-sized community we NEED to have people join... which we won't unless something changes -- either (if possible) we go back to using the tendocity.net domain or get this one SOMEWHERE where people might find it.

[Laser Link]

I'm pretty sure I can run StarCraft. I'm not a big sci-fi fan, but That's okay. It should be pretty cheap now, right? I got that Warcraft Battle Chest for $30, and I thought I saw something similar for SC. I can't afford anything right now, but maybe in the near future. After Zelda or so.

[A Black Falcon]

SC Battlechest (SC + expansion) is $20. At least that's the price it is at any normal software store that doesn't inflate its prices or something.

And Warcraft II BNE (War2 + BTDP Win95 and B.net...) has been $10-12 for several years now... if you don't have that (do you have the DOS or Win95 version of the Warcraft Battle Chest?)

$20 is really cheap. If you like strategy games ( and you seem to) I can't see why you didn't get it years ago... sure it hasn't been $20 for years, but SC and BW seperate have been... SC, after all, will be 5 years old this April!

[Dark Jaguar]

If you liked WC2, then I think you will LOVE SC. Seriously, you don't know true differences in forces until you play SC or WC3. WC2 had like a few spells different, but everything else was just a mirror image in each team (ogre and knights were the same unit, as were elves and trolls) but SC and WC3 have totally different forces that you really have to play differently. Ya say you are bad at multi tasking? Join the club :D. If you only played the DOS version of WC2, then be happy because they added lots of keyboard stuff that makes managing all those forces so much eaiser to do, not to mention lots of other unit managing tricks. Of course, this means you have to actually touch the keyboard, which is always something that takes finess, but hey I'm sure you can adapt. I myself am not the best at SC, in fact I have only won matches against my friend, who is actually worse, or was last I beat him.

Oh, and yes WC3 really limits your units. There's a 90 food cap (after making all the food making places to get it that high), and since most use more than 1 food (like 3 average) that means you have even less of an army after that. There's also penalties for having your army above 40 (small tax on your cash and above 70 (huge tax on your cash). It's still very strategic though, especially with heros that level up and collect items. Unlike WC2, and SC even, heros can't just camp back at the base because they are so much more powerful and diverse than normal units that you would be slaughtered without using them.

Besides, I wanna play a match against you some time. If you can't play WC3, get SC, like I said. I'm sure you'll love it despite the sci fi. It's not star trek-like if that's your beef though, it's actually got a very great storyline to it that has some similarities to Metroid Prime's story bits and some of Fusion's story bits, assuming you liked that. I just hope you don't mind the unimaginable moisture of the zerg.

[A Black Falcon]

It should be a crime for a strategy game fan not to have Starcraft... :)

Anyway, I don't see how you managed to avoid it for so many years... I guess you really don't buy any PC games...

Oh, and one of the few things I wish were different about SC were the Zerg voices... it is annoying that one whole race just growls and hisses...

[Dark Jaguar]

Well what did you expect them to do? Recite poetry? *zing* Eh, they don't just growl and hiss though, they ALSO make a bunch of deliteful squishy sounds. It's just like owning a dung beetle farm...3000 times larger than normal.

[big guy]

Originally posted by Dark Jaguar
I just hope you don't mind the unimaginable moisture of the zerg.

i always found the zerg so...arousing...and now i know why!

[Laser Link]

IGNCube (finally) reviewed Skies, and it got a lower score than I was hoping for, but I'm not surprised. I think it's still Insider for now, but I'll give you some scores to be nice. The GC scores are in purple, DC in orange.
Presentation 8.0 9.2
Graphics 5.0 9.7
Sound 7.0 8.5
Gameplay 9.0 9.2
Lasting Appeal 7.0 9.0
OVERALL SCORE 8.5 9.2

I don't understand what Fran was thinking on some of these. The graphics score is excusable, since there really is not too much updated for the DC version, but that was still very pretty. Maybe he also dropped presentation because it's not as pretty as other nows. The sounds has actually improved from the DC version, because it sounds like they removed the voice acting (which was pretty bad at times), but still Fran drops the score. But how is it that Overworks can add a bunch of new stuff, improve the battles to make it more fun to play through a second time, and the score drops 2 points. That's stupid. 8.5 is not a bad score, but the game is much better than this. Now I'll be the first to admit that IGNDC always scored games higher than the other IGN sties, but I think Fran is still on a Metroid high.

[Dark Jaguar]

They had voice acting in the DC version that was removed eh? Well if it was bad, that's a nice thing to do, IF it can be turned off and on by the player, ya know? They could also do the favor of redubbing it.

[A Black Falcon]

Gamespot reviewed it too, before IGN did... they gave it a 7.5. I checked, and the DC one got a 9.2 from them...

They say that the battles are not any less frequent (ie that they are the same frequency as the DC version), and that the characters still have their little voice things (four or five things per person they keep repeating)... I don't know about the IGN review, as its Insider, but that's what Gamespot says.
Gamespot scores..
GC DC
7 9 - gameplay
7 9 - graphics
7 8 - sound
8 9 - value
8 10 - tilt
7.5 9.2 - overall score

[OB1]

I don't think it has anything to do with Fran being on a Metroid high. He's just reviewing the game keeping in mind that it's a port of an "old" DC game. The graphics pale in comparison to your average GC game, but everything else is really good. I think it should have gotten at least a 9.0, but oh well.

Gamespot is another matter. Their reviewers are on crack.

[A Black Falcon]

Umm... I see two pretty similar reviews there... but you? You explain away one and say the other is stupid. Umm... if the Gamespot review is so bad, then the IGN one is too because those scores sure are pretty similar...

[OB1]

Hey I said that ign's score was a bit too low, but Gamespot's is even lower.

[Laser Link]

Well, the Gamespot review dropped the gameplay 2 points. That's flat out stupid. The gameplay hasn't changed.

[A Black Falcon]

Gamespot grades a LOT harder than IGN, so to me a 7.5 from Gamespot means a lot more (and is better in many ways) than a 8.5 from IGN, whose reviews I've learned to pretty much ignore for how much I'd like the game (or what I'd give it) in way too many cases.

Oh, and Gamespot did mark some things down more, but in graphics notice they have it a 7... only 2 points down. IGN dropped graphics from a 9.7 to a 5... a strange thing to do when the graphics are still pretty good (well, thats what Gamespot says!)

Oh... back to the game itsself. Well, Gamespot said that random battles aren't any less frequent... did IGN dissagree? What's the truth here?

[The Former DMiller]

Overworks said they were making the random battles less frequent, so Gamespot much just think they aren't any less.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah... and I'm wondering if they actually didn't or if Gamespot is wrong...

[The Former DMiller]

Well, in a conference call with Overworks a few days ago, they said the random battles had been reduced. That's after the game was already in production so they either lying, or Gamespot just didn't feel like there were less random battles.

[Laser Link]

Yeah, the random battles are now less frequent, but you get more exp from each than before, so you still level up as fast as before. That's what Sega said and what IGN said as well. I do agree with the Gamespot score for graphics more, like you said ABF. I would have said it is about a 7. It's not Metroid Prime or SFA, but not much is. I honestly would say the graphics of SoA on DC were better than ED, but I never saw much in ED. It always looked blurry and low poly to me. Oh well.

[Weltall]

I won't get the GC version for awhile yet as I never finished the DC version, but I have been FINALLY playing it again. I spent so much time lost on the map looking for the Moon Stone Mine that I gained a few levels and now I'm stronger :)

[OB1]

Correction, ABF: Gamespot's reviewers are simply morons. They give shit like Serious Sam GOTY awards and great games like Skies 7.5's.

[A Black Falcon]

At least they are better reviewers than the idiots who review games at IGN!

Oh, and they aren't morons... I find their reviews on a whole are pretty good... not the best (I still like PC Gamer's a lot, but thats just for PC games), but really good. And for ever Serious Sam winning GOTY there's a year when they gave it to Grim Fandango ('98-- when EVERYONE else was awarding Half-Life with GOTY, Gamespot didn't and gave it to the (IMO) better game Grim Fandango... :) ). Oh, and just because you hate Serious Sam because its a mindless shooter, it doesn't mean that everyone does... or that its a bad game. IMO, its a good, if quite mindless, game... not a GOTY, but a good mindless shooter. Fun to play for a while but, true, not really something that should be getting GOTY... though I can see how they did give it to it.

I've said this before. As well as how I think IGN's reviews are barely credible a lot of the time... I won't repeat that part again.

[OB1]

IGN's reviews are some of the best on the net. You confuse gamespot's harsh scores to being "honest", but they simply just give too many good games poor scores while giving some seriously crappy games fantastic scores.

[A Black Falcon]

They don't consistently rate games strangely for bizarre reasons like IGN does... I read their reviews, but don't put a whole lot of crediblility on them compared to how I think... sure, they are decent reviews (the PC ones are overall decent... the N64/NGC ones though are definitely below average...) but still I think the they take off points for no good reason, or give odd scores, way too much for me to give them much credibility.

Just look at all the games marked down significantly for nearly nonexistant framerate problems. Or Skies of Arcadia here, with its bizzare 5 in graphics...

No, even in the PC division (better than the NGC one for sure), the reviews don't match Gamespot's in good scoring or accuracy. Are they decent? Usually... but not enough for me to find them really all that good...

[OB1]

This is what I've noticed with Gamespot's reviews. They always give too high of a score for graphics but overall low scores for good games, and unusually high scores for some crappy games. Gamespot is far more inconsitent with their reviews than ign is. Case in point: Cubivore.

It gets a 5 for gameplay, and an 8 for graphics. But overall it gets a 7.3. Hello? The gameplay get a 5 yet it gets a 7.3 overall? How fucked up is that? And would like you to see the amazing graphics of this game that Gamespot actually scored one point higher than Skies of Arcadia?? Here you go:




WOW! What a gorgeous game! Now let's take a look at Skies of Arcadia, which got a lower score for graphics:





Yup! Cubivore sure looks better than Skies!! Great job, Gamespot!

[Private Hudson]

GameSpot do have some inconsistancies. Most of the time, I believe GS are the only ones not afraid to be honest.

And IGN are horrible journalists.

I wouldn't expect most people around here to appreciate GS, though.. due to their.. willingness to criticize Nintendo games.

That is all. :)

[OB1]

So.. because they have some terribly inconsistent reviews they're good and honest? Ookay!

[Private Hudson]

That made no sense, at all.

Idiot.

GameSpot do have some inconsistancies.

However, most of the time, I believe GS are the only ones not afraid to be honest.


...There... I put a clearly visible space between my points. It cannot be any clearer now.

:)

[OB1]

You have shit for brains, Hudson. (see? he started the name-calling first!)

You're confusing inconsistency and low scores for honest reviews.

[Private Hudson]

GameSpot do have some inconsistancies.
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However, MOST OF THE TIME, I believe GS are the only ones not afraid to be honest.




There, clearer?

[The Former DMiller]

My thoughts are that GS seems to be inconsistent a lot, but IGN tends to overrate games and tend towards fanboyism. Usually I trust GS more than IGN, but I really don't pay that much attention to either because they both have their problems.