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The Dark Id posted:Shadow Hearts is a JRPG released by Sacnoth released in December of 2001 for the Sony Playstation 2. The Dark Id posted:An Assassins off to stop Templars planting an explosive in the engine car. quote:
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Jun 21, 2018 08:54
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Speaking of stands, Jojo Part 5 was announced for october! also is this game on anything recent? I still have a PS2 but obscure old rear end rpgs usually fetch a pretty penny. Kurtofan fucked around with this message at 09:13 on Jun 21, 2018 |
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Jun 21, 2018 09:10
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Hell yeah  I look forward to The Adventures Of Yuri.Xander77 posted:Getting owned? Malachite_Dragon fucked around with this message at 09:31 on Jun 21, 2018 |
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Jun 21, 2018 09:24
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E: Quote is not edit!
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Jun 21, 2018 09:31
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Kurtofan posted:Speaking of stands, Jojo Part 5 was announced for october! I wish. I think they're just content to let it rust away in the forgotten depths of the RPG library. Idk who owns the rights to Sacnoth's games now. I remember oddly that Midway (known more for arcade games like Mortal Kombat then) had the publishing rights.
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Jun 21, 2018 09:39
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My reaction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3ALwKeSEYs Let's check flower pots, shall we?
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Jun 21, 2018 09:41
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You mad bastard, I didn't think you'd do another 100+ part LP again, and a JRPG to boot. I have a slight history with this game: Some enterprising Gamestop employee suckered 12 year old me into subscribing to their members club and threw in a New copy of SH with it. I had no idea what it was, but I was kind of intrigued because there was a label baked into the cover that said "Promotional-Do Not Sell." Evidently, this guy thought he was sweetening the pot for me by handing me off a 2+ year old obscure JRPG that had just collected dust in a cabinet for years. Like a rube, I took it. I played it a couple times, or tried to, over the PS2 lifecycle. However, back then I was an rear end in a top hat who would only play a long JRPG when I could find a good guide, either in print or online, and only when it was properly formatted to ensure I didn't miss anything. Young me was an rear end about that; the idea of committing to a long game where I could miss something was unbearable, and unfortunately I don't think gamefaqs had very good guides for Shadow Hearts at the time, so I never made it past the first couple areas. I'm pretty sure I sold it with a million other games to that same gamestop 4 years later to afford Persona 3. It wasn't until like 5-6 years that I remembered it and read the LPs for both Shadow Hearts games. I enjoyed them so much I regretted ever selling it and I always wished someone would do an HD release, but the chances of that happening are as close to zero as anything.
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Jun 21, 2018 10:01
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Tuxedo Ted posted:You got me. I thought for sure you'd not go any further than Koudelka. I'm super psyched, but sorry about all the chatting about the Shadow Hearts series in the last thread. Same, I feel kinda bad about it.  Well anyway, like with Koudelka the more people exposed to Shadow Hearts the better. These are just some solid-rear end JRPGs and I especially adore the setting, the early 20th century in an alternate reality with magic and demons mixed with real historical people, events and places is just delicious. I mean it was already true for Koudelka but that game was entirely confined inside Nemeton monastery so they never really got the chance to go nuts with it in a way they do in Shadow Hearts. As a side note, this game has some amazing music track titles which I'm sure will get shown off when we get to them.
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Jun 21, 2018 10:04
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Oh man I am so glad youre doing this. While there's gameplay aspects of this series I didn't care for the stories and setting are so solid they carried me through the entire series. It also helps that Yuri is a fantastic protagonist and most other party members are wonderful in their own ways.
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Jun 21, 2018 11:23
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Tuxedo Ted posted:You got me. I thought for sure you'd not go any further than Koudelka. I'm super psyched, but sorry about all the chatting about the Shadow Hearts series in the last thread. Kanfy posted:Same, I feel kinda bad about it. Also same But also am glad you're showing off this kooky JRPG.
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Jun 21, 2018 11:44
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I had a sudden flash of inspiration and thought I'd make a thing. Sorry it's so sloppy.
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Jun 21, 2018 13:00
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Malachite_Dragon posted:I think he means the way he gets up is the way the Undertaker tends to.
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Jun 21, 2018 14:05
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Xander77 posted:The problem is less with "gets up like the Undertaker" and more with "from owning". Obviously. Nah it's fine, referring to the act of getting owned as an "owning" is a cromulent usage.
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Jun 21, 2018 14:22
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Zagglezig posted:Funny thing about that. They sounded really familiar and it finally clicked at the head officer's voice that they're all flavors of the voice of Grandpa from Yu-gi-oh. And sure enough, same actress. Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Jun 21, 2018 |
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Jun 21, 2018 14:25
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Episode II: Rude Hero New Music: Wind Which Blows From the Dark II .jpg) The intro to Shadow Hearts has concluded. We’re now in the realm of actual gameplay. This game isn’t the greatest looker. In fact, it doesn’t look a whole lot better than Koudelka. The overworld is still the PS1 common style mesh of pre-rendered backgrounds and polygonal models. That’s because Shadow Hearts began its development as a Playstation 1 game. There was only an eighteen month turn around between the Japanese release of Koudelka and this game. .jpg) Our trench coat sporting protagonist has yet to get receive a proper name, so he’ll just be operating under the moniker of “Rude Hero.” The game is very judgmental about his treatment of that poor murder imp that was just doing its job. We could go taking a deep dive into the menu to check out some mechanical details about the game now but ehh... Let’s just get through the prologue first, eh? .jpg) Moving into the next train car, we come upon the ever present foe of JRPGs. The dreaded Random Battle... .jpg) New Music: Brain Hopper (It’s the random battle music for a good chunk of the game. You should probably listen to it.) .jpg) If one thing in Shadow Hearts has gotten a graphical improvement over its predecessor, it is the battle graphics. Like... there’s actually a background set now and not just a floor texture and dark void surrounding it. The train car was also nice enough to double in size and move all its seating arrangements to the back row to accommodate the battle. It’s very considerate of the rail line to make such arrangements. .jpg) I spoke at length at Koudelka’s overly complicated and poorly thought out esoteric mechanical mess of a battle system. So how did they iterate on that in the successor series? Easy. They tossed the entire thing in a dumpster where it belongs. Shadow Hearts comes with a completely new battle system. The details of which we’ll get into when we’re in some proper battles. Which... is going to take a few updates, honestly. .jpg) Moving around a grid or any of that positioning nonsense has been eliminated in favor of more traditional mechanics. Battles are still turn based affairs but we just simply select our target and go to work attacking without worry about distance based damage calculations or proficiency of skills. Instead, there is a new unique gimmick in its place. Let’s just Attack the enemy normally and take a look at that. .jpg) Meet the Judgment Ring -- the core mechanic of Shadow Heart’s battle system. Almost no action in Shadow Hearts is guaranteed. There is a timing based element to it. The Judgment Ring will appear when performing almost anything more complicated than sorting through inventory on a menu (and even then, sometimes...) In this UI element, a green line will make one full 360 degree clockwise sweep of the circle which is divided between three colored segments. The player must tap the X action button at the appropriate times while the green line is over the right segments to trigger an action. In this case attacking. 
.jpg) I think the Judgment Ring is a fun element to battles. Certain a lot better than that slow as molasses nightmare of Koudelka’s battle system. But it can be a bit much to always have to be timing button presses. That said... there is one major drawback to the Judgment Ring system that isn’t actually Shadow Heart’s fault. This is a timing based gimmick on a very early PS2 game from the early aughts. You know... back when everyone still had big box CRT TVs with zero latency. So playing on a modern TV or emulator... the timing is a wee bit unforgiving compared to how it was intended. It’s not PS1 rhythm game unplayable jacked. But the latency issue with modern hardware is definitely noticeable. .jpg) But you’re reading a LP so you don’t need to worry about that kind of stuff. Just like we really don’t need to worry about hitting all the targets on the Judgment Ring for these enemies. A single hit will kill the Wind Shear imps here. .jpg) .jpg) Which is not to say the little guys are completely defenseless. They’re really sore about how Rude Hero did their cousin rotten like that in the intro and will attack with their scythes and blasts of wind energy. But they do all of 4-5 HP of damage and that’s nothing to worry about. .jpg) New Music: Results .jpg) A job well done, Rude Hero. .jpg) For slaying our enemies, we get the usual RPG staples of Experience Points and maybe a dropped item if we were lucky (we were not.) Already a change from Koudelka, there’s actually money time around. Turns out those little guys were carrying 40 Bison Bucks or whatever denomination the internationally legal tender “Cash” falls into. Music: Wind Which Blows From the Dark II .jpg) But we’ll worry about that some other time. Back on task, our Rude Hero continues back towards the car Roger Bacon and the girl were hanging out in. Along the way he can do the tried and true RPG protagonist technique of pillaging corpses for a couple spare items. It’s not like a guy with his head spun 180 degrees backwards is going to need any medicinal herbs. Like in Koudelka, all Shadow Hearts items have unique art assets and some... let’s say interesting flavor text. We’ll check out all that junk when things calm down a bit. .jpg) For now, onto the back car! It’s quite the mess back here. There’s definitely several gory scenes in this game. But nothing is on the level of the prologue chapter to the point it kinda feels like the whole sequence was made way earlier as a proof of concept to pitch the game to a publisher. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is actually the case. .jpg)  <looks around>.jpg) .jpg) Of course this is going to spill out onto the roof. It’s against international law to have any incident transpire on a moving train and not have the parties involved eventually clamber up onto a train car roof for a climactic showdown.  That’s OK. Rude Hero is more than happy to use the express ticket to the roof. .jpg) I prefer tenacious rogue..jpg) Don’t think you can buy me off with a free show either, grandpa. What are you babbling about? <points to girl> Should watch where you’re pointing that butt... <side-eyes> Well, then... You may have a... small point. I’ll be getting rid of you now....jpg) New Music: NDE - Near Death Experience (It’s the boss battle music. You should listen to it.) .jpg) Time for the hypest duel of the evening and climax of the prologue. Roger Bacon, a gentleman so dapper he pisses tea and shits biscuits. .jpg) Versus the rudest unnamed punch-boy currently riding the Trans-Siberia Railway. You’d honestly be surprised how many pugilists are in contention for such a title. .jpg) Naturally, Roger Bacon begins the duel with a volley of telekinetic gentlemanly slaps. And they call our player character Rude.  Now that we have an enemy that can take some hits, Rude Hero can show off his entire Tekken rear end hit string of physical attacks. Edward J. Plunkett doesn’t have poo poo on this guy. We’re just going to stick to this. Like I said, we’ll get to the other abilities when we get to a proper fight and well... .jpg) .jpg) Unfortunately, Rude Hero is still fighting a wizard. As soon as Bacon takes a combo or two, he gets fed up with our protagonist’s comboing his face and casts a spell to buff his Special Attack Power +30% in preparation for... .jpg) Aru ajifu aruhazado! What!? <clears throat> Ahem... Kitab al-Azif of Abdul Alhazred! ...What? <sign> I am invoking the title of the mythical magical tome the Necronomicon and its profane author. The what and the who...? I am going to end this tiring conversation by destroying you now. Yeah, I’ve heard that one befo—oh poo poo!.jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Well, then... .jpg) Now you know why we didn’t bother with any techniques more advanced than repeatedly punching and kicking the wizard. This isn’t a battle that can be won. Music: ENDS .jpg) Agh...! Now, foul monster... you shall cease to be!.jpg) Roger needs a bit to charge his special attack. Why doesn’t he use that instantaneous Special Eyes™ to just blast the Rude Hero again? Well... I’m fairly certain he just completely forgets about that ability immediately after the intro movie just like our man never reattaches a limb again. .jpg) <attack fizzles out> Wh-What on Earth...!?New Music: ICARO - Song of Spirits .jpg) Well it looks like SOMEONE managed to hold onto their magic neutralizing pendant unlike other short skirt wearing female protagonists in this series I could name... .jpg) WHAT!?.jpg) Seeing that Bacon is distracted by a magical girl popping off with some undoubtedly important mystical energy, Rude Hero sees his chance... .jpg) .jpg) ...to punch a loving hole in that dapper wizard’s stupid face. Why didn’t you lead off with the skull shattering Falcon Punch, guy? .jpg) When you enjoy punching and your job is punching, you can hardly even call it a job. .jpg) Argh! drat!.jpg) Yoink!.jpg) Smell ya later, pops!.jpg) Real change of fate for Roger Bacon here. But while getting a hole punched into where one of your eyes ought to be is usually a pretty big deal for most folks. Well, Bacon... .jpg) ...still is kinda... .jpg) ...a wizard. So a healing spell later and he’s fine. .jpg) .jpg) Unfortunately him, unless he can fly I think he might he might have lost the girl he was kidnapping. I like to think he quietly returns to his seat and enjoys tea and crumpets all the way till the next train stop in Harbin or Vladivostok while then pretends nothing happened in the back of the train. But that’s a story for another day... Time to properly begin... .jpg)    Video: Episode 2 Highlight Reel (It’s the end of the prologue and the title card drop. Go watch it!)   Shadow Hearts Cover Art – At least he isn’t lugging the unconscious girl around like Bacon was... The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 14:21 on Jun 22, 2018 |
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Jun 21, 2018 18:57
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Gotta love sassy and proactive JRPG protagonists, relatively rare as they might be. Also Brain Hopper is a great combat theme and anyone who disagrees is bad and wrong. 
Kanfy fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Jun 21, 2018 |
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Jun 21, 2018 19:24
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You should post concept art of the Judgment Ring at some point, too. It's an extremely well done piece of art for something you don't get a full picture of in-game, and its design changes between games. It's so weird that few games adopted this type of battle system after the series concluded, as I've had more fun spinning the Judgment Ring in all three SH games than I have battling in most other RPGs in general.
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Jun 21, 2018 20:07
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That chorus was positively Xenogears.
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Jun 21, 2018 20:48
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Ubiquitous_ posted:You should post concept art of the Judgment Ring at some point, too. It's an extremely well done piece of art for something you don't get a full picture of in-game, and its design changes between games.
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Jun 21, 2018 21:33
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Accordion Man posted:I know Lost Odyssey uses a similar system because some of the old Nautilus team worked on it after Nautilus broke up after FTNW. I wonder how many Nautilus employees are still working after they went to feelplus which was then absorbed by AQ Interactive which then merged with Marvelous Entertainment.
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Jun 21, 2018 21:45
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I have my suspicion that Shadow Hearts was originally going to be developed for the PS1 and got shifted mid-development during the generation change, it has a lot of trappings of PS1 RPGs like pre-rendered backgrounds and stuff. But it really makes the most of what it's got. Love that Roger Bacon does a little bow before the fight. Consider that Rude Hero destroys those sickle-demons so easily, and consider that just one of those sickle-demons was enough to kill a squad of armed soldiers... this is a hero who is not loving around. You know how in most JRPGs, enemies with guns do like 2 damage because they're armed with nerf bullets? Here I think the bullets work just fine, you just are literally superman. I appreciate that the villain was not loving around either. He sees a supernatural hero type dude and just blasts him with the most powerful spell in the game.
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Jun 21, 2018 22:07
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Speedball posted:I have my suspicion that Shadow Hearts was originally going to be developed for the PS1 and got shifted mid-development during the generation change, it has a lot of trappings of PS1 RPGs like pre-rendered backgrounds and stuff. But it really makes the most of what it's got. You're right to have that suspicion, that's well-known and is in fact explained by TDI in the update.
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Jun 21, 2018 22:12
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The Addition system in Legend of Dragoon for the PS1 is the only other RPG combat system I've played that had something similar to the Judgement Ring.
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Jun 21, 2018 23:07
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Malachite_Dragon posted:The Addition system in Legend of Dragoon for the PS1 is the only other RPG combat system I've played that had something similar to the Judgement Ring. Volcano  Sorry, I have no idea what overcame me... In more thematically appropriated commentary, I really like the series as a whole and look forward to Id take on things.
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Jun 21, 2018 23:19
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The Judgement Ring is such a good system and I love how it opens up the game to all sorts of possibilities in terms of gameplay. It is so well thought out! I love it. Also Rude Hero isn't just a moniker for our strange youth, it's also his motto and his rule.
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Jun 21, 2018 23:29
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Usually in those unwinnable battles, after the beatdown, the hero is either saved at the last minute or makes a getaway. But this is one of the few ones where our protag beats his assailant's eye in as payback. I'm not even sure I'd call this running away like normal, because after a direct hit like that, you'd be forgiven for thinking you just won the thing. Sacnoth always improvising on the classic JRPG formula. Or maybe that's why they call him the Rude Hero. He takes an old British chap's eye and doesn't even say good-bye. The Dark Id posted:Our trench coat sporting protagonist has yet to get receive a proper name, so he’ll just be operating under the moniker of “Rude Hero”. 1. Minor issue, but the end quotation mark should come after the period, not before. 2. Excised is a better word choice, but exorcise is kinda funny here given JRPGs usually rely on it as a gameplay device to kill undead and whatnot, especially in the context of Koudelka's battle system apparently being such an abomination that it needed to be exorcised from existence. So yeah, it's really up to you here. 3. Should be these. 4. Should be international. 5. Should be duel. 6. Should be attacks. Shitenshi fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Jun 22, 2018 |
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Jun 22, 2018 00:02
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Malachite_Dragon posted:The Addition system in Legend of Dragoon for the PS1 is the only other RPG combat system I've played that had something similar to the Judgement Ring. Personally, it reminded me of Tifa's Limit Break.
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Jun 22, 2018 00:11
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I did enjoy that Bacon was like "gently caress it, time to invoke the god drat Necronomicon. I'm annoyed now," then got punched anyway.
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Jun 22, 2018 00:19
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Speedball posted:Love that Roger Bacon does a little bow before the fight. It really contrasts nicely with the little disinterested shrug Rude does at the start of every battle.
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Jun 22, 2018 01:32
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Ah man I almost forgot how good the music is in this game. It definitely helps that the music actually fits the tone of this game more than the first.
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Jun 22, 2018 01:44
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There's no dignified technique to haul around somebody in a skirt.
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Jun 22, 2018 01:54
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Onmi posted:Not everyone is Xehanort. Everyone else is Sora.
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Jun 22, 2018 02:19
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Those little things, Rude Hero punching Bacon, clearly enjoying a good brawl (compare to a good chunk of JRPG protagonists angsting about not wanting to fight), and some of the things he does not long after the prologue ends had easily cemented him as one of my favorite video game protagonists.
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Jun 22, 2018 02:53
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For all its inconsistencies I have fond memories of SH1, but Jesus I forgot how, um...inconsistent the art is between the portraits, models, and FMV. Maybe it's just because the later games are fresher in my memory, but our hero seems to have spent more time off-model in this update than on. Here he's being understudied by a giraffe with the face of a Suikoden character grafted onto it, for science. Who in the art department signed off on that neck? E.T.? And here we accidentally got a front shot of his stunt double, Vicki Lawrence.
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Jun 22, 2018 03:07
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It was the early era of CGI. No one was gonna look pretty in the cutscenes.
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Jun 22, 2018 03:21
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Speedball posted:Consider that Rude Hero destroys those sickle-demons so easily, and consider that just one of those sickle-demons was enough to kill a squad of armed soldiers... this is a hero who is not loving around. You know how in most JRPGs, enemies with guns do like 2 damage because they're armed with nerf bullets? Here I think the bullets work just fine, you just are literally superman. And yet he's only level 3 at this point. This is a man who reattaches limbs, crushes skulls, and effortlessly bursts through rail cars, and he's level 3.
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Jun 22, 2018 03:21
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It wasn't THAT early on. FFX (it's direct completion) holds up pretty decently in comparison. Hell, this game's cg is more on par with ff8's, although with less compression. Yeah, this game was totally considered ugly at the time, and age has not improved it.
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Jun 22, 2018 03:24
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Wonderslug posted:... man, I really liked Yuri in Mama's Family, even though Carol Burnett didn't show up all that often
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Jun 22, 2018 03:32
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Wonderslug posted:For all its inconsistencies I have fond memories of SH1, but Jesus I forgot how, um...inconsistent the art is between the portraits, models, and FMV. Maybe it's just because the later games are fresher in my memory, but our hero seems to have spent more time off-model in this update than on. I recently discovered two character portraits from early screenshots that were drastically redrawn for the final versions (other character we haven't seen yet), but compare:  to  I think the artist had a neck fetish.
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Jun 22, 2018 04:00
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Andyzero posted:Everyone else is Sora. Wrong, everyone else is dead
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Jun 22, 2018 04:15
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