Hey y’all. I’m currently in the middle of yet another grueling Suikoden II double recap, which I was hoping to have done by the end of this month, but thanks to starting it way later than I should have, I’m totally not going to make it. So, ugh, bummer, it’ll be probably be done in August.
In the meantime, if you are not already, you should be following us on Twitter for, among other things, ANIMAL CROSSING ADVENTURES. I somehow suckered my fellow recappers into playing New Leaf, and it’s been a great time. Follow vgr_sam, vgr_jeanne, vgr_ben, and vgr_ryan to see what we’re up to in our respective towns. Spoiler: most of our neighbors are stalkers and/or pedophiles, and we’re putting penises on stuff.
And consider this an open thread for talking about AC:NL. Or whatever you want, really. Play anything good lately? Anybody else playing the Civ V: Brave New World?
Eh, I don’t quite get the appeal of AC games… I mean, I’m a fan of Harvest Moon and all, but with AC I get yelled at if I don’t play the game for a while. And I don’t really like being obliged to continuously play a game just so I won’t get yelled at if I feel like playing later…
Aside from playing Persona 4 New Game + on Expert + following a Social Link guide (I get no time to Grind, dammit!) I’m also playing Persona 3. But since it’s the PSP version, I do not get to learn the true horror of the words “Marin Karin” that makes other Persona 3 players cringe in fear, frustration and cause their anyeurisms to almost burst.
Yay, new Suikoden II recaps on the way! I can’t say I’m much of a fan of Animal Crossing though, due to the fact that I’m not really into “life simulator” games, and for the reason that Cat said.
I’ve been playing Dynasty Warriors 8. I actually think it might make for a good recap. The amount of gay in the game certianly lives up to this site’s standards. It’s about a bunch of Chinese men (but most of which don’t actually look Chinese at all) vying for control of the land and never aging a day despite the story taking place over many, many years. Each game retells the same story in a different way, since it’s based on actual history, so you can just grab the most recent one if you want. I’d recommend either 7 or 8, since they have the most story focus, and the best gameplay. 7 has more character development/interaction scenes, but 8 has branching storylines that allow you to see a happy ending for each faction if you complete certain (fairly easy) conditions.
For what it’s worth, it’s not a big deal to not play every day. About a year after I’d played Wild World extensively I visited my town again. Yeah, I had to pull some weeds and stomp on some cockroaches, and yeah, my neighbors all started crying when they saw their presumed dead friend walking around. But after they’d gotten it out of their systems (which takes five seconds) it was like I’d never left.
But yeah, it’s not for everyone, certainly. Though I would like to hope that scrolling penises on an LED screen are something everyone can agree on.
I really need to get Persona 3.
I think the VGR staff needs a lot more raccoon figurines in their homes. BALLS! No, seriously, they have prominent tanuki balls.
I had that but for whatever reason I never put it up in my home before I sold it or gave it away or whatever. I looked at it in my catalog and wondered what the hell I was thinking. I just need to find a place for it to go.
Probably the innocuous name. But when I saw a picture online, I knew I just had to have that piece of furniture and put it in my house somehow. I may have cried tears of happiness seeing it on sale in the Nookling’s shop. How it made it through to North American shores almost seems like a miracle.
Lately I’ve actually been juggling both Animal Crossing and SMT4. So I basically go between helping adorable but obnoxiously needy villagers to slaying a bunch of penis-and-boob shaped demons out to chew my face off if I let my guard down for even one second while hanging out with my shirt-challenged but FABULOUS partner Walter.
And there are some people who dare to say that Nintendo is for kids.
“I really need to get Persona 3.”
I’d suggest P3 Portable, just so you can actually get your party members to do what the hell you want them to. Although I may hate how P4 has a supremely long introduction, repeating crap that I can retain for longer than 4 minutes they give me before mentioning it again, I can’t say P3 is any better at this point…
Right now, I’m playing Pokemon White (again!) as well as Crimson Gem Saga (I’m on a puzzle dungeon, which I love SOOOO much) and WoW off and on. I also need to finish Super Paper Mario (I got to the last chapter over a year ago and just forgot about it).
I also want to go and actually finish Suikoden V and Suikoden Tactics. I don’t care what V is trying to tell you with its female Gremio. V has the gayest main character of all the Suikodens, hands down. Question: Is this one in the recap queue as well once the other ones finally get finished?
Does Persona 3 Portable give you control over your entire party? If it does, maybe I’ll get that and ditch the PS2 version.
demidaemon: Yes, P3 Portable was influenced and the battle system changed to reflect closer to P4’s battle system. You do get a tactics option and can give direct commeands to your party members.
Yeah, not sure when it’s gonna happen but Jeanne and I are going to recap Suikoden V together. (We both need to play it again first, for starters.) I won’t comment on Lyon, but we’ve known for a while what’s really going on there.
Woo! New Suikoden 2 Recap in the future, and promises of Suikoden 5!
And, just to climb on the bandwagon, just been playing Fire Emblem: Awakening, trying to get all Support conversations.
And, I wonder if someone already has pointed to this one, but oh well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhjk5x54bsE
That Edgeworth’s helmet.
My two favorite Suikodens. I feel like my birthday and Christmas just came.
I’ve been thinking of getting New Leaf for the sole reason that you can make your own clothes. :3c
Making clothes is great, and the QR code machine is wonderful. I own 50 times more dresses in Animal Crossing than in life.
Going back to the subject of Dynasty Warriors for a moment, I think that if you only recap one, it should be Dynasty Warriors 7. Sure, DW8 has the happy alternate endings where no one dies (well, at least no one on your side) and everyone gets to live out the rest of their eternally youthful lives having buttsex with each other, but DW7 actually bothers to properly introduce most of the characters, and includes enough scenes to make you care about them.
So, in short, I think it would be best to recap DW7, and then recap DW8’s alternate endings if you feel like it.
But you guys are the recappers though. It’s entirely up to you how you decide to go about doing it, or if you even decide to recap them at all.
By the way, I have just noticed something about the Persona 4 recaps… it hasn’t been mentioned yet, that the protagonist is doing the obligatory-Squally-Stance!
I found a post on GameFaqs that BLEW MY MIND. I know you might be getting tired of hearing about Dynasty Warriors, but I just have to share this.
So, anybody here get Tales of Xillia today? I did. Been playing it, taking a little break at the moment though.
Nah, I’ve seen pictures of it since the Japanese version was revealed for the Wii and it never interested me there. The sequel doesn’t look much better, either.
Tales of Xillia wasn’t on the Wii. I don’t think it was ever even planned for the Wii. It’s on the PS3.
Just for fun, I’m writing a quick VGR-ified summary of what has happened so far.
Jude Mathis is a young (and gay) medical school student who likes older men. While searching for his sugar daddy professor, who was late for a previously-scheduled “examination”, he sees a prostitute who has apparently never washed her hair before. Jude follows the prostitute, presumably in order to teach her what shampoo is, and through a complicated series of events, he is labeled an “X-ranked” criminal and has to leave the country. However, there is an upside. Jude meets a new boyfriend in the process of escaping. And boy, does he have one long… ascot.
Also, everyone in this game world apparently has a
mana</strike manjuice lobe in their brain.Crud. I messed up the code on that last line.
By the way, there are attachments in Tales of Xillia. For those who haven’t played Vesperia or Graces, attachments are little extra items you can stick on your characters. Stuff like hats and other things. In Xillia, there are over 60 attachments, and unlike Vesperia, you can equip any attachment on any character.
http://watchusplaygames.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/tales-of-xillia-cool-cats-characters-screenshot.jpg
You can also put them anywhere on the character’s body. ANYWHERE AT ALL. And you can change the size and color of them as well.
If any of the recappers have Tales of Xillia, I fully expect that they have attached something phallic to Jude and Alvin’s crotches. And maybe Milla’s too if they put her in her
Stahn Aslan costume and decided to just pretend she actually is Aslan.Okay, I’m sure I did it right this time. Why doesn’t the strike tag work for me?
Well, I just won’t use it anymore.
You know how I jokingly called Milla a prostitute earlier? Well I just encountered someone who is far more derserving of that label. She’s wearing some kind of skin-tight blue dress thing, that doesn’t cover most of the front of her body (think like Ultimecia from FF8). She’s also some kind of cat girl or something.
Time will tell if her personality matches her appearance. All she’s done so far is threaten the Mary Sue and get bodyslammed by a giant enemy crab.
The more I hear Milla’s voice, the more it grates. It’s got this mumbly lispy quality that seems so low quality compared to everyone else.
HOW I SWORD?? in the first hour or so of the game is somewhat amusing though. I knew there was a catch when “Dressed For Comfort” Modesty Flap Crazy Hair Girl with over 1000 HP and massive damage gains exp as fast as McFisty Healer Scrub.
Picked up Xillia last night as well. My husband is playing it first, but he spent the first two hours shouting “DURRRRRRRR DURRRRRRRR” at Jude.
Yeah, Milla’s voice does seem kind of off. Maybe it’s intentional, since Milla hasn’t exactly had much experience interacting with people, or maybe the voice actor just sucks. Who knows?
I’m still in the early stages of the game, so I don’t yet know if there’s enough stuff to poke fun at for it to warrant a recap. But there’s certianly no shortage of hoyay at this point. I’ve lost count of the number of times that Alvin has hugged Jude.
Life has been tough for our favorite purple powderpuff in the nine years since he was spirited away by a wizard after his encounter with the Bizarro Centaur Assassin Twins. Crushed at the possibility that Alf and CT may very well be dead, he turned to illegal substances to cope with the emotional pain. After about a year of this, he got some counseling and managed to shake off his addiction and regain his formerly bright personality, but the drugs had done some damage to his brain, causing him to become even more lound and annoying than before.
Things seemed to be looking up for Teepo, but it was not to be. Only a few years later, he was abducted by mad scientists and sent to a lab to be experimented on. He was experimented on for years, but he was somehow able to stay annoyingly cheerful. Ultimately, his body was transformed into a purple (and vaugely phallic) muppet. One day however, he managed to escape by talking the scientists to death.
He was finally free. But it was not to last, as his new appearance caused him to be mistaken for a stuffed animal and given to a little girl. Sometime later, Teepo and his new owner were imprisoned inside some dude’s basement for an indeterminate period of time, until our favorite(?) gay (though possibly bi) med student came along and freed them.
To quote Exposition!Man, “and that, as they say, is that.”
Well, maybe Teepo won’t be as annoying as I’m afraid he’s going to be. Time will tell. Either way though, he’s still only the second most annoying character I’ve met so far. The first most annoying is Igor or whatever his name was, Milla’s red-text handmaid. Yes, maid. Not butler. He’s only been in two cutscenes so far, and he’s done both of the following things roughly a kerjillion times each:
1. Kiss Milla’s ass.
2. Challenge Jude to a penis measuring contest.
The only consolation is that he didn’t join the party. Yet. I just watched the opening movie again though, and he wasn’t even in it, so that makes it seem more likely he’ll just spend the rest of the game in his mother’s basement, writing his “epic” self-insert fanfiction where HE gets to save the world with Lady Milla, instead of that uber lame faggot Jude.
Dude, no. Homophobic slurs are not okay around here. Find another word to use.
Sorry. I wasn’t actually insulting Jude though. It was just part of my “Igor the basement dwelling fanboy” joke.
I actually like Jude. He’s one of those rare RPG protagonists who’s actually smart.
Okay, I just ran into him again. It’s Ivor, not Igor. Still, it’s only one letter off, so I imagine that, if Tales of Xillia ever gets recapped, that’s what his nickname will be. Either that or Wank-or.
Smart for a Tales character, maybe. Remember, he still spends the first hour sneaking into places he should have run very, very far away from. Even though he’s a complete weeny according to Disembodied Item Describer and his fellow classmates.
This has been such a great summer what with Ace Attorney 5 on its way this year and Layton vs AA announced early next year. For once in my life, this is a year where there are too many games that I want to play.
Jude is probably the smartest Tales protagonist since Senel. I’m not sure if this is a compliment or damning with faint praise. (Okay, I’ll be fair, Yuri wasn’t stupid either. Just a murderhobo.)
Yuri is overrated. Senel was an okay protagonist, as long as Miss “SENEL!!” wasn’t anywhere near him. I’ve seen bad voice acting, but hers was just terrible.
Yeah, Jude was pretty derp there at the beginning. “Okay, so the path behind you disappeared. Why can’t you just swim back? And why did you get on the path and start following the scantily clad woman with bad hair in the first place?”
I wouldn’t really call Senel smart. His hot-headedness early on got him into a lot of trouble. Remember near the beginning of the game, after rescuing Shirley, he immedately ditched his allies at the first oppourtinity. Not five minutes later, she gets kidnapped again. And later on, he still doesn’t seem all that smart. I don’t think he ever even noticed that Chloe was attracted to him, even though mentally-challenged chipmunk could see it.
In other news, Tales of Xillia has stolen Suikoden III’s crown for longest black screen ever. You thought one week passing ingame during a two-second black screen was bad? Try three weeks. I don’t know why the gang had to wait that long for something they were waiting for to get done, when it was working perfectly fine during a five minute fight against an annoying phallic boss, not even two minutes ago. (Trying to avoid spoilers for those who haven’t gotten that far yet.)
Oh, and the battle music changed. Does anyone else here hate it when games change the normal battle theme? On the plus side though, it’s better than Vesperia’s second battle theme, and all of Graces’ battle themes besides the Windor/Lhant battle theme and the final dungeon battle theme.
Doesn’t bother me too much when they changed battle music, usualy. (How dare you turn Reach out to the Truth to Making Historiy in Persona 4 Golden!?) In Tales of the Abyss, there were, I think, three battle themes in total and they did a good job there.
Thanks, Robyn, for introducing “murderhobo” into my vernacular.
Personally, I’m waiting for my copy of Dragon’s Crown to come into the mail because I am too cheap to use anything but Super Saver Shipping from Amazon.
I am. of course, going to play the gay wizard, but there are oh so many options in that game. Shall I play the over-endowed yet barely clothed amazon? Or the top heavy knight or dwarf? So many unrealistic body types, so little time.
Lord-Derpface: …That was kind of my point, dude. 😉 Tales protagonists are made of derp, it’s a series staple at this point. Senel was fine when he wasn’t in the presence of Shirley, whose real power is to make everyone’s IQ drop about a hundred points when she’s in the vicinity.
Sam: Always happy to oblige!
I was gonna say, wasn’t Ruca a decently intelligent kid – I think he and Jude share the dream of becoming a doctor – but I might be thinking that Ruca was too much of a wimp…
Oh lord… So, there’s this thing called “direct-tethering” which allows a human to give mana to a spirit. And apparently, direct-tethering is the spirit equivalent of “doing it”. You’ve even got the line “Jude filled me up with lots of mana.”
And considering that the Tales of Symphonia recap nicknamed “mana” into “manjuice”…
THIS SKIT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI4UYzr7oAU
George Takei: “Ohhhh myyyyyyy.”
So, Xilla has a sequel, coming out in English next year.
I just found out that there is a feature (not hax, an actual ingame feature) where you can change the models used by your party members.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw93cbTYJUM
LET THE MADNESS COMMENCE.
re: Xillia, let’s be careful about spoilers – I mean, the game’s only been out in North America for a week. 😉 (No one’s said anything major, but still. The direct tethering joke was funnier when I didn’t know about it beforehand.)
Ben, I, too, am totally addicted to Reach Out To The Truth! It’s an awesome, also still kinda weird, battle theme and the Jenglish is just hilarious.
“Jenglish”? I believe the word you’re looking for is “Engrish”.
Nope, Jenglish. Engrish is when I can still understand the English words to 90% and Persona games have Jenglish simply because I can only understand about 30% of the English words. (Plus, I will be “that guy” and point out Japanese DO have R in their vocabulary, it merely has a sound extremely similar to L) I mean, I still can’t understand a single word in the TV World BGM. And boy did I jump when I heard the Ending song being sung in Japanese…
Allow me to share another picture demonstrating the use of attachments in Tales of Xillia.
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b80/linkyboy123/A-alvin-senpai_zpsbd8961ef.png
Allow me to laugh like Yukiko does when seeing those type of glasses: Pfffsnrkahahahahahaha hahahaha ahahaha!