We don't always like being nonplussed

Saturday, August 20, 2011

New Soundwave 093: 3DS sales in Japan, Sonic Generations, More!

Fun conversations on the 3DS and how ease of programming helped its predecessors, and whether Sonic Generations will be the legendary "Good" modern Sonic game. (Probably not.) You can also hear me wonking my way through the most generic description of Dr. Strange as a character ever recorded, and my camera still refuses to work. Shock!

As always, be sure to check out the TF Radio Network for previous episodes of New Soundwave as well as podcasts on just about any sufficiently geeky subject you can think of!




Demo Review: Carnage Heart EXA (PSP)

We've got another PSP demo this weekend! There's a variety of reasons I decided to go this route: one is that I want more current material on the site to complement our retro activities- there's actually less of a barrier to import gaming on consoles now than there has been since the days of the Super Famicom. (Meanwhile, Nintendo has region-locked their portables. Way to be behind the times, guys!) Another reason is that Japanese RPG Maker games are a bit harder to run successfully on a non-Japanese OS than I predicted them to be. Between that and my constant video errors on New Soundwave, I REALLY do not want to be developing a reputation of being bad with computers.

So I found a list of Japanese PSP demos somewhere, and looked to see if there was anything that...

...holy crap. Is that a new Carnage Heart? It IS!

As we've established here and elsewhere, I Dig Giant Robots. Carnage Heart is a mech game, but it's a mech game of a type that I don't think has ever been attempted elsewhere. You design a mech- here called an Overkill Engine or OKE, because This Is Japan, And A Robot Cannot Just Be A Robot. And then you program it using a series of chips describing various actions and conditions for performing them. So it's a robot strategy/puzzle game. And it's hard. This was a game that gave me a tough time in English, so this ought to be fun. I have a soft spot in my heart for developer Artdink -not because of  their goofy name, or any of their own games (though No One Can Stop Mr. Domino is bizarre fun, just like CH), but because they were the ones who ported Tactics Ogre and Ogre Battle to Playstation, without which TO would never have been released in the US, or if so not until this very year.

So let's see what we can do.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Dragon Quest VI/6 - Day 31 (No energy, but still as big as we can make it!)

Alright, we're back for Friday and here to see what trouble we can get into!... Or at least figure out where we're supposed to be going, which is the next new step. I noticed this right by the kingdom we were just in, so I decide to find where I parked my ship, to see if we can go through.

Did the ship Zoom to wherever you were this far back? I forget.
As it nicely turns out, we can, so that works out for me just dandy. Now we just need to follow the coastline until we spot something that looks even remotely interesting!

Or until we reach a town that sucks us into a cut scene the moment we sail even remotely close to it, which works just as well.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Dragon Quest VI/6 - Day 30 (Feelin sick, but still truckin.)

Potato.

Not quite to hallucinating yet, but swallowing is about as painful as one might expect it to be to swallow a pineapple, made of razorblades stuck into a salt-lick. But the way I figure it, we're all cucumbers, so we might as well enjoy a polka now and then. In to the tower thing we go!

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Dragon Quest VI/6 - Day 29 (Dumb luck, and the plague.)

And we're back for Wednesday, and I hope you're enjoying actually knowing a plot hook as much as I am.

I guess I'm supposed to talk to the king about something, since he went to the throne room to look all official in his wife beater and mullet, so we'll speak with him and see if we can glean anything at all from his dialog.

Yup, there's 'Mirror' again.
Yep, there it is again! I'm noticing things! I wonder if I should have it in my inventory when I talk to him... That seems like it would be the smart thing, wouldn't it?

Yup! The Mirror of Ra is what was needed.
Yes, it looks like it was the smart thing, even though I forgot it was already there, since I had seen it once before.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Dragon Quest VI/6 - Day 28 (Sweet Christ on a cracker, those need to die!)

And we're back. Once again we're faced with the problem of where to go, and to be honest I wrote up a lot of things that seem to be totally boring, uneventful dead ends. Here however is where it looks like I'm supposed to be, so we're going to go with it rather than boring you. Also, I don't know when I last saved, so.. Here goes nothing.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Dragon Quest VI/6 - Day 27 (Maybe your child died because his room is missing a WALL?)

And we're back gang, after a weekend of power leveling which took a goddamn long time, and didn't get us that far. I did manage to get a few new levels in the new classes I picked, but sadly we stopped getting those pretty quickly, so I guess that means it views the mobs we're fighting as too weak, I think. They're still kicking my ass, though.

Back to the mountain we go and I begin searching for the right path to take to the golden bafmodad, but I can't get too far because of these little bastards.

Before...
I can't get through them, and I'm wondering if I have to track down some sort of item that will... wait... What was the thing I got in the cave, again?

 ...and... After?
Yeah, I guess that was it, then... shit there's a lot of this cave I need to back track and look at. But that can wait till later!

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Final Fantasy Type-0 addendum: More info and good news!

So, thinking about trying the demo for yourself? Siliconera has you covered with a nice, comprehensive guide to FF Type-0. Now that her primary review is done I'm going to point AngeliqueDaemon to this so she can play without pulling her hair out. But the purity of the Flail must be preserved, and so she willingly remained ignorant on the finer points of the game. She has a lot of patience, as you may have noticed by now.

More good news: the game's director has already said that he promises to improve the camera for the finished game. That's a relief!

Demo Review: Final Fantasy Type-0 wrap up

Today's missions starts off with women in silly hats talking. I recognize both voices, but can't really place them... I think one's Sango, but don't quote me... HOLY SHIT WE GO RIGHT FROM CUT SCENE TO FIGHT! HOLY SHIT IT'S A DRAGON!!! A HUGE DRAGON THAT'S DOING HORRIBLE THINGS TO MY ASSHOLE!!! DO NOT WANT!!!!! NEVER TRUST A MOOGLE IN LEOPARD PRINT!!!