Crocodile said:
I'm curious, what is the "wrong" thing that each game listed is doing in your opinion?
I've seriously got to stop talking myself out of posting things. I actually had the whole thing written up, but oh well, here we go. >_>
Original paragraph to the best of my memory:
"With Star Ocean 2 they changed reasonably serious anime art into round-faced loli trash that makes no sense; with AWDS2 they took out dual strikes (which I rarely used, but more options are better) and also some things I didn't like but that still should have been in, namely dual-screen maps; DQIX is in DS 3D, though at least they have character customization to kind of justify it; DQIV is in something resembling DS 3D despite its roots and doesn't even have character customization to back it up; Kirby Super Star will be mind-blowingly great but nonetheless it's still Kirby Super Star rather than a new game with the Kirby Super Star mechanics; and Fire Emblem DS has too-thick outlines for its sprites and art, which actually isn't a major thing wrong but goes on my list anyway for the sake of exaggeration and poking fun at myself after a rant."
Expanded version:
Star Ocean: Second Evolution:
See above, but adding that the loli garbage is truly nonsensical because the whole cast is 16 or older.
And also, if there are one or more new characters as happens to be the case with the PSP Star Ocean 1, that'll be a big positive but the characters will still never be as cool as they could have been, precisely because of the art.
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin:
Again, I rarely used dual strikes, but as Sakurai proves again and again, more options are always better than fewer--and incidentally, this is also why I'm stunned whenever I see people actively hoping that characters like Ice Climbers or Jigglypuff would be cut from SSBB even though they were already pre-made and added more content to the game. I mean, even if I hated, say, Marth with the heat of a thousand suns, I wouldn't want him taken out of SSBB. He's there; he's an option; he brings something unique to the game. Now, if someone was complaining about Diddy Kong being in the game, then I could understand that somewhat (though I'd disagree because I don't have much against Diddy), because Diddy as a new character would require a lot more resources and time to put in than a veteran character, but to remove what was already set in place is a step backward every time. And I'd actually like to see the clone characters return too, frankly, though I do agree with general consensus that they're either out or very changed.
But I digress, even though that digression was actually contributing in making this post on-topic and related to Smash Bros. >_>
In addition to dual strikes being out of AW: DoR, Black Boats will probably be gone, which makes me sad since they were the best naval unit ever conceived. And the gimped CO Powers do make me leary as Zeed thought, but they haven't been removed entirely, so I'm trying to withhold judgment for now.
Dragon Quest IX, and IV:
DS 3D usually earns The Amir0x Reaction from me. >_> Character customization is one of the greatest features in all of gaming, so to some extent I can be content with that in DQIX, but it doesn't cover for the 3D used for the enemies and towns and everything else other than the characters.
As for IV, what I mean by "something resembling DS 3D" is that this still plays in perfect 2D, yet uses 3D assets for whatever bizarre reason that boggles the mind and makes me generally disgruntled. I want my new sprite hotness. ;_;
Kirby Super Star:
There is nothing wrong with this game itself, rather the implications of it. For 11 years all I've wanted to see from the Kirby series is a new Kirby game with the KSS mechanics. I can understand if a team wants to try something entirely different rather than redo what's been perfected before, but the teams working on Kirby platformers (I stress, the platformers only) clearly aren't aiming for radial change--they've mostly just been copying half the KSS ideas and leaving the other half behind. Thankfully, the SNES game was so classic and excellent that taking even half of it is sufficient to make a great game by most standards, but when I think of what I want from another Kirby game I move past wanting "great" and into "legendary."
So now there's another legendary traditional Kirby platformer, but in fact it's a second verse that's same as the first, which is awesome for the present but doesn't provide much hope for the future. I mean, if they had access to the Kirby Super Star engine, which they probably did since this is Nintendo we're talking about, why couldn't they have used it to make a new game?
And, I mean, I'm usually not the type of person who complains about remakes. I love remakes. Very recently, jj984jj read a post of mine and got :/ :/ over it (the :/s being his own emoticons, not my paraphrase) because my list of wanted games for the rest of 2007 and into 2008 was made up almost entirely of remakes. (Though most of them were remakes of games I never played, making them new to me.) I really like remakes. Nearly every year, some remake or other is in top contention for my GOTY, and on a few rare occasions it actually makes it there.
And if Super Smash Bros. Brawl had been Super Smash Bros. Melee with online play and better graphics, I'm that guy who actually wouldn't have complained, I kid you not. I don't even need anything as drastic as that. If in reality there's a $50 Super Smash Bros. Brawl 2009 Special Edition with nothing different except that it has a new alternate outfit for each character, I'll lap it up at full price like the pitiful capitalist consumer I am, even knowing and dreading in advance that since I'll pitiful
ly be the only buyer of such a thing, I'll get flooded with requests to send screenshots of Peach's
new panty shots via the photo mode, as well as shots of Snake grabbing new Zelda from behind, and Fox's pants because
everyone Crushed would want to know whether they were still like NOTHIN' AT ALL.
I digress again, and that was another on-topic digression related to Smash Bros. (Am I doing good? Don't ban me.
Iam Canadian got his Mother 3 rant!)
In any case, I love remakes. But there's something to be said about remaking a game in a series that's turned out a third of a dozen new sequels since said game that's being remade--with none of these sequels approaching its quality--and that something to be said goes beyond the game itself and into deeper implications. If in fact there hadn't been a 15-year gap between SMW and NSMB, but rather the gap had been filled with five new 2D Mario platformers that failed to live up to SMB3 and SMW, and "New Super Mario Bros." had turned out to be a remake of SMB3 or SMW, I'd lose faith in the success of the past classics ever getting repeated. And that's the feeling I get from KSS, in some analogous and/or metaphorical fashion.
Now with all that said, if there are a few new games in KSS DS and some of them live up to the games in the original, then my hopes for the future of the Kirby series may indeed be restored and all may be well; I'm just saying that I somewhat fear for that possibility. Gatsby claimed in
The Great Gatsby that "of course" one could relive the past, and indeed he as a fictional character attempted to relive it indefinitely in his fictional mind within his fictional world. I too never grow tired of indefinitely reliving the past, provided the past was good, but nonetheless I'd much prefer the opportunity to live the present and future alongside it.
Anyway, that was probably the most lengthy and seriously semi-satirical rant you'll ever see from me on GAF and I hope to never repeat anything like it again. Actually, I think I've been watching too much Zero Punctuation lately and the stream-of-consciousness is rubbing off on me, but anyway...
Hoping for that Jigglypuff profile tonight, in 45 minutes!
SuperAndroid17 to be owned, yep.
