nincompoop
Banned
Space Invaders Get Even has Square Enix listed as publisherTJ Spyke said:
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Official Worldwide VC, WiiWare, & DSiWare Thread
- Thread starter Danthrax
- Start date
- Status
flamesofchaos
Member
TJ Spyke said:
Semi wrong, in Europe Square-Enix is shown as the publisher of Taito games, in the US while the Taito logo is still shown the new logo has A Square-Enix company right under it and Square-Enix is the real publisher and will always be listed as the publisher.
I think VC games still list Taito but retail and WiiWare/XBLA games say Square Enix.TJ Spyke said:
Space Invaders Extreme, Legend of Kage 2 and Arkanoid DS all have SE's logo on the boxes and startup screens too iirc. Space Invaders Get Even lists SE even on the publisher slot in the Wii store.
Planet Pachinko looked interesting and is only 500 points, so I purchased it.
...
The game makes no sense. I'm vaguely hopping around and shooting things that hit other things until I advance to a new level. The weapons are hard to distinguish from the background graphics, and every few moments fireballs spit at you from all the walls.
...
The game appears to have a fairly amusing "story" it presents (tongue-in-cheek), but the actual gameplay seems fairly awful so far.
...
The game makes no sense. I'm vaguely hopping around and shooting things that hit other things until I advance to a new level. The weapons are hard to distinguish from the background graphics, and every few moments fireballs spit at you from all the walls.
...
The game appears to have a fairly amusing "story" it presents (tongue-in-cheek), but the actual gameplay seems fairly awful so far.
Guys. Can you tell if the Dracula Curse updated today is bearing the American of Japanese sound?
Is is this sound? (American version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqU0tAVW360
Or this sound? (Japanese version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC4fYdrfS64
This is what will decide my purchase. Tks alot!
.
Is is this sound? (American version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqU0tAVW360
Or this sound? (Japanese version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC4fYdrfS64
This is what will decide my purchase. Tks alot!
.
Father_Brain
Banned
DavidDayton said:
Well, it did look like a crappy 90s PC shareware game in the trailers. Caveat emptor.
nincompoop
Banned
The manual said the "walls spitting fire at you" thing occurs if you stay in one spot for too long.DavidDayton said:
I was sort of interested in buying the game but they don't seem to be doing a very good job promoting it, it's hard to find out any information about it outside of a crappy 30 second trailer.
Jiggy said:
Fucking Konami are so cheap with the Wii. On XBLA they got a "director's cut" version of Contra for NES. (they added the cutscenes, animations and sounds that were only in the Jap. ver.)
Anyways, this confirms I will not encourage this upload from Konami. That's really sad because I would like to incitate them into uploading Bloodlines, the only Castlevania that I am currently not owning the original cartridge.
.
The whole point of the VC is that the games are the same as the original (except when they have no choice to change, like how Nintendo had to change all of the "Kawasaki" ads in Wave Race 64 to "Wii" and "Nintendo DS" logos to avoide having to pay Kawasaki more money). Besides, if the game is good then it shouldn't matter what the music sounds like.
In this case, the Japanese version is more "the original" than the American version.TJ Spyke said:
Music contributes to a game being good--it's the most important non-gameplay element for me by a country mile. That said, I'm already fine with the version we got and downloaded CVIII right away, but I would have been really happy to hear the soundtrack upgraded to match the real deal.
Iam Canadian
and have the worst user name EVER
I'm with Jiggy; music is very important to me, by far my most valued non-gameplay aspect of games, and it's disappointing to see the American sound instead of the superior Japanese.
However, while less known than the difference in musical quality, there are other things that distinguish the Japanese and American versions of Castlevania III. The difficulty is balanced a bit more fairly in the Japanese version (in the American version, enemies inflict more damage in the later levels, while this isn't the case in the Japanese) and Grant gets an infinite supply of projectile knives instead of a short-range melee attack in the Japanese version.
However, while less known than the difference in musical quality, there are other things that distinguish the Japanese and American versions of Castlevania III. The difficulty is balanced a bit more fairly in the Japanese version (in the American version, enemies inflict more damage in the later levels, while this isn't the case in the Japanese) and Grant gets an infinite supply of projectile knives instead of a short-range melee attack in the Japanese version.
TJ Spyke said:
Here it's a special case. For some reason NOJ was allowing custom mappers for NES games in Japan and NOA wasn't. Konami had to cope with a "lesser version" for America because of (as usual) the retardation of NOA.
In the case with the VC where those hardware limitation and stupid requirements aren't there the could have given us the game we were due to have. To me in the case here the game would totally still feel "origninal" since the original game made in Japan is like that anyways.
I really understand the point of the VC but sometimes there's stuff that must be judged case by case. That's what Nintendo decided to do after all. All N64 games are nothing like the original, they doubled the res and cranked up the palettes thus removing most of the dithering and it gave a clarity of image you can only dream to have using a real N64. Yet this type of thing here totally isn't destroying the purpose or style of the VC service, I totally welcome those type of change. It's like they tell you "here, that the version I wish I would have given you from the get go".
I'll have to say it again. Konami is cheap for the Wii because they didn't hesitate a single bit on XBLA to add back what was removed from the American version of Contra because of their japanese custom mappers.
.
Ranger X said:
That's a bit unfair, honestly.
VC releases are the original code, sometimes with minor tweaks. The XBLA are newly coded more often than not.
The only way for Konami to add the missing audio to the NES release would have been to either recode the entire NES rerelease OR to take the Japanaese version and translate it again. I'm assuming neither one was truly economically feasible for a $5 release.
VC games are rereleases without much of an expense; I can't see how it's reasonable to expect a third party to ignore a ready-to-go NES release and instead spend extra money on reprogramming and translating a Japanese release, ESPECIALLY a FDS release.
DavidDayton said:
They need to repack every game anyways, it wouldn't have hurted them to "switch" soundtracks. I'm sure it's not more expensive and complicated to do than enhancing a N64 game. I mean, I feel their are cheap also because when you see they have this possibility to just dump the thing they do. Let me bet Microsoft did ask them for the real "better version" of Contra on XBLA. They could have just repack the old game there too.
Anyhow, right now i'm deceived that's all I know for now. I won't be buying the game now when I would have bought it for the Jap soundtrack even if I own the original NES cart.
.
Cheesemeister
Member
Ranger X said:
You have got to be kidding me. You know this is a re-release service, yet you're demanding a product above and beyond the original release? Forget for a moment that CVIII is one of the only MMC5 games, requiring extra-special emulator support, but you want the entire English version redone just so you can have slightly different music? All for $5?
Capndrake said:
What's the full list looking like nowadays? One can never simply look it up anymore.
ESRB rated games not yet released?Cheesemeister said:
I think it's:
-A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia (NES)
-Crack Down (GEN/MD)
-EarthBound (SNES)
-Earthworm Jim 2 (GEN/MD)
-ESWAT: City Under Siege (GEN/MD)
-Fatal Fury Special (Neo Geo)
-Mercs (GEN/MD)
-Nobunaga's Ambition (SNES)
-Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen (SNES)
-Pengo (GEN/MD)
-Pilotwings (SNES)
-Pro Wrestling (NES)
-Sonic & Knuckles (GEN/MD)
-Super Pitfall (NES)
-Super Punch-Out!! (SNES)
-Uncharted Waters: New Horizons (SNES)
-Wonder Boy in Monster Land (SMS)
Iam Canadian
and have the worst user name EVER
Too bad about Uniracers. And I'm sure the loss of Beetle Adventure Racing will be tragic to a lot of people. D:
Earthbound had better not disappear. Oh, it had better not.
Nintendo wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
Earthbound had better not disappear. Oh, it had better not.
Nintendo wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
Cheesemeister said:
Why do you guys always ignore N64 games that are even more enhanced than shifting the soundtrack in Dracula's Curse would have been?
Also, to give you more details on my opinion, I would totally pay premium NES price for that move aka 600 points instead of 500.
Nuclear Muffin
Banned
Dascu said:
Doesn't mean it won't come to VC, games have disappeared from the ESRB before and come back. Plus games have been released on the VC before getting an ESRB rating (Mario Golf 64 springs to mind)
Dragona Akehi
Retired
Ranger X said:
Because those "enhancements" are mainly automatic ones given by the emulator, not one where they'd have to either retranslate (via hacking) an entire ROM nor ripping specific music files, planting them into another and then bugtesting it.
Ranger X said:
As far as I can tell, the enhanced graphics of the N64 releases is a result of the emulator used, not a reworking of the game code.
As for Castlevania III, you do have to realize that this is a business. It's not a wise business decision to move coders off other projects to completely recode or re-translate a game to make a change to which only a few will be perceptive and even fewer will truly care about. The proposed 100 point premium likely wouldn't cover this extra cost, and at the very least you would hear bitching from the thousands who don't understand why they're paying an extra $1.
Common there, you can do this with one coder. This can be the guy actually working on the rom and/or emulator in order to work flawlessly and also testing that the Home Menu and such things are working fine. Even if they don't have to do shit for the emulator and let's say the Home Menu either needs any testing, it still is one guy that could shift the music files there.
(I wouldn't even be surprised it takes even more testing and code adapting than most of you think. From my devellopment experience (even if it's not on small games) I can tell you that sometimes the most simplest thing can require more than you think -- but this is side topic)
I also mentionned that I was ready to pay more for shifting the soundtrack. Castlevania Dracula's Curse on top of that is a well-knowed game (or maybe it's more the name that is kinda cult). Anyways I mean they could sell just as many copies at 600 points and probably more if some music files would have been swapped.
Seriously, there's no way you can pull off that I am exagerrated about the soundtrack outside the obsession or wanting it itself. Konami could have made this easily, I wouldn't have gone against the style, purpose or whatever you can relate to the VC service + it might have given them more sales + they could charge 600 points if ever they wanted do and this probably without damaging they sales.
EDIT:
Also, almost all the games have their code retouched anyways (great occasion to swipe music files too!). There are bugs that are corrected and games are adapted to fit the modern Nintendo Lotcheck rules (their TRCs). Some example from the top of my head: The image won't flash anymore when you catch the wand in SMB3, slowdown corrected in many games, Starfox crash on the map that I can reproduce on the original cartridge and I can't possibly do it on the VC.
(I wouldn't even be surprised it takes even more testing and code adapting than most of you think. From my devellopment experience (even if it's not on small games) I can tell you that sometimes the most simplest thing can require more than you think -- but this is side topic)
I also mentionned that I was ready to pay more for shifting the soundtrack. Castlevania Dracula's Curse on top of that is a well-knowed game (or maybe it's more the name that is kinda cult). Anyways I mean they could sell just as many copies at 600 points and probably more if some music files would have been swapped.
Seriously, there's no way you can pull off that I am exagerrated about the soundtrack outside the obsession or wanting it itself. Konami could have made this easily, I wouldn't have gone against the style, purpose or whatever you can relate to the VC service + it might have given them more sales + they could charge 600 points if ever they wanted do and this probably without damaging they sales.
EDIT:
Also, almost all the games have their code retouched anyways (great occasion to swipe music files too!
). There are bugs that are corrected and games are adapted to fit the modern Nintendo Lotcheck rules (their TRCs). Some example from the top of my head: The image won't flash anymore when you catch the wand in SMB3, slowdown corrected in many games, Starfox crash on the map that I can reproduce on the original cartridge and I can't possibly do it on the VC.1) I don't think it's as easy as you make out.
2) The VC is about rereleasing games "as people originally played them" -- and for folks in the USA, that would be the western release of Castlevania III.
I do think it's a bit much to assume that VC rereleases will have substantial code tweaks, which would be the issue with shifting all of the Famicom CV3 music code into the NES program... and that's assuming Konami still has the source code. At this point, I have impression Nintendo is the only Japanese game company that has their source code from the 80s.
2) The VC is about rereleasing games "as people originally played them" -- and for folks in the USA, that would be the western release of Castlevania III.
I do think it's a bit much to assume that VC rereleases will have substantial code tweaks, which would be the issue with shifting all of the Famicom CV3 music code into the NES program... and that's assuming Konami still has the source code. At this point, I have impression Nintendo is the only Japanese game company that has their source code from the 80s.
Aaron Strife
Banned
It disappeared at one point but Nintendo resubmitted it. They obviously care about the game to some extent, but of course that doesn't mean we'll see it released.Iam Canadian said:
Updated with this weeks release, this is the difference between North America and PAL for Virtual Console. North America got Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse after a 73 day wait.
North America, but not PAL regions:
NES- The Legend of Kage, Elevator Action, Milon's Secret Castle, Lode Runner, Star Soldier, Super C (available in EU, not in AUS), NES Play Action Football, Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos, Zanac, Ghosts 'n Goblins (available in EU, not AUS), Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom, King's Knight, Bases Loaded, Renegade, Sky Kid, Clu Clu Land, Super Dodge Ball, Tecmo Bowl, Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II
SNES- Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire, Metal Marines, Axelay (available in AUS, not EU), Super Turrican 2, Kirby's Dream Land 3
N64- Mario Golf
GEN/MD- Powerball
TG16 & TG16CD- Bravoman, Ordyne
PAL regions, but not North America:
NES- Skate or Die!, Devil World
SNES- Mario's Super Picross
GEN/MD- Crack Down, ESWAT: City Under Siege
C64 (in EU, not AUS)- International Karate, Uridium, California Games, Impossible Mission, The Last Ninja, World Games, Paradroid, Last Ninja 2: Back with a Vengeance, Nebulus, Cybernoid: The Fighting Machine, Summer Games II, International Karate +, Pitstop II, Boulder Dash, Jumpman, Mayhem in Monsterland, Impossible Mission II, Last Ninja 3: Real Hatred is Timeless
Total: 27 only in North America only, 5 in EU/AUS only, 18 in EU only, 2 in NA and EU, 1 in NA and AUS.
North America, but not PAL regions:
NES- The Legend of Kage, Elevator Action, Milon's Secret Castle, Lode Runner, Star Soldier, Super C (available in EU, not in AUS), NES Play Action Football, Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos, Zanac, Ghosts 'n Goblins (available in EU, not AUS), Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom, King's Knight, Bases Loaded, Renegade, Sky Kid, Clu Clu Land, Super Dodge Ball, Tecmo Bowl, Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II
SNES- Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire, Metal Marines, Axelay (available in AUS, not EU), Super Turrican 2, Kirby's Dream Land 3
N64- Mario Golf
GEN/MD- Powerball
TG16 & TG16CD- Bravoman, Ordyne
PAL regions, but not North America:
NES- Skate or Die!, Devil World
SNES- Mario's Super Picross
GEN/MD- Crack Down, ESWAT: City Under Siege
C64 (in EU, not AUS)- International Karate, Uridium, California Games, Impossible Mission, The Last Ninja, World Games, Paradroid, Last Ninja 2: Back with a Vengeance, Nebulus, Cybernoid: The Fighting Machine, Summer Games II, International Karate +, Pitstop II, Boulder Dash, Jumpman, Mayhem in Monsterland, Impossible Mission II, Last Ninja 3: Real Hatred is Timeless
Total: 27 only in North America only, 5 in EU/AUS only, 18 in EU only, 2 in NA and EU, 1 in NA and AUS.
Ranger X said:
What? The XBLA version of Contra is based off of the arcade version of the game, not the NES. Almost everyone agrees that the arcade version is inferior to the NES version. It has nothing to do with adding more content in the Japanese version (was this even the case for the NES contra?), but simply using a different version of the game.
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
Capndrake said:
This is a big deal right?
...when's Smash going up? Has it hit Japan yet?
Edit- Ah, next week. Instabuy if it hits the States too.
Cosmonaut X
Member
Capndrake said:
Ooh. I'd heard this was on the way, but this soon? Really, really interested to see what they've done with it.
I'm disappointed Hudson seem to be abandoning TG on the VC, but if it means they're shifting their weight behind WiiWare releases like this then I'm not going to complain too much
Regulus Tera
Romanes Eunt Domus
I don't want to create a new thread for this, so bear with me.
I've been looking to get something actiony and finger-twitchy enough for about a month now. I've been thinking of jumping into a Treasure title, and the first thing that caught my attention was Gunstar Heroes for the Genesis. Does it stand well in comparison to some of their relatively recent efforts? Are there any other Treasure titles in the Virtual Console that I should notice?
For the record, the only Treasure games I've played are Sin and Punishment, Bangai-Oh Spirits, and Ikaruga.
I've been looking to get something actiony and finger-twitchy enough for about a month now. I've been thinking of jumping into a Treasure title, and the first thing that caught my attention was Gunstar Heroes for the Genesis. Does it stand well in comparison to some of their relatively recent efforts? Are there any other Treasure titles in the Virtual Console that I should notice?
For the record, the only Treasure games I've played are Sin and Punishment, Bangai-Oh Spirits, and Ikaruga.
nincompoop
Banned
Alien Soldier!Regulus Tera said:
Regulus Tera said:
If you're thinking shmups, I highly recommend Star Parodier. It's colorful, fun, the soundtrack is great. The only downsides are the fact that it's easy as far as shmups go (I guess for most people this might be a plus) and it takes up a lot of space (214 blocks iirc).
- Status