On topic: I don't really mind the jokes... I mean yeah, the Clinton joke in Sega CD Lunar is kind of questionable because of how quickly it gets dated, but in general making games funnier is just fine. Working Designs made good translations.
vireland said:
Pretty much it. At the time there was a no-questions-asked return policy by EB and Gamestop that was killing titles like shooters and the like with returns. People would get to the end and just call it a free rental and return it. SM was super easy, and meant to be replayed, but that didn't mesh in that environment, so we had to make it harder to give it a chance at retail. I've said it a million times to the fanboys, but Maegawa-san said he liked our changes, so it couldn't have been TOO bad.
Not a bad idea overall, but I think most people would agree that Exile: Wicked Phenomenon and Vay went a bit too far with this and the result was not just a much harder game but also a bunch of frustrating grind... but otherwise it worked.
Oh, and ever since I played it I've thought that it was really, really stupid that Silpheed: The Lost Planet on PS2 saves... but only your highscores. You have to leave the system on for a game in progress, even though you have infinite continues. Games have been doing that since the NES days though, and I think it was stupid then too... why the heck not just give me passwords if I have infinite continues?
On PS2 though, it was kind of ridiculous. I'm sure that's the way the original Japanese version did it, but it was annoying. I mean, leaving the SNES on is easy, it makes no sound. But a PS2 (original model) has a loud fan in it, it's kind of a pain. Oh well...
The game's not as good as Sega CD Silpheed either, unfortunately. Decent game, but coming from Treasure, it definitely could have been better. At least it was kind of short though. Silpheed on Sega CD was quite long, and had no saving and limited continues... now that's a hard game to finish. (The original PC Silpheed game was also long, but let you save...)
Heavenly Guardian on PS2 did the same thing, but there it was even worse because they taunt you with a "Level Select" menu option... that you can only unlock by beating the game in one sitting. The game's long, too, not short like Silpheed. Now that's evil! (Decent game, great classic style stuff, but the difficulty and horrible lack of a save system nearly ruins it really... and see same issue about 'leaving the PS2 on is annoying'.) UFO published it, it'd have been nice if they'd just let you unlock the level select as you beat the stages... oh well.
Both Sega CD Lunars are absolutely amazing though, among my favorite JRPGs. I have the PSX version of the first one and that's great as well. Popful Mail is also very, very good... challenging, but always really fun and worth the effort.
As for Silhouette Mirage, I'd love to play it now, but only saw a copy of the US PSX version once in the last few years, and it was like $30 or more and I passed. I did get Lunar SSSC at some point last year for $40 (with all four discs, the manual, and the map, but not the case), but that was from a place that's always buy-2-get-1-free with used games, so I got a couple of others too, and I knew I'd like Lunar, while I haven't actually played Silhouette Mirage before so I was less sure. Probably should have gotten it, though... oh well. I will sometime for sure.
