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Report: Muramasa and Odin Sphere Getting Downloadable HD Ports

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Will definitely buy Muramasa HD, but I'm not so sure about Odin Sphere HD. OS was one of the most disappointing games I played last gen, only played about 3-4 hours before giving up.
 
Nuclear Muffin said:
Indeed, the only Wii 3rd party games worth a damn that won't get ported to XBLA/PSN (or PS3/360 retail) at some point are Madworld, Zack & Wiki (maybe PSN and Move only, about a 40% chance I say), Monster Hunter 3, Epic Mickey, Dragon Quest 9 and the Trauma Center series.

The rest will all get ported eventually.

I don't know that this is true. I think the case for Move impeding FUTURE Wii (exclusive) support is pretty strong, but the case for bulk porting of old stuff is pretty weak. Why would EA port Boom Blox 1 when they've released Boom Blox 2? Why not do a new SKU of the game and make it multiplatform?

Aww hell, why bother pussyfooting around, what do you think are the current Wii 3rd party games worth a damn? Whether they got ported later or not?
 
Muramasa is one of the best looking games of this generation. And I don't mean "for Wii", but in general.

For those of you who haven't bought the game yet (shame on you motherfuckers!) definitely get it when these versions come out.
 
lljride said:
Will definitely buy Muramasa HD, but I'm not so sure about Odin Sphere HD. OS was one of the most disappointing games I played last gen, only played about 3-4 hours before giving up.
yeah
OS had nice music though
 
Stumpokapow said:
I don't know that this is true. I think the case for Move impeding FUTURE Wii (exclusive) support is pretty strong, but the case for bulk porting of old stuff is pretty weak. Why would EA port Boom Blox 1 when they've released Boom Blox 2? Why not do a new SKU of the game and make it multiplatform?

Aww hell, why bother pussyfooting around, what do you think are the current Wii 3rd party games worth a damn? Whether they got ported later or not?


Obviously none, or he would have bought this game on the Wii already.

Good for those that want the Wii experience without supporting that evil Nintendo company, though.
 
I got half way through Odin Sphere with the 3rd character and then stopped playing. I want to finish it but I'm not sure if it's worth just finishing my current playthrough or waiting for this and starting over.

I had fun with it, but it could also get very repetitve.
 
JoshuaJSlone said:
It's like third parties are begging me to not buy their Wii games to get it cheaper and HD later.


Or even free, as EA is showing us.
Really is amazing how idiotic third parties are.
Now, more people experiencing good games is great, but don't fuck over an entire userbase, then continue to cry when they don't buy your games.
Either price your Wii games the same as your XBLA/PSN games (which they are basically saying they are), or just don't make it for the Wii in the first place.
 
Muramasa is THE SHIT. One of my favorite games this gen, and probably my favorite looking game as well even if it's on the Wii.

This gives me a chance to finally try Odin Sphere, which I'm happy about.
 
Pulled a list of all Wii third party exclusives, Metascore 70 or higher. If it's not on the list, it's not a Wii exclusive with a Metascore 70 or higher. Added comments to games that I thought were questionably exclusive or that have been ported in future installments.

WiiWare: (19)
Art of Balance - Metascore 88
LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias - Metascore 86
LostWinds - Metascore 81
Bit.Trip Core - Metascore 80 - Bit.Trip Beat ported. Being ported
FFCC My Life as a King - Metascore 80
Bit.Trip Void - Metascore 79 - Bit.Trip Beat ported. Being ported
Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth - Metascore 78
The Magic Obelisk - Metascore 78
Jungle Speed - Metascore 76
Contra ReBirth - Metascore 76
NEVES Plus - Metascore 76
Bit.Trip Runner - Metascore 76 - Bit.Trip Beat ported. Being ported
Bonsai Barber - Metascore 75
Dive: The Medes Islands Secret - Metascore 75
LIT - Metascore 74
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord - Metascore 73
Water Warfare - Metascore 73
ShadowPlay - Metascore 72
HoopWorld - Metascore 71
Magnetis - Metascore 71
DRiiFT Mania - Metascore 71
Jett Rocket - Metascore 70

Retail: (53)
Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure - Metascore 87
Little King's Story - Metascore 87 - Company closed, not going to be ported
Boom Blox Bash Party - Metascore 86
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars - Metascore 85
Boom Blox - Metascore 85
Monster Hunter Tri - Metascore 84
No More Heroes 2 - Metascore 84
Trauma Team - Metascore 82
de Blob - Metascore 82 - Future installments multiplat
MadWorld - Metascore 82
EA Sports Active - Metascore 81 - Future installments multiplat
Muramasa - Metascore 81
Red Steel 2 - Metascore 80
EA Sports Active MW - Metascore 80 - Future installments multiplat
A Boy and His Blob - Metascore 80
Trauma Center: Second Opinion - Metascore 80
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories - Metascore 79 - I know this is technically not exclusive, but it functionally is
Rune Factory Frontier - Metascore 79
The House of the Dead: Overkill - Metascore 78
Rabbids Go Home - Metascore 78
Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip - Metascore 78 - Functional exclusive
Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy - Metascore 78 - Company bought by rival publisher, no port incoming.
MySims Agents - Metascore 78 - Future installments multiplat
Disney Guilty Party - Metascore 78
Trauma Center: New Blood - Metascore 77
Klonoa - Metascore 77
Mercury Meltdown Revolution - Metascore 77 - Functional exclusive
Rayman Raving Rabbids - Metascore 76 - Functional exclusive
NHL Slapshot - Metascore 76
MySims Kingdom - Metascore 76 - Future installments multiplat
Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon - Metascore 76
Order Up! - Metascore 76
Ivy the Kiwi? - Metascore 76
Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles - Metascore 75
Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles - Metascore 75
Batman: The Brave and the Bold - The Videogame - Metascore 75
We Love Golf! - Metascore 75
Elebits - Metascore 75
The Biggest Loser - Metascore 74
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz - Metascore 74 - Annualized franchise that's multiplat, some Wii exclusive installments
The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces - Metascore 74
Marble Saga: Kororinpa - Metascore 74
SSX Blur - Metascore 74
Medal of Honor Heroes 2 - Metascore 73 - Franchise is multiplat
Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party - Metascore 73
Monster Lab - Metascore 73
Deadly Creatures - Metascore 72 - Developer folded into low profile digital games, no sequel or port forthcoming.
Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars - Metascore 72
Super Swing Golf - Metascore 72
Shiren the Wanderer - Metascore 71 - Future installments elsewhere
The Munchables - Metascore 71
Super Swing Golf Season 2 - Metascore 70
Let's Tap - Metascore 70 - Parts of this are multiplat

So if people are going to speculate about what can and can't be ported, what will and won't be ported, and what'll be left on the Wii, there's the list you can use to do.

TP Exclusives below 70 that people might be interested in discussing:
Kororinpa (69)
The Conduit (69)
Ghost Squad (69) - function exclusive
NiGHTS 2 (69)
Space Invaders Get Even (68)
Dewy's Adventure (67)
HOTD 2 & 3 Return (66)
Opoona (65)
Arc Rise Fantasia (63)
Muscle March (62)

Note that there's a difference between "port begging" (IE sour grapes about platform choices) and "port discussion" (IE interest in whether the games make sense to port or could be improved by porting or are likely to be ported)
 
Yea! I knew there was a reason I kept resisting to get Muramasa other than just being a total cheap ass. Well, not realy, but still totally justified now! :D
 
TheFLYINGManga_Ka said:
How about GrimGrimoire also!

It is a source of constant sadness to me that Vanillaware's one good game is the outrageously underrated GrimGrimoire, yet it is the title which receives the least acclaim and the fewest entirely unnecessary spiritual successors.

Why would you do that? said:
It's not a great argument, but whatever.

No, it's actually a pretty reasonable point, I think. A lot of people celebrating this news now won't be quite as happy if Vanillaware have priced themselves out of releasing similar games on consoles in the future by tagging 'em with a $15 price point here. The current market structure isn't kind to games like these and taking what seems like a good option (cheap DD releases) can actually constrain a dev's options even worse in the future.

But for the moment, at least, it's good news that games which people (inexplicably) enjoy are being released on another system at a low price.

viewtiful_dru said:
and yes Odin Sphere is a good game but most people dislike it because they don't know how to play it

Most people hate Odin Sphere because it's at most five hours of entertaining gameplay stretched out to fifty.

JoshuaJSlone said:
It's like third parties are begging me to not buy their Wii games to get it cheaper and HD later.

That would indeed be a pretty poor strategy if they actually had any more Wii games coming out to dissuade you from buying.
 
charlequin said:
That would indeed be a pretty poor strategy if they actually had any more Wii games coming out to dissuade you from buying.

C'mon, charlequin - now you're a mod can't you campaign for a "bitter laugh smiley" for these kind of comments? ;-)

The comment about VW pricing themselves out is one I think people might be wise to note. If these games are released as DD titles at a low price, I'd imagine it's largely thanks to their performance at retail - they've already made a decent amount of money back on their budget (even if not all) so a port at a significantly lower price is possible at this stage.

So what happens with the next VW release? Do they go digital-only? Can they afford to produce a game of the scope of Odin Sphere or Muramasa at a hypothetical $15 pricepoint? Or do they do a staggered retail/DD release (essentially what's happened here) and risk seeing the retail title flop hard as consumers are now expecting a subsequent, cheaper DD release? Would a same-day DD/retail release be possible?

I suspect that - at the moment at least - publishers are going to find that once they've trained consumers to expect these kind of re-released titles on DD services at a certain price point, they will have a hard time selling the same consumers on a subsequent title at a higher price, limiting the development budget of any future titles.

Perhaps I'm being pessimistic.
 
This news plus the Ninokuni footage shown from the show floor has me stroking myself something fierce right now...
 
h3ro said:
This news plus the Ninokuni footage shown from the show floor has me stroking myself something fierce right now...

This + Ninokuni Footage + Ico/SotC Collection + New Footage/Release Target of The Last Guardian = Awesome start.

Hopefully there will be more announcements tomorrow!
 
duckroll said:
So this is... even confirmed?

No, not at all, but I would say that in general 1up has had a good record of not inventing shit whole cloth. They've been wrong on a few things (Xbox 360 wand controller, but the wand controller did exist--it just didn't get released), their rumours section was filled with baloney, and I'm sure they've misreported hundreds of things, but they're not inventing this.
 
Stumpokapow said:
No, not at all, but I would say that in general 1up has had a good record of not inventing shit whole cloth. They've been wrong on a few things (Xbox 360 wand controller, but the wand controller did exist--it just didn't get released), their rumours section was filled with baloney, and I'm sure they've misreported hundreds of things, but they're not inventing this.

Also didn't we hear rumblings of this before? Marvelous already said that they wanted to do HD versions of their Wii titles.

Personally I am way more excited for din Sphere, especially if it will have no slowdown. I will en up getting both anyway though.
 
charlequin said:
Most people hate Odin Sphere because it's at most five hours of entertaining gameplay stretched out to fifty.

If Odin Sphere took you 50 hours to complete, you either suck at games or you grinded the shit out of each character. I can see 40 if you're kind of slow (I think I finished it in about 32-33 hours), but 50?

Regardless of the length issue, I strongly disagree. The gameplay in each chapter is different enough that it kept me wanting to see how the next character would play, and it certainly never bored me. The alchemy/food system and the different ways you could abuse it was wonderful, and I'm guessing this is what the other poster was referring to when he talked about people "not understanding" Odin Sphere. What really kept me playing though was the amazing presentation and story. There's something incredibly unique and interesting about the combination of the Nibelungen story, the beautiful music and the hand-drawn stage play visuals that makes Odin Sphere one of the most interesting (and fun!) games I played on the PS2.

charlequin said:
It is a source of constant sadness to me that Vanillaware's one good game is the outrageously underrated GrimGrimoire, yet it is the title which receives the least acclaim and the fewest entirely unnecessary spiritual successors.

I played and quite enjoyed Grim Grimoire, but to me it wasn't even close to the awesomeness of Odin Sphere. It IS extremely underrated though, mainly because no one played it :/
 
Ledsen said:
If Odin Sphere took you 50 hours to complete, you suck at games. Seriously, it's not even close to that long. Maybe 40 if you're kind of slow (I think I finished it in about 32-33 hours), but 50?

Regardless of the length issue, I strongly disagree. The gameplay in each chapter is different enough that it kept me wanting to see how the next character would play, and it certainly never bored me. The alchemy/food system and the different ways you could abuse it is wonderful, and I'm guessing this is what the other poster was referring to when he talked about people "not understanding" Odin Sphere. What really kept me playing though was the amazing presentation and story. There's something incredibly unique and interesting about the combination of the Nibelungen story, the beautiful music and the hand-drawn stage play-visuals that makes Odin Sphere one of the most interesting (and fun!) games I played on the PS2.


I thought the combat extremely shallow and boring. It has nothing to do with "not knowing how to play." The characters each had limited number of attacks and the game was extremely repetitive. Playing one character was much the same as another. The extreme slowdown didn't help matters, making the the already sluggish controls even worse when shit got too real on screen. I agree that it's beautiful and the music is awesome, but fun? Nawp, not for me.
 
charlequin said:
It is a source of constant sadness to me that Vanillaware's one good game is the outrageously underrated GrimGrimoire, yet it is the title which receives the least acclaim and the fewest entirely unnecessary spiritual successors.

Of the three Grim is by far the one I want to play the most :(

I'll buy these and hope good sales cause them to follow up with a release of GrimGrimoire in the future
 
Cosmonaut X said:
C'mon, charlequin - now you're a mod can't you campaign for a "bitter laugh smiley" for these kind of comments? ;-)

You don't think Mr. Lol is bitter enough?

I suspect that - at the moment at least - publishers are going to find that once they've trained consumers to expect these kind of re-released titles on DD services at a certain price point, they will have a hard time selling the same consumers on a subsequent title at a higher price, limiting the development budget of any future titles.

I think other publishers have already trained people to expect this, which is why every Wii exclusive has been barraged with requests to sell it for $15 on XBLA/PSN, and now it's so well-ingrained in people that it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Ledsen said:
Regardless of the length issue, I strongly disagree. The gameplay in each chapter is different enough that it kept me wanting to see how the next character would play, and it certainly never bored me.

The alchemy system is legitimately interesting for maybe 4-5 hours until you've gotten to the end of one character's run-through and pushed it to its limits. Each new character's gameplay is interesting for maybe one or two levels until you realize that you're now using this new gameplay on the same monsters, in the same locations, in order to plant the same plants and fight your way to the same bosses -- and even then, each character is extraordinarily shallow from an action standpoint, given the extremely limited moveset available to you. The game is composed almost entirely of filler because the mechanics designed for it are terribly distributed and insufficient to provide any depth beyond a very surface level.

Odin Sphere was indeed graphically wondrous and had a charming and entertaining story presentation, which makes the infuriatingly poor gameplay design all the more irritating to me.

HamPster PamPster said:
Of the three Grim is by far the one I want to play the most :(

GrimGrimoire rules! One of my favorite implementations of RTS gameplay on a console. It also uses the "play the same time period five times" conceit that Odin Sphere does, but better: the storyline elements "repeat" (with changes) but each level's gameplay is all-new, you're almost always allowed to use all the different tools you've unlocked instead of being limited, and the whole game is beatable in 15 hours, with extra challenge levels for people who still want more.
 
Oh man that's awesome. Odin Sphere was such a long game... but hell I'd be willing to go through it again for HD and Trohpies!
 
Stumpokapow said:
I don't know that this is true. I think the case for Move impeding FUTURE Wii (exclusive) support is pretty strong, but the case for bulk porting of old stuff is pretty weak. Why would EA port Boom Blox 1 when they've released Boom Blox 2? Why not do a new SKU of the game and make it multiplatform?
how can there be a lot of future wii ports for move when there never were any wii third party games in the first place though. boom blox probably will get ported. resident evil umbrella chronicles, darkside chronicles as well as house of the dead overkill are some others i can think off. but thats pretty much it.

Stumpokapow said:
Aww hell, why bother pussyfooting around, what do you think are the current Wii 3rd party games worth a damn? Whether they got ported later or not?

Indeed the wii has no third party games that are wort a port. It was a deadborn for thirdparties.
 
HamPster PamPster said:
Of the three Grim is by far the one I want to play the most :(

I'll buy these and hope good sales cause them to follow up with a release of GrimGrimoire in the future

Grim's a pretty good game. Didn't like it as much as the others at all, but than again I can't stand RTS (even the all mighty StarCraft) failed to turn me toward the genre. The reason why Grim gets ignored is because it was by far the least selling game of the three. Odin Sphere was a sleeper hit even achieving Greatest Hits status. Muramasa did well for a niche game and can still be found in a Walmart around you despite being from a niche publisher and a year old.


charlequin said:
The alchemy system is legitimately interesting for maybe 4-5 hours until you've gotten to the end of one character's run-through and pushed it to its limits. Each new character's gameplay is interesting for maybe one or two levels until you realize that you're now using this new gameplay on the same monsters, in the same locations, in order to plant the same plants and fight your way to the same bosses -- and even then, each character is extraordinarily shallow from an action standpoint, given the extremely limited moveset available to you. The game is composed almost entirely of filler because the mechanics designed for it are terribly distributed and insufficient to provide any depth beyond a very surface level.

The entire point of the game was to strategize using your limited moveset and alchemy against your enemies. You observed your enemies movies and positions on the map then plan exactly how to take them down and how fast. It was kind of like a one man RTS. The limited moveset was a huge part of the gameplay (similar to how the limited moveset in P.N. 03 is part of its gameplay). I viewed it much like playing a game like Disgaea or Advanced Wars. Sure it was repetitive but the battle system WAS the game. That being said I do agree it was too long. Should have been only 3 characters before the finale IMO.

There's a reason why many reviewers praised the battle system often praised the game for its meatful battle system. So I know I'm not alone here.

I completely agree with the shameless reusing of assets. I know it was made by an 11 person team but still.

ULTROS! said:
So from what I've read:

In terms of story and pacing: Odin Sphere > Muramasa
In terms of gameplay: Muramasa > Odin Sphere

Plus Muramasa is less/not repetitive like Odin Sphere am I right? Muramasa for sure then.

Odin Sphere has far worse pacing than Muramasa.
 
So from what I've read:

In terms of story and pacing: Odin Sphere > Muramasa
In terms of gameplay: Muramasa > Odin Sphere

Plus Muramasa is less/not repetitive like Odin Sphere am I right? Muramasa for sure then.
 
Don't know if it makes sense or if it's easy enough for Frontier Developments to port it to PS3, but I surely would love to play Lost Winds in HD.
 
charlequin said:
You don't think Mr. Lol is bitter enough?

Perhaps :-)

I think other publishers have already trained people to expect this, which is why every Wii exclusive has been barraged with requests to sell it for $15 on XBLA/PSN, and now it's so well-ingrained in people that it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Quite possibly. Like the death of certain genres at retail, I think that Wii games are by-and-large seen as not worth full price (arguably there are plenty of titles on the HD platforms that suffer the same fate - "Looks interesting, but feature xyz isn't there and the GFX are shonky in places - will wait for a pricedrop" is a familiar mantra - but I think the idea of Wii-level games being suitable for DD-only is a rather unique one).
 
So, uh, totally derailing the thread, but after making that Wii list, I wondered what the list would look like for 360 and for PS3.

Again, the rules are:
1) Third party (some of the XBLA games listed here are "MS published", but that's because MS acts as "publisher" to all independent games on XBLA--I excluded games like Shadow Complex where MS clearly has an active publishing interest).
2) True exclusive. I note "functional exclusive" if the game is an arcade game or if it's on multiple home platforms but the other home platforms are so thoroughly busted that you would never play the game on them.
3) Metacritic >70, as with the Wii list there isn't a whole lot below there.

360:
XBLA (24)
Limbo - 90, Geometry Wars RE2 - 90, Trials HD - 86 - Previous installments elsewhere, Geometry Wars RE - 86, 'Splosion Man - 84, N+ - 83 - sort of, also on DS and PSP but they have totally different levels, Pac-Man CE - 83 - Subsequent installment multiplat, Toy Soldiers - 81, Monday Night Combat - 80, Zero D Beat Drop - 80, Cloning Clyde - 80, Snoopy Flying Ace - 80, Lazy Raiders - 80, Dead Rising 2 Case Zero - 79, Mutant Storm Reloaded - 77, Eets Chodown - 77, Mutant Storm Empire - 77, Undertow - 76, VOOT - 73 - Functional exclusive (I went back and forth on this one, exclude if you feel that the DC version counts), Small Arms - 73, Omega 5 - 73, Commanders Attack of the Genos - 72, Gel Set and Match - 72, Axel and Pixel - 72

Retail (14)
Dead or Alive 4 - 85, Dead Rising - 85 - Subsequent installment multiplat, Saints Row - 81 - Subsequent installment multiplat, Stoked - 81, Ace Combat 6 - 80 - Subsequent installment multiplat, Naruto Rise of a Ninja - 78, DeathSmiles - 76 - Functional exclusive, Culdcept Saga - 75, Ridge Racer 6 - 76 - Subsequent installment not on 360, Raiden Fighters Aces - 73 - Functional exclusive, Beautiful Katamari - 73 - Planned multiplat, others canceled and subsequent not on 360, Race Pro - 72, Amped 3 - 72, Chromehounds - 71 - No longer playable, The Outfit - 70, Full Auto - 70 - Subsequent installment not on 360

PS3:
PSN (6)
Joe Danger - 86, Comet Crash - 83, Hustle Kings - 81, Zen Pinball - 80, Cuboid - 79, Soldner X-2 - 77

Retail (7)
MGS4 - 94, Valkyria Chronicles - 86 - Subsequent installments not on PS3, Yakuza 3 - 80, Disgaea 3 - 78, 3d Dot Game Heroes - 77, Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm - 75, Katamari Forever - 74

And the 360's list would be cut in half if the PS3 had been out in Fall 2005.
 
Stumpokapow said:
If it's not on the list, it's not a Wii exclusive with a Metascore 70 or higher.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/wii/nyxquest-kindred-spirits

EDIT: oh, it's coming to the computers this month apparently.

:unsmug

EDIT: Stump, that's pretty interesting, and confirms what I've thought for a while now, that the Wii doesn't get a lot of third party support the way the HD systems get it (the way most of the Wii-only fanbase wants), but it does have a lot more exclusive games. I just didn't know it had more exclusive games than the two of them combined.
 
Both of them have the same problem.

A shitty, half-assed gameplay department cramping an excellent art department's output.

Muramasa is slightly better, but still not a "good" game. Take away the visuals, and it's a dumper.



VanillaWare is a self-contained tragedy.
 
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