The Gamer's Quarter

[Lestrade]

Hello, people! Yesterday I decided to hook up to Live and grab some videos and demos. One such video was the pre-TGS live demonstration of Lost Odyssey by Hironobu "The Gooch" Sakaguchi. 1Up apparently has been shitting on this game, and I find myself in a curious position.

As most of you know, I'm not an RPG fan. I liked—loved—Final Fantasy IV, though. I also kind of begrudgingly enjoy FFVII; I say "begrudgingly," because although I know it's all sorts of broken and stupid, there are certain things about it that I dig. For one, I really like the battle system. Yes, me!—the man who hates turn-based anything—enjoying RPG battle systems. I like FFVII's because it's visceral, fast-paced, and does a good job of, well, faking a real fight. I mean, for 1997, anyway.

So it was curious indeed when, after watching the Lost Odyssey demo, I found myself excited—as in, holy-shit-when's-this-coming-out!? excited. It wasn't the cutscenes, which looks really bland and full of FFXII's political "intrigue" (i.e. tedium). No, it was the fight scenes that got my blood pumping.

They are turned-based. They look straight out of the mid-nineties. They involve menus with well-worn titles like "attack" and "item." But fuck if I didn't get all blood-boily watching the well-drawn (and not fucking adolescent) characters charge forward, CNN-cam in tow, screaming as they laid into enemies with every ounce of strength they had.

See? See!? This is what I like. Standing in a row and swinging your arm doesn't really do it for me, and neither do 14-year-old girls with squeaky-high voices casting magical blossoms and candy. But three well-realized characters, who have the best let's-fuck-some-shit-up opening animations in a battle I've ever seen, bolting full-tilt and screaming every time you press the "Attack" button—yeah, I could live with that a few thousand times.

The direction of these scenes, and the utter simplicity of the menus (after FFXII, thank fuck) really hit home with me.

And there I stood, in my living room, jaw agape, saying to my wife: "I... I think I really want to play a Japanese RPG."

What is this world coming to!?

[Shapermc]

[Lestrade]

Good boggle or bad boggle?

[Shapermc]

Bad.

I watched this trailer shortly after it came out and decided my opinion was the exact opposite of yours for the exact same reasons.
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Lestrade]

Interesting!

I love screaming. And hitting. So the two of them together just looks RADICOOL.

[Shapermc]

You should try to find the TGS footage where it actually leads a bit into the game after the initial play through (I don't know if this is the one you saw or not). After the whole MILLION MAN FIGHT thing where you totally kick a robots ASS you then end up walking around on a very FFX-esque path of cooled off lava flow with NOTHING anywhere. I groaned!
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Lestrade]

Okay, I'll look for it. I mean, the game is probably at least six months away. I just—well, you know, screaming and hitting.

[Crazy Bacon Lips]

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne does the whole "feel like I'm seriously fucking up some shit" battle really, really well. There isn't even a split second pause between your menu selection and the action that results. The Hero's punches look fucking NASTY. No screaming, though. Like hearing "You're fffUCKed" in Killer 7, but not tiresome.

[Dracko]