Daniel36

Suikoden 2, the EU version even (which is even rarer) was apparently sold for 10 bucks at a local store, and they had many. Wish I had known, even then I knew that would have been an investment.

@Metaphysician - Only ever gotten far in Ultima 7, but yes, that does sound like an awesome system to have reimplemented.

@Daggot Well, they could remake all the games (including 8) to look like Ultima 7. That would be neat, no? Maybe slightly bigger world, though.

But let us build roofs too. I don't want to live in a roofless house anymore.

As long as it won't be a Shroud of the Avatar.

Ultima Online though... was SO good.

But anyways, a remake of all Ultimas, with slightly fancier graphics, but still some old school charm. Yes, please.

Why not take all that hard work and put it into an original project? I am sure he can use many of the assets he made and make something new with it.

@Martin_H I am not a programmer or hacker or any of that, but I think what you are referring to used to be an issue up to the SNES, where the cartridges were already pretty much filled to the brim, so the text had to be a 1 on 1 replacement of characters. I think that issue stopped being a problem with later game systems and ROMS, but I might be wrong.

Legend of Kage is one of those games I discovered on a friend's illegal multi-cart, of which I also had one. Amazing how they made games feel way more exotic and mystical. Good times!

@Saki-Endo Thanks for involving Horii in the conversation, because I remember thinking of how snobby he sounded, but apparently he was indeed mistranslated. What you describe sounds much more logical.

@RealVise Who is telling you it is gold? Because I don't see anyone here not acknowledging the shortcomings, and even the patcher himself is very forthright in what he did and moreso did not do.

This was a really cool read! Thanks for sharing!

@Slider2711 Well, he does mention throwing it through three different AI models and cross-referencing them. I guess he means nobody else proofread it.

Still, this is better than nothing at all.

And sure, "The best translations are handled by someone who understands both Japanese and English, as converting one to the other isn't a simple process; there are nuances in Japanese that are often hard to capture in English." - This is obviously true, but there are many, many, MANY cases where neither the developers nor the publishers seemed to care enough for the product to be accurately translated.

Also, I would note, that it's often not hard to capture in English more as it is impossible. The Japanese language, as far as I can tell, is so incredibly steeped in customs, traditions, cultural and otherwise, as well as mannerisms completely different from Western societies, that you simply cannot translate them. Hence the term "localisation" became a thing.

@Ruka - He is not ruining a game, he is giving players an option of at least rudimentally understanding what is going on. And again, soooooooooooo many examples of games with absolutely horrid translation, which are OFFICIAL products.

I am not saying this is the perfect way, but it also doesn't sound like he isn't passionate enough to at least make it the best he can, given his resources. And also: "nE0sIghT adds that everything about this project – the patch, tools and source code – is open, so people can step in and fix any errors they might find." - We can all help out and make it better, if we want.

From what little I played and remember... it can definitely use this.

This interests me. Dig the aesthetic. Maybe a tiny tad TOO old school for me, but awesome nonetheless!

@Damo Then I suppose we'd better not mince any words.

They are trying to 1-UP Alejandro Martin!!

Who, by the way, released another absolutely unhinged video, one of the most unhinged things I have ever seen.

@Guru_Larry I still doodle from time to time, but not in any serious capacity. My daughter, however, is working hard on her skills.

Personally, I went into the direction of painting miniatures and building scenery, which I still enjoy, and making music, which is more difficult but also more rewarding. Also finally picking up DJ-ing. Have a small gig this Saturday.

I have some house tracks about ready to be released, which I am quite proud of. So that is sort of all kicking into gear.

How about you, anywhere I can see your art?

@Guru_Larry Yes, the pic in the bottom. Nostalgic to see.

What a terrible artist I was, huh? Especially those flames in the back. And to think I was already 18 at the time. I should have been better. But what fun!

@Guru_Larry Yeah, looked it up for you. N64 Magazine, issue 28. Still a fond memory for me.

@slider1983 Same man, haha. Though I am finally taking a step into my "professional" DJ career this Saturday, since I landed a small gig. And who knows what that will bring.

@slider1983 The annoying truth is, many of us can do a better job, but I guess Anderson, Boll and all the other hacks just have money to throw at the franchises and thus get the jobs.

@Guru_Larry Of course I remember! I had to do away all my mags, but kept that one. It's the one with Wil's rendition of Duke Nukem on the front. I drew a picture of Fusoya destroying a PS1, frustrated there were so few N64 RPGs.

@Guru_Larry Sounds like he has been a top bloke to a lot of people. One of the few "celebs" where so many people have a personal story to tell.

A long time ago I sent artwork to N64 Magazine, was featured with the caption "Wil's favourite", which was a very obvious highlight of my life.

Years later I decided to send him an e-mail, to thank him for that. He replied and we had a few back and forth e-mails. I didn't want to hassle him too much, so it was only a few e-mails, but it just goes to show he is a genuinely cool guy!

@Pak-Man Heheh, same. I still dislike that one note though, I cannot believe nobody ever decided to change that into a nicer sounding resolution. Except, I guess Vitamin C and later Benny Blanco sort of did.

I absolutely LOVED this game so much. This was one of those purchases I made where the box art drew me in, and without knowing anything about the game, I bought it on a whim.

And boy was I glad I did.

It wasn't perfect, mind you. There wasn't really a "You won this scenario" type deal, so there wasn't really an end game, but I loved building up my empire.

Would love a sort of remake with the same graphics (and music, my goodness the music!) and gameplay, but with some added quality of life stuff and an existing end game thing. And maybe some more planets. That would make me happy.

@Damo You are one lucky son of a gun!

Also, imagine being that good, that you can draw in all these elements and have them coloured this nicely as well. I dabbled in drawing this style, but I never got this good.

@Guru_Larry It looks digital, but I have seen this type of art done with ink, so who knows. Probably digital, though. Too many different elements over each other, would have been a pain to do traditionally.

Nostalgia might be speaking, but I still prefer the original. The new one is great too, though. Wil Overton is a really nice guy, so I wish him all the best with this.

Ph boy, SNES converters... yeah, those were a pain. Getting it to run Mario RPG was like playing the lottery.

Honestly, this kind of looks like one of those hidden objects games, but kudos for not going the standard animé route, I suppose. At least that is refreshing.

So are you saying that NO generative AI was used in this? /jk

@sdelfin Aha, these ads were not for consumers. That makes sense. Thanks!!

Yeah... thatbwas skmething.

Never heard of "kits" before, what is that about? And what do they mean with "earnings"?

Some of these remind me of dirty magazines my innocent eyes sometimes caught at newsstands in the early 90s. Must be coincidental, ahem...

Never heard of this before. So it's surprising they apparently sold well already.

Super not interested, though.

I know it's not the part I should be focusing on, but imagine forgetting you own a freaking building. One you bought only five years prior. Then what was the point of buying it in the first place, if you are just going to leave it abandoned? What does a pensioner need an abandoned building for?

At least they managed to rescue the statue.

What we've lost is a LOT of noise, though it is kind of cool to see those Animal Crossing arcade cabinets in real life. There is a retro arcade in my country, which I've visited with my kids. We had a lovely time but boy was I overstimulated for days afterwards.

Arcades were never really alive in my home country, anyways. I do fondly recall going to one in the US, when I was there a long time ago, but other than that, this isn't a nostalgic thing for me.

We've lost much more than just arcades though. The arcades are just a small part of an era where many, MANY things were just... better!

@chucksneed The controls now feel awful, but back then with an N64 controller it was really good.

This is why Sega's Super Game got canceled, I am sure of it!! They couldn't compete with Alejandro.

@JohnnyMind I would argue Breath of the Wild is a remake to Zelda II, more or less. It has so, SO much in common.

Oh wow, I am pretty sure I played this some on one of those multicarts.

I recently remembered Seicross right before it got released here too, and this one seems to be one I forgot about, or perhaps assimilated with Seicross in my memories, seeing the similarities.

Pretty awesome!!! These games are a VIBE!

Paragraph 5, I thi k you mean to say "to anyone who grew up" instead of didn't.

Other than that, wholeheartedly agree. What a game!

Dark Omen is such an incredibly good game. Fate made me buy it. Little did I know I would become a Warhammmer player later on. Dark Omen though did it better than the tabletop game ever did.

That is so funny. I was just recently searching for the name of Seicross.

I remembered it well as one of the better, or at the very least more exotic, games on a friend's illegal multi-cart. His cart had some absolute bangers. My 31-in-1 had as well, but his had more.

Magical times, when you had a multi-cart full of games from far-away lands, where you had no idea what you were doing.

I do not understand why they wouldn't just release the entire saga, GB ones included. Especially if it has some form of continuation.

Demon King Howard, though. Man... that is some name.

@AllieKitsune As can be seen in the blurb. Haha, doesn't bode well. Also: "definitive fantasy romance" - my guess is hardly.

@MysticWangForce Same. We should hang out and watch it together, haha.

Hmmm...

So I once entertained myself with trying to get ChatGPT to write me a "Choose your own Adventure" thing, and it started out absolutely awesome. Solid choices, and even when I said "No, I actually want to do this..." it complied and really sucked me in.

But before long, it couldn't keep characters, their placement and who was carrying what apart and the entire thing fell apart completely.

So, I am not too confident this game will be able to accurately create scenarios with ChatGPT and keep internal logic.

It WAS pretty awesome though, while it lasted.

@Thad Yeah... it... IS nearly impossible. Still is, that quality hasn't changed now that only a single person managed to pull it off.

The word nearly needs to be removed from that sentence for the sake of all of us pedantics.

@Sketcz Don't beat yourself up about it. Look at it another way; pre-internet, you were the quality control. Without reviewers, maybe game devs would have been less inclined to hold themselves to high standards?

And the readers, they should have compared reviews. They should look at more than just the final grade; the arguments are far more important.

Let's face it, though. This game could have been way better. It had a vibe, but it never fully embraced the vibe with proper gameplay. I can name a few more games that had vibe, but weren't exactly fun to play.

EDIT: You know what, I am going to continue a bit on your thought. Way back when, when magazines were all we had and the internet was just a far-off dream, reviews gave me SO SO SO much joy! There have been reviews that I must have read a hundred times, not even exxagerating. And I suppose the "crap on it" reviews were just as fun, if not more, to read than the glowing reviews. And let's not forget, especially in the NES/SNES era, rental was a huge thing, so you just rented a game, even if you had read a review that said it was bad, just to see for yourself.

I have rented so many absolutely awful games, and let me tell you, I rented them more than once!

So honestly, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

That said, ain't no time like the present to change such behaviour and from this day forth be more... mellow about games. Except for asset flip slop. Honestly, I have thought about starting a website just to review asset flip and AI slop on more than one occasion. I won't do it, but I have thought about it many times.

Should... should we do it? I mean... we have NL, PS, PX and Time Extension... We could one hundred percent add another one to the list.

@ElkinFencer10 Don't worry, everyone in charge of anything in the US government is pretty much the polar opposite of what theys should be. So she's not the only one.

America is run by things I can't even call human anymore. It is absolutely mind-boggling.

Darn Spanish study group and their dice roll.

Sounds like I am in excellent company, seeing as I too greatly enjoyed the first one and have fond memories of playing it.

Was it a good game? No!

But it had SUCH a vibe. On of the very few games that felt like it nailed a certain 90s fantasy animé aesthetic I craved, and also one that allowed you to sort of create your own character, sort of.

I always wanted to create something similar, but alas, I am not a game developer.

There's nothing wrong with getting the basic gist of the translation out of the way using AI.

In a game like this, a huge percentage of the text is going to be pretty cultural and context-heavy. It needed a thorough localisation anyways... half of it was probably never going to make sense to English players regardless. It's like me saying "That's the whole egg-eating", only Dutch folks will know what I mean.

So a game like this was always going to miss half of the intended meaning. It's a bit odd to demand a "perfect" translation when we won't even understand it.

His cameo in Spyro was pretty cool. Super weird cartoon though, thst one.

@EggSlayer PU? Now we're no longer playing with power?!?

I had the first issue. I don't think I ever bought another one. I flickednthrough a few these past months and they don't seem to have ever evolved beyond their style of humor, which... isn't mine.

Still, shame.

Sure, choosing EA over really, REALLY awful companies which have done extensive damage to the world, out of spite for a videogame character is silly. But you know what, so is wanting to humanize EA, which is also just a seriously ***** company. Why would you want to humanize that? (I know the answer)

EA is a ***** company. Not nearly in the same league as those other companies, but still. And sure, call your consumers volatile, why don't you? Not that you're wrong (some gamers and football fans are scum), but the companies that provide the products play a very large part in creating such toxicity, or at least not trying to diminish said toxitiy.

I am sure he can wipe away his tears with a few dollar bills anyways.