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Post by dareka on Jun 24, 2019 1:08:25 GMT -6
Very nice reply - just one question - you say 'drop the resolution to 720p' however it was my understanding that Bloodstained runs at 720p (or lower) and I guess my issue isn't so much the 30FPS but they fact that it doesn't seem to even hit 30FPS a lot of the time. Sorry, I meant drop it from 1080 p - but obviously it's already running at 720 p, so yeah - my mistake. I guess maybe lock it to 720 p.
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Post by dareka on Jun 23, 2019 23:22:29 GMT -6
apop I wouldn't hold my breadth for a more optimized version, but I wouldn't come out and call DiCO incompetent programmers, either. For one thing, programming games is very difficult, and requires really good programmers with special knowledge and skills to begin with; if you're gonna say they're not competent, you better put up or shut up - show you can do better, or don't call them incompetent at all. More to the point, though, when a game is not built from the ground up as an exclusive for a given platform, it's almost a given that the game won't be able to tap that platform's real potential. Why? Well, you can look at game's performance being determined by three separate but related elements: 1. The assets (graphics and sound data) the game uses. 2. How those assets are moved around in system memory. 3. How those assets and the game logic are processed. When you're making a game as an exclusive for a given platform, like the new Yoshi game, and you're targeting a specific frame rate (say, 60 fps), what you're gonna do is you're going to 1. Create assets that are easy for the platform to handle, considering things such as memory bandwidth, GPU features and clock speed, etc. 2. Build your asset management logic around those assets and the system's limitations. 3. Not include any assets or logic that constitute a bottleneck for reaching your target frame rate. Here's the kicker, though - sometimes, not even doing this is enough. Sometimes you need a programmer who's really good at optimization - and I mean fricking genius level good at optimization - to meet your target frame rate. I know because the well-known company I worked for was stacked with brilliant programmers (who've gone on to illustrious careers at the likes of Square Enix), but there was one who was really good at optimization, and you'd hear about how he'd just double to frame rate of the games he worked on; so if he hadn't been on board, lots of really brilliant programmers would not have been able to get the level of performance the retail versions of the games shipped with. But wait, there's more! You know why games like Yoshi run at 60fps on Unreal 4? It's not because of the developer, it's because of the publisher. You see, a company like Nintendo has the financial resources to hire some freelance genius to optimize a game; but they won't do that, because they don't really need to do that, because they can just pay Epic to send one of their top engineers, someone who knows the Unreal Engine like the back of his hand, and optimize the game for the developer - it's what Square Enix did when developing Dragon Quest XI, actually. So can you get Bloodstained to run on Switch at 60 fps? Maybe, but you'd probably need to redo the assets, redo the program's architecture, drop the resolution to 720p and then have someone from Epic come and look at it. None of these things are realistic, and so the game will probably be locked at 30 fps forever. That said, if Nintendo does release an improved version of the Switch, and if it's possible for the system to identify itself to the software it runs as distinct from the original Switch, and if the performance increase is good enough that reaching a stable 60 fps is feasible without redoing assets and major portions of code, then 505 might be inclined to provide a patch to game at a later point in time. But those are a lot of ifs.
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Post by dareka on Jun 23, 2019 20:51:33 GMT -6
One of the things that makes Bloodstained so special to me is the community we have built around the game. Even if Bloodstained happened to come out as some sort of disappointment, I would have still cherished the group of people who have come together to share their love for Koji Igarashi's legacy. We have that in common at the least, and by this simple common thread we share, it starts strengthening other connections. If you have made friends over the past 4 years because of this game, shared game music together, shared fan art together, have rushed to post news, have read updates as soon as they're posted and discussed them, you have felt like I have during the wait. The most beautiful thing about all this is that the game isn't just actually good, it's worthy of the lagacy. It has IGA's soul in it. Michiru Yamane's soul. Robbie Belgrade's soul. Ayami Kojima's soul. Castlevania's soul. The legacy lives on in our hearts. So keep in touch with the community. Make it a helpful and encouraging community that will continue to celebrate this legacy and the future it now has through us. Army of the Night, I salute! Here here! While there have obviously been both ups and downs, by and large this is the best experience I've ever had in a forum, and I think that now that Bloodstained's been released, it'll be a great way to enhance the experience by allowing us to stay in touch, share thoughts and offer the devs their well-earned praise and the occasional constructive feedback. Kudos to the mods, the devs, and the community team at 505!
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Post by dareka on Jun 23, 2019 19:41:51 GMT -6
Max level for familiars is 99. Bloodbringer is the second strongest one handed sword behind Blue Rose. But if an enemy is resistant to ice then Bloodbringer is the strongest. I'm not including weapons gotten with 8-bit coins. Dunno if this has been posted here before, but has anyone noticed there appears to be a really cool bug with Bloodbringer? If you try to equip it from the status screen while the Bloodbringer familiar is summoned, the game won't let you. However ...
if you use a shortcut which includes Bloodbringer, you can equip the sword with the familiar summoned - the game apparently doesn't check the familiar summoned flags when you go through a shortcut. Please, please don't fix this bug, 505. It's really nice to have.
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Post by dareka on Jun 23, 2019 16:50:26 GMT -6
I just love that IGA's best attack is his Yeah, phase two requires a fair amount of precision to dodge, at least without resorting to any kind of trick. I also love that the shard you get for beating him is precisely the wine attack, and that it harkens back to the holy water subweapon from Castlevania. The only thing missing is him saying " what is a man? a miserable little pile of secrets!" when he kills you, but since that line was pretty much made up for the original English version of Symphony of the Night, it makes sense that it's not in there.
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Post by dareka on Jun 23, 2019 12:06:31 GMT -6
great boss fights (on Normal they're kinda easy except for the end, but I wanted to get the Medal on any boss before proceeding with the story so doing them no-hit really made me appreciate the patterns) The IGA boss fight ended up being my favorite in the game, because of how he alternates between attacks randomly, but always has a "tell" of what's coming so you have an opportunity to react. It's just classic 2D game design, and very fitting that IGA's the boss who represents it best.
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Post by dareka on Jun 22, 2019 17:20:02 GMT -6
seiya yulia11 C'mon, you guys are spoiling my essay for people In all seriousness, things are getting a little off topic. Back to the game itself, I've cleared it in normal mode, beaten IGA, and am now in the process of gathering shards and filling up my bestiary before starting on Hard mode. Initial thoughts: great game overall, but the pacing really dragged on some parts on my first play-through, because there were lots of sections where I couldn't figure out what to do and where to go next. Specifically: 1. Access to the train. 2. Access to the bell tower after getting the light beam. 3. Using bloodless' ability to open the entrance to the caverns. 4. Using the water stream to navigate the caverns before getting the shard that lets you sink in water.
Thankfully I did not get stuck with ... the "plot (aegis) armor" - I got it out of curiosity before I actually needed it to progress ... and I should mention that I eventually figured them all out, but still - I've never been so stuck so often in an IGAvania before. Now that I'm no longer stuck though, I'm having tons of fun, and I'm positively thrilled the game seems to be getting glowing reviews despite the day-one patch bug fiasco (I was on PC, so I wasn't of those who got stung). This video on YouTube is really good, I thought, and the comments section also illustrates how much goodwill the game's garnered. I was originally skeptical the game would ever see a sequel, but now I'm starting to think it's possible, even likely, and I know what I wanna see: a vanity/glamour system, and for every piece of gear to show up on Miriam's character model. It would really add a lot to the item collection element of the gameplay, and it might be feasible and cost-effective to implement if they prioritize it during development. Also, I'm tired of my Miriam showing up with those goofy glasses during the cut-scenes just because I like to see a Boss' HP when fighting them.
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Post by dareka on Jun 22, 2019 15:31:06 GMT -6
@bloodymiri
I'll ask the mods once I'm done. I'd understood that all talk of spoilers would go on this thread, with spoiler tags, until July 1st, so that Switch players had time to finish the game. The little essay I'm working on would probably require its own thread, so I don't know if should create it until most of the community has the opportunity to read it and consider the content in the context of Bloodstained's plot and ending.
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Post by dareka on Jun 22, 2019 11:41:00 GMT -6
@bloodymiri
I can see what you're getting at, but this is not something research alone can help with.
What people do is we filter all of our research through the lens of our worldview, which is shaped subconsciously by our environment.
I had realized the Japanese worldview on religion differed from ours after playing countless JRPGs, but I spent eight years living in Japan before I could articulate the how or why.
I'll start the write-up right away, and once I'm done I'll PM you (and anyone else who wants it) so you can read it before July 1st, when the spoiler embargo ends.
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Post by dareka on Jun 22, 2019 1:25:09 GMT -6
Ok, I just have to post about it now, so if you have not completed the game, do not read the spoiler box below. I'm so sad they did my girl Domique like that. I really liked her character, and even shipped her with Miriam, and this is what they do!? A revenge story over what happened to her parents is actually a really good hook, and made me care about her in the story, imagining the kind of pain she must have went through. But then they just made her all for the evulz at the end. They really could have played up the tragedy of her loss and how it effected her for all those years, especially when she protects the little girl at the start of the game. As it stands, Miriam seems less hurt and more "I'mma kill the bitch!" instead more of a "I am sorry what happened to you, but you leave me no choice." Miriam did not even seem all that broke up over it, an issue with the writing, perhaps? I don't expect mgs levels of melodrama, but do feel there should have been a little more here. And at the risk of starting a religious debate, which I really do not want to, you have to figure that when Dom showed her true colors, she denied God, sided with the demons of hell, and when she died, she is now in hell for an eternity. That sucks!!!!!! Damn it, I really liked this character, and you tear my heart out like this??? I guess I got that bittersweet ending I mentioned in a topic I made a week or two ago, just not in the way I imagined it. I'll do a longer post or maybe an external article on this later, but ... ... the Japanese perspective on God and Religion are so different from what you'll find in the West that IGA probably wouldn't even understand what you're talking about. If Dominique's views on God and hell were even remotely western she wouldn't have said what she says at the end. The character is 100% Japanese. I'm not saying she wouldn't have turned "evil" if her mindset were Western, I just mean she'd look at her situation in a completely different way... I really have to elaborate, as this topic could easily make for a graduate thesis on eastern studies ... I promise I'll post the full explanation of what I'm trying to say as soon as the spoiler embargo's over.
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Post by dareka on Jun 14, 2019 23:41:29 GMT -6
dareka Yea my personal understanding of the situation is that Konami is a family owned company and when dad retired the son just changed the whole direction of the company. Kojima was abit of a powerhouse within the company he had his own studio and commanded a great deal of money and resources also he could and did tie up alot of those resources, (not saying this in a negative sense he always turned a profit so far as I know) and that power base combined with the desire to move away from traditional video game making into other more profitable territories (Konami is SOOOO much more then video games and pachinkos) Lead to the powers that be to do what they did for most of their star video game makers IGA included in that, making their career and work life a living hell till they voluntary quit so that Konami could say... Hey we didn' t fire them. Yeah, that more or less jives with what I heard. Just how far out of their way they went to make people quit, I don't know, though. But that is actually the modus operandi for pretty much all japanese companies, actually: it's considered morally reprehensible to fire people unless you're in deep financial trouble (i.e., the only way to save the company is to cut operating costs = people), so what they'll do when they want someone gone (for good or bad reasons) is either not give you any work to do, or make your life miserable so that you quit. From a western perspective one might find this behavior just as reprehensible, if not more so, than simply firing the person, but in a group-based society like Japan, you can't go and openly exclude people from the group they're in - the person has to leave by him or herself. Mind you, not that corporate culture here is much better - here, the company would simply make up a "performance" or "guideline violation" related excuse to fire the person - but it might not be as psychologically taxing on the poor, unfortunate soul they're firing.
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Post by dareka on Jun 14, 2019 22:28:30 GMT -6
^All that makes me curious about the Konami 80 million dollars/firing of Kojima situation for MGSV. Aside: I hated MGSV, sadly. Cut content, and everything else that was left behind was boring to me.
EDIT: I was very much looking forward to Silent Hills, however. RIP Konami.
If the rumors are to be believed, Kojima was simply fired because the company president hated him (probably jealous), and with their smart phone "games" turning out bigger profits with lower risks, they simply didn't need him anymore. It's conjecture on my part, but that's the way these things normally go. I'm not a fan of Kojima personally, but he was a good project manager, so there's no reason to fire someone who's at least providing the company with mind-share, with risk/reward ratio Konami was more than financially healthy enough to endure. I guess they just wanted to make money with zero risk. Kojima symbolized the fact that you could make a lot of money by taking risks, so they got rid of him.
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Post by dareka on Jun 14, 2019 21:10:03 GMT -6
Actually, that's not a loss on their Luminous Engine, it's a loss they're attributing to projects cancelled at Luminous Productions (the in-house division which used the Luminous Engine to make Final Fantasy XV. Confusing, I know). So they had these projects at luminous productions, which they spent 33 million dollars developing, which were then axed before they could recoup their investment (at least, that's what they're saying). Notice, though, how they don't give further details. When a game is successful, they'll tout units sold or money grossed (if the numbers are impressive). Nobody talks about profits at the game level, just at the company level. Why? Because publicly traded companies have to show that they're performing well as a company, and not which products are responsible for the bulk of the earnings. Now the big question: why not give people the details on which products are doing well? Square Enix is a good case to look at if you want to understand the why. Square Enix reported that Final Fantasy XV "broke even" (i.e., recouped its development costs) when it sold 5 million copies. The game is said to have sold 8.4 million copies worldwide, so that's 3.4 million profitable units. What we don't know, though, is how they're tabulating those costs. Because, if you count the 5 years the game was in development as Final Fantasy Versus XIII, that was probably a money sink. We also don't know their marketing budget - which tends to grow the bigger the game is. So for all we know, they might just be tabulating the salaries for the people assigned to the rebooted project at Tabata's former division, plus the money that division spent on outsourced assets. We don't if the game ended up losing money when the cost of the project under Nomura and the marketing budget are factored in; and even if it did make money, because of the elevated costs it may have ended up making far less than its predecessors. That said, the game might have been a resounding success for Square Enix in as much as it kept the Final Fantasy franchise visible, cutting edge, and relevant. In that sense, even a project that lost money might be seen as successful. Right now, Final Fantasy's biggest moneymaker is probably FFXIV, which has millions of paid subscribers (myself included). A successful FFXV means a successful FF, which means a more successful FFXIV, which is their cash-cow. So they're probably very happy with FFXV's performance, regardless of whether or not it actually made money. Now, you don't wanna shout from the top of your lungs " guys, guess what, our flagship title barely lost money, but it got plenty of mind-share, so all the other cheaper to develop games that actually make money are OK! Isn't that awesome?" Journalists never fail to mention the game's troubled development when doing write-ups - do you think they'd fail to mention how big of a money sink it is if Square Enix showed its cards? The same goes for the FFVII remake. That game has to succeed for the future of the franchise, so their goal is for it to be well-received and sell loads of units, and if it can be profitable or even just brake even, then that's just icing on the cake. As an off topic side note... You'll notice that FFXV, Kingdom Hearts 3 and FFVII remake all have one thing in common: Tetsuya Nomura. You'll also notice that FFVII remake didn't even get a release date until the project got a "co-director." It should be obvious at this point to anyone with half a brain that Nomura couldn't manage a project to save his life. He's a talented character (and clothing) designer, but he's an atrocious director, so at this point he's probably only co-director of FFVII remake in name-only, going over some of the graphics and character designs, and giving his input on the story. FF Versus XIII had to be completely scrapped, and Kingdom Hearts 3 was delayed to infinity and beyond (Toy Story pun intended), and it's obvious FFVII remake would have been doomed with Nomura at the helm. He was OK in the director's chair for PS2 games, but once consoles went HD, he was out of his depth. Fun fact: PS2 games were actually made by teams of something like 10 to 15 people at most. Teams were much smaller than people suspected: the core team worked for about two years, temporarily swelling during the mass production of assets; but with HD games you're talking about having a core staff 3 or 4 times that size, plus support from technology teams and even more swelling during production, not to mention greater technological hurdles.
What's more, you think people are acting like entitled little brats over everything they don't like now? If the game doesn't turn a huge profit, they'll start using that in their negative PR campaign; if it does, then they'll get even louder and demand " reparations" from the game's profits, etc. Finally, imagine you outsource a certain aspect of the project to a certain developer and their work is so crappy that you have to drop it and hire someone else. The money spent on that developer would have to be revealed in any breakdown of the game's costs and profits, or the numbers won't add up. Well, that particular instance of outsourcing must remain confidential, because 1) it may have been in their contract and 2) even if it wasn't, revealing you had to fire them will not endear you to prospective subcontractors (who'll prefer someone that doesn't out them even if they're fired). It'll also make you look stupid and give people ammo to talk about how you could have made a better game if you hadn't spent money on a bad subcontractor. Now, even if everything went great, if you reveal that, people will know that when you don't talk about a project it means you messed up. What I'm trying to get at is that revealing how the sausage is made has lots of potential negatives and very little positives for a publisher, which is why they won't do it.
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Post by dareka on Jun 14, 2019 15:04:39 GMT -6
After this game finally releases, I want to know how much money it made via kickstarter, slacker backer, pre orders and post launch combined. It would be very interesting to learn this, indeed, but I doubt it'll happen. The dev funds are obviously kickstarter + slacker backer + financing from ArtPlay's parent company and 505 Games. Unfortunately, more detailed information is rarely, if ever, revealed by publishers (indie games with no publisher are another story). Some of it might even be tied up in NDAs, btw. Same for pre-order and post-launch: they'll tout numbers (e.g., more than this many downloads!), but not profits for a particular game (though publicly traded companies will post earnings for the entire company). They'll just let you know if the game sold well, or at least well-enough to warrant a sequel. The thing with finances is that they're a very thorny issue (legally and PR-ly), especially in projects like games, where there's a lot of outsourcing.
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Post by dareka on Jun 14, 2019 14:12:55 GMT -6
This interview by GameSpark was conducted during BitSummit 7, but published on June 13th, during E3. Original article: www.gamespark.jp/article/2019/06/13/90576.htmlTranslation by yours truly.
It's interesting because you get to hear IGA's thoughts on the game's development woes and such. It's also laden with cultural references unique to Japan, so I'll be updating it with translator notes in the coming days.GS: Thank you for joining us. So what's your overall impression of this year's BitSummit?IGA: I spent lots of time with the press yesterday, and today there was this stage presentation and a live stream, and then some more time with the press... but the crowded show floor when I came in and the long entrance line I saw this morning really make it clear attendance is growing each year. Also, it used to be that most games showcased were indies, whereas now we have a lot of big-name publishers participating as well. GS: There are a lot more overseas games, too, and players seem very accepting of them.IGA: Yeah. It used to be that games from overseas 1 were completely avoided. GS: To the point that we had the word "yoge."2 Lots of them were very difficult, and Castlevania had a reputation for being pretty tough at that point, too.IGA: And once the high level of difficulty had become part of the franchise's identity, it was a real challenge upending that image, telling players "that's not it!" The anniversary collection was released a few days ago, and you can see how the originals were really quite difficult. You couldn't change your trajectory when you jumped, you would be pushed back when you took damage ... and they put enemies right over the pits you can fall into! GS: I remember often falling into pits on knock-back. It must be a real headache, getting the difficulty just right.IGA: Well, there are lots of different types of players. I like to compare a game's difficulty to arithmetic. People who solve top-level school entrance exam 3 problems don't simply enjoy getting the right answer - they enjoy the process of arriving at the answer, too. Some people, though, are not interested in the process - they just want the right answer, and so you have to find the right balance. The point is that there are people who look for a different sense of accomplishment from the one you get from getting all the answers right on a 10 x 10 arithmetic calculation grid 4, from solving that kind of top-level school entrance exam problem. 5GS: Oh, so Castlevania was a top-level school! IGA: That's right. And besides the difficulty, there's the thing that you have to keep the series' title. I made the games so that you could jump in from any installment, but I couldn't help but feel that some players hesitated to try it out because they hadn't played the previous entry. 6 For "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night," I wrote new lore for new characters, so there's a lot more that needs to be explained. GS: So how will the lore for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night be explained throughout the game?IGA: You’ll find an explanation in the stream archive, but a lot of it is in the hints and dialogue. You can also find out more by talking to the alchemist Johannes, by reading the "books" on the shelves, and by reading a particular character's diary in-game. I ended up making the lore for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night really complicated, which was really hard on my interpreter when I was doing interviews with overseas publications. 7GS: I mean, with a new game, there's a lot to explain. IGA: I couldn't cover it all with Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. It's the same for all games, really, but with action games in particular, if you make the cut-scenes too long you'll disrupt the game's pacing. I cut a lot of lines and some topics for that very reason. The spots where you can put an in-game cut-scene, too, are dictated by the story, so you have to make adjustments so that they don't interfere with the pace of the action. GS: So, "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night" - the release date outside of japan is getting close…IGA: The game's gone gold. Now it's just up to the publisher! GS: Tell us about the things you had trouble with during development.IGA: Well, we didn't use our tried and true development environment, 8 but rather middleware like Unreal Engine 4, so we struggled figuring it out. Our development environment used to be unique and proprietary, so it was completely different from UE4. 9 The game is 2D gameplay with 3D graphics, and this also made for problems we hadn't anticipated when changing development environments, and using UE4's physics shaders and such. We learned valuable lessons for next time. GS: You mention UE4 - is a PS Vita release out of the question?IGA: The release was cancelled, partly because UE4 doesn't run on it. The developer 10 put in their best effort, but I think it wouldn't have been feasible. 11GS: Tell us about the elements in the game you’d really like players to notice.IGA: We put a lot of effort into the graphics. You know, we were really hammered over the graphics by players from overseas when we released the beta demo; so, we worked on it, making changes to the point where the publisher uploaded a comparison video showing the differences between old and new. We really put a lot of effort into changing the lighting, so I hope players take notice. It was pretty overwhelming, but I’m thankful for having been given the opportunity to address the issue, as opposed to ending up releasing the game without realizing what players were looking for. GS: Tell us a little bit about the difficulty. IGA: The difficulty had been getting higher with each new installment 12, so we toned it down quite a bit. In our test plays, I died quite often at the bosses with mechanics I’m not good at, but everyone else had no problems, so I guess I’m just not as good as I used to be! GS: So the difficulty’s not at the top-school level anymore.IGA: We did drop it a bit, yes. In this game, the shard skills are really strong, so not holding back on their use is one of the keys to success, I think. As for advanced players, I’d love for them to use cancels to create multi-hit strings like in the originals. GS: With Kickstarter, I imagine the budget's fluctuation was a huge issue. IGA: As far as the budget, we also obtained funds outside of Kickstarter. Development itself was more of a problem than the budget. For example, bonus modes were originally done by the main programmer in his spare time. However, with crowd funding, once you promise “we’ll do this,” you absolutely have to deliver the feature. GS: So what was originally an optional extra for you guys was now a must.IGA: Exactly! Also things like the level design, you optimize development by making choices - making changes to features and scope - but with crowd funding, you’ve already said you’re gonna do this and that, we’ll have this many rooms; and making these promises made for a new development experience, one that was pretty overwhelming. There were some great things, of course - feeling the fans’ passion, having them close to development, it was all very refreshing - but we also faced tremendous hurdles, so I hope other crowd funded games can learn from our example what not to do. GS: I can’t wait to discover what kind of game was born from this new experience you had. Lastly, one final word for readers of this interview. IGA: Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is on the verge of release, so I’m eager for fans of the series to sink their teeth into it. It’s a game that left a mark in people’s hearts, despite coming out in an age full of titles unique and peculiar enough that, at first glance, you’d ask yourself “who’d buy this”; and I’d like for players to enjoy it in this day and age. GS: You want to show people what this game, that was not forgotten in the face of so many other unique titles, was all about. Thank you for your time! Translator Notes1. " Overseas" (kaigai, 海外) is their way of referring to anywhere outside of East Asia (which doesn't count as overseas because Chinese and Koreans look Japanese and have a shared history for some reason I cannot possibly fathom), most often used to refer to the "industrialized West" ( because they've assimilated Eurocentrism and also poorer countries are not on their radar for some other reason I cannot possibly fathom). 2. " Yoge" (which should be transcribed as "yougee" and pronounced "yoh-geh", 洋ゲー) is a derogatory term for western games. They had the reputation for being difficult and simply not fun, to the point that you could hardly call them games. In their defense, hardly anyone played western computer games (and those that did went on to make Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy), and console games made in the west in that era were not always very ...er, good. Also, in Japan they really care about aesthetics, and lets face it: most westerners suck at low-res, low-poly visuals. 3. So, with many notable exceptions (particularly in the field of engineering) the way education works in Japan is College is basically for having fun while you learn to respect your superiors before joining the workforce. However, since pretty much every company under the sun hires new graduates with zero experience every year come April, they get a lot of job applications; so, to whittle down the number of applications, famous, financially stable companies only accept applicants from top Universities. This means that, basically, even if you don't actually learn anything in College, the Higher-Learning institution you get into determines how high you can shoot in your professional career, more or less; so top Universities will have these really hard entrance exams, to weed out the riff-raff, and take only those students that score highest on their tests (and children of politicians and other rich, powerful people, of course. What this means is that entrance exams for top-level schools (Nankankou, 難関校, lit. schools which are difficult to get into) - not just for Universities, but for just about every level, including grade-school - are something that's always present in the Japanese consciousness, and so they use that context for analogies and comparisons, a lot. 4. " Hyaku masu keisan” - it literally means "100 square calculation." You put numbers from 0 to 9 or 1 to 10 on the first row and column of a 10 x 10 grid and then apply whatever arithmetic operation appears on the intersecting square, like this.
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Post by dareka on Jun 6, 2019 12:04:43 GMT -6
Anyway, I don't think it's been mentioned in this thread, but forgive me if otherwise. The two episodes he's referring to are the 1999 episode, with Julius as the main character, and the one that explains why the Belmonts couldn't use Vampire Killer in the 1940s, when Portrait of Ruin takes place (and maybe during Ecclesia, also? My memory's vague on this).
The Belmonts gave up the whip not long after Symphony. Possibly before the end of the 18th Century, possibly only a little into the 19th; we're not sure. The general assumption is Richter (we do know he was the last Belmont to wield it via the Whip's Memory) gave it up after realizing if he could be manipulated as he had been was by Shaft again, he would be a threat to the world. That, combined with a Nostradamus prophecy, led to it passing to the Morris branch until Julius was preparing for the Demon Castle War. Basically, the Belmont family was not in possession of the Vampire Killer in Ecclesia (indeed, the disappearance of the Clan was part of the reason that order was formed), Bloodlines, Portrait, and of course, the unseen equivalent to Stoker's novel - in other words, almost anything set in the 19th or 20th Centuries, save the very early former or very late latter. Yeah, I remember now... Richter was the last Belmont before Julius to use Vampire Killer, and it was why Ecclesia was formed, but I don't remember anything about the Nostradamus prophecy... where'd you get that particular tidbit.
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Post by dareka on Jun 6, 2019 0:10:10 GMT -6
I would personally love to see some tasteful nudity in the game: it just meshes so well with the gothic horror vibe, and makes the whole thing look, well, more European...which in this case is a good thing. Unfortunately, the game rating only mentions Vepar and Bloodless as " partial nudes" (noting that Vepar has no discernible nipples!), so that means that's about all there is in the game. Yeah, I remember SotN's Spartan statues and the succubus that forgot her underwear (as succubi, and no doubt incubi are wont to), but low-res pixel nudity is a lot more acceptable than high-res polygonal nudity... Hopefully there'll be more opportunity to explore this artistic venue in the future (i.e. sequels). OwloftheNight98 According to merriam-webster, the first recorded use of perv in the sense of " sexual pervert" dates from 1948. The first known use of the term was in the 14th century, with the first use of pervert in the sexual sense dating to 1501. It comes from Middle English, from Anglo-French purvertir, pervertir, from Latin pervertere to overturn, corrupt, pervert, from per- thoroughly + vertere to turn.
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Post by dareka on Jun 5, 2019 20:41:56 GMT -6
I kinda worry. If Konami sees this and likes it, rehires him, will bloodstained die off because iga went back to castlevania? I really hope not, plus Konami already screwed him over once, what is to stop them from doing it again? Well, to clarify: I think he's referring to ArtPlay being subcontracted by Konami to work on a Castlevania. He's also said we'd love to make an actual Metroid game, but that doesn't mean Nintendo would hire him - they'd hire his company. Unbeknownst to most gamers, pretty much every non-AAA game made in Japan (and some AAA games, if you count those done by Tose) is outsourced by publishers to some nameless, uncredited developer. This has changed somewhat in recent years, but only in as much as some of the developers have become famous in their own right. That said, even relatively big-name developers sometimes undertake clandestine development, which I personally find fascinating. Anyway, I don't think it's been mentioned in this thread, but forgive me if otherwise. The two episodes he's referring to are the 1999 episode, with Julius as the main character, and the one that explains why the Belmonts couldn't use Vampire Killer in the 1940s, when Portrait of Ruin takes place (and maybe during Ecclesia, also? My memory's vague on this). Also, I don't get the impression that there was as much bad blood between IGA and Konami as there was between Konami and Hideo Kojima. IGA left because he couldn't work on the kind of games he wanted to; Kojima left because of actual, mutual hate.
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Post by dareka on Jun 3, 2019 23:36:53 GMT -6
dareka ...Speaking of silly plot twists; I wonder if anyone here remembers the silly idea I had for a plot twist a couple years back? Only achievable in New Game+. Some unexpected truth regarding our dear main protagonist is revealed! You know that they actually did something like this in one game? It's Yasumi Matsuno's Crimson Shroud, which is part of the Guild 01 collection It was cool but also kind of infuriating... but the game was well worth it!
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Post by dareka on Jun 3, 2019 18:33:20 GMT -6
Nah, I want the best ending to be the real ending and for it to be sweet without the bitterness.
There's enough sad sh*t in life as it is. I don't need any of it in my escapism, and besides, killing off characters is hardly ever a good idea: you won't be able to use them in the future without resorting to silly plot twists.
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