Sno

English demo is up on Live and presumably PSN too.

Poor Swery.

I finished the first level, . I've also realized that i'm definitely going to have to be really careful about what i say regarding the story. I'll probably have to abstain from some of the story discussion. (Though, honestly, the narrative is so convoluted and open to interpretation it might not even matter. Even so, i'm going to hold my tongue in a lot of cases.) Anyways, just generally, had actually forgotten just how incredibly weird and gorgeous this game really is. I am disappointed that there really haven't ever been any other games that tried to emulate this art style, it's so striking and bold. Gameplay things - One suggestion i'm going to make, something i had completely forgotten about until i started playing again, is that each level has a hard limit on how much blood you can farm for progression. It doesn't take much to hit those limits, it'll only take a few visits to the blood room in the TV to reach the ceiling, and this is something you should be doing if you don't want to end up underpowered in later levels. Hitting the gold particles to make the Smiles explode is the most effective way of farming blood, but shooting off their limbs will also do it. If your enemies are exploding into rainbow colored particles, you're not earning any blood. Vials are earned at the same time in the same way, but tracked separately, so don't be afraid to use those for your special abilities or healing. It would also be worth checking in with Iwazaru in Harman's room, there's a lot of tutorials explaining nearly every aspect of the game. (I believe more show up as the game progresses.) Also - "You've got BLOOD!" "All you need is BLOOD!" "Got BLOOD?" "Where's the BLOOD?" Silly game, heh.

*Cough* Looks good though, i was a big fan of Arx Fatalis, so Arkane is pretty cool in my books.

Alright, so if nobody has anything else to add, lets start this rolling. The schedule is - Week 1 - Target 00: Angel Week 2 - Target 01: Sunset, Part I Week 3 - Target 01: Sunset, Part II Week 4 - Target 02: Cloudman Week 5 - Target 03: Encounter, Part I Week 6 - Target 03: Encounter, Part II Week 7 - Target 04: Alter Ego, Part I/II Week 8 - Target 05: Smile, Part I Week 9 - Target 05: Smile, Part II/III & Target 06: Lion So current goal is to finish Target 00: Angel by July 16th. It is possible to finish this level within an hour, but you're probably going to want to give yourself two or three so as not to rush through it, the same will hold true for the rest. Regarding the deadlines, do we need to be more specific than that? I mean, beyond just saying to finish by saturday, starting the next level on the following sunday? Should we set some really specific GMT deadlines? Regarding spoilers, gameplay discussion i'm sure will be fine, but for now at least, spoiler tag your story discussion. I don't know how strict we want to be about that, but it would probably be good to at least tag story spoilers for whatever the current level might be. Continuing feedback on this would be appreciated. Also, it goes without saying that you shouldn't be discussing spoilers relating to anything later in the game. Rule to follow: Don't jump ahead, and don't be a dick.

I was reading that the only thing they've changed about the water temple was adding the glowing trails that lead you from the main room to the switches that pump water in and out of that central area. So pretty much unchanged. I always felt people complained about the water temple far too much, it's one of the more elaborate dungeons in Ocarina, but it's not that bad. You mean at the start of this video?I'm almost certain that it isn't any wider in Ocarina 3d, but i do think the analog control in Ocarina 3d is more precise, it was always a little jumpy in the original Ocarina.

Anyways, i just dug out my discs, my old memory cards, and my wavebird. Loaded up the game to make sure it works, and it does. Remember the game was designed for a 4:3 aspect ratio, so if you're playing on a widescreen TV and don't want everybody to look squat, keep in mind you'll have to change some settings on your TV. MORE RANDOM TRIVIA. The are speaking in marginally coherent synthesized english for the japanese version of the game. It was scrambled up for the worldwide releases, but you can still make out a lot of the words. There's a lot of possible reasons for why it was changed, but i couldn't tell you which one it comes down to. I can tell you that the unscrambled dialogue is equal parts goofy engrish and incredibly unsettling.

Well how about something more along the lines of what i had originally suggested? How about - Week 1 - Target 00: Angel Week 2 - Target 01: Sunset, Part I Week 3 - Target 01: Sunset, Part II Week 4 - Target 02: Cloudman Week 5 - Target 03: Encounter, Part I Week 6 - Target 03: Encounter, Part II Week 7 - Target 04: Alter Ego, Part I/II Week 8 - Target 05: Smile, Part I Week 9 - Target 05: Smile, Part II/III & Target 06: Lion Each of those should be able to be finished in about an hour, but give yourself two or three if you want to take your time. (That last one might need more time, but the last few shouldn't be divided up any more than this already calls for.)

Heh, same here. I was a big GameCube fanboy and took whatever i could get, but i've subsequently played every Goichi Suda game released in North America. (I think Killer 7 is still my favorite of his games.) Anyways, who do we have on board right now? Myself, Jon Cole, A Purple Future, Squid Division, Synthetic Gerbil, Miffy, and... Possibly Raff, Toblix, and Hermie? (Rodi?) Barring any further suggestions or requests, i'll organize all the details for how we go about this tomorrow and set the start date for this sunday.

The game goes completely wild in the third chapter, that is definitely the EDF people remember. I think they've done themselves quite a disservice using up so much of the campaign's duration before they get to that level of chaos. At least it seems like the campaign remix mode is significantly more crazy at a significantly earlier point than the standard mission set. The campaign also closes on a pretty lame non-ending, and there's a lot of speculation of there being DLC mission packs planned to fill it out. (Given that this was a budget game, and that i don't feel cheated on the amount of content it had to begin with, i would be mostly ok with this.) The squad AI's are surprisingly good, actually. Still, i've been playing almost nothing but co-op and have been having an incredibly fun time with it, easily one of my favorite games so far this year. It makes me crazy knowing that this is just bound to be passed on and misunderstood by so many people. (I just watched the Giant Bomb quick look, where they spend around ten minutes trying to attack a carrier with a grenade launcher and then quit out in boredom.)

Yeah, i realize that, i definitely don't want to create a situation where people feel they can't keep up. More than just excluding people from the proceedings, feeling like you're struggling to rush through a game is just absolutely not conducive to an enjoyable game experience. I just also don't want to draw it out so long that it thins out the conversation. Killer 7 isn't an immensely long game, it might be a little sparse to try and stretch out over too long a period. Still, after rethinking it, i believe simply having two weeks for each of the blocks i proposed would probably work fine, but i wouldn't want to slow progress through that game any more than that. If anybody has good ideas about how much time we should allocate for reaching each milestone, or different ways we should divide up the game, i'd like to hear it. I don't think i follow completely. Generally though, you're saying that gameplay discussion should be allowed, and story spoilers should wait until the deadline so everybody has had a chance to go through that block of levels, right? We could also just liberally abuse the spoiler tags. Story spoilers from previous levels are free game, story spoilers from current levels are properly tagged, and then just hope that we can all agree not to spoil later events.

Regarding how we should break this all down, since i already know how the story goes, i've done some faq-digging to try and sort out how long all the missions are. If we want even chunks of game time for each week, it'd look something like: Week one Target 00: Angel Target 01: Sunset, Part I Target 01: Sunset, Part II Week two Target 02: Cloudman Target 03: Encounter, Part I Week three Target 03: Encounter, Part II Target 04: Alter Ego, Part I Target 04: Alter Ego, Part II Week four Target 05: Smile, Part I Target 05: Smile, Part II Target 05: Smile, Part III Target 06: Lion So how does that look? Breaking up Target 03 shouldn't have any serious consequences, there is a good stopping point at the end of the first part. This setup should result in a fairly even four hours each week. As for deadlines, lets say this sunday is the start date, so people still sorting things out have at least a couple days. Next saturday should be the deadline for the first group of levels, then. I think we should also be able to discuss spoilers for the current group of stages as of this sunday, and just set a clear warning for when spoilers on those current stages begin. It'd let people discuss the game while it's fresh on mind, or ask for help if they're stuck. Naturally though, if anybody has any other ideas about this, speak up. Lets come to some consensus.

Oh man, i loved Arx Fatalis so much*, it was such a great tribute to Ultima Underworld. So you're telling me those guys are now going to do a System Shock/Deus Ex-inspired game, i will say i am incredibly on board. * - I wish i could say the same about Dark Messiah, but i could never get the damn thing to play without crashing a couple levels in. Those guys need to work on their QA. As much as i loved Arx, it was also a total mess.

That appears to be correct, but Killer 7 also had several protracted delays and i think it was the last of the "Capcom Five" to be released.

I don't know, lets see how many people want to get on board before deciding on any deadlines. I don't remember, but if it is, sure. We should do that then. Edit: It sounds like Target 00 is a fairly lengthy and involved level, so we should be good just playing that through to completion for the first week, whenever it's decided that should take place. Also - Further random trivia, just because i'm feeling rambly, and maybe it's interesting to have some of the context around Killer 7, if it's not already common knowledge. Killer 7 was one in a group of five exclusives Capcom had promised for the GameCube, along with Resident Evil 4, Viewtiful Joe, Product Number 03, and Dead Phoenix. Resident Evil 4 was a revelatory success, and both Viewtiful Joe and Killer 7 quickly became cult favorites, but sales were limited by the struggling GameCube. Rumors persisted for years that there was bad blood between Capcom and Nintendo over these games ending up on the PS2. (Additionally, Viewtiful Joe was developed by the team that ended up becoming Clover and, eventually, Platinum Games.) Nobody really liked PN03, so it stayed on the GameCube. (To be fair, it had some ambitious ideas about rhythmic action, and Shinji Mikami later tried to iterate on some of those ideas in Vanquish, which was developed by Platinum.) The last of the five, Dead Phoenix, was simply cancelled and never released, though IGN loved to rumor monger about it being retooled as a Kid Icarus revival. Killer 7 was also initially intended to tie into a series of games Suda had developed previously, the "Silver Case" games, and crossover characters can been seen in early trailers for Killer 7. Not entirely sure why the connection was dropped, but it's probably either to do with the amount of control Capcom has over Killer 7 as an IP, that the game was set to be released in North America when none of Suda's other games had been, or perhaps simply it was just the development process changing the scope of the story. (Nevertheless, one of these earlier games that Killer 7 was originally intended to loosely tie into, a PS2 game, was eventually localized to North America via a pretty completely butchered DS port. )

I remember it being about 16-20 hours, probably? And it's broken up into very clearly defined chapters with self-contained stories and environments, it's very episodic.

The lack of a reload button was not something that really bothered me in 2017, but it did feel like something i was just having to tolerate, it was less control over an element of shooters you commonly expect to have control over. It was just a weird bit of idiosyncratic japanese design that didn't wreck that game, but it was something you had to be able to accept and deal with. If you focused your builds around weapons with longer reload cycles, such as the turrets, not being able to choose to reload during lulls in the battle was annoying. It became a trial and error thing, you had to know the levels well enough to be thinking several steps ahead, so as to make sure you wouldn't be surprised with an overwhelming situation when you ran out of ammo. I mean, but the levels were simple and short, replaying tough levels over and over was enjoyable. I don't think it would have worked out as well with EDF:IA's longer and more elaborate missions. So yeah, I don't think the active reload gimmick was necessary for EDF:IA, but simply being able to choose when to reload at all is welcome.

If we want to talk really small, dumb, nitpicky things: I miss the ridiculous bug blood spraying all over the place, and the pinballing bug corpses. You also don't end up in terms of how many things are on screen, but the game comes a lot closer than i would have ever expected.Additionally, one issue i am having with the game is the way certain styles of mission events just randomly spawn enemies all around you instead of from clear origin points. It's something that will probably change a lot of the tactics that go into surviving on the harder difficulties, probably not for the better. I also kind of understand where Twmac is coming from on the game needlessly complicating things. It's like the way they've changed anthills, instead of just shooting them and having them close, shooting them now only closes them temporarily. You have to go up and set a bomb to permanently seal it, and the game isn't even particularly clear about any of this. I mean, I actually like this change so far, it forces you to get closer to the anthills instead of just sniping them shut from afar, but it feels like something that is ripe for frustration. They took something simple and made it kind of obtuse and complicated, i won't be surprised if it's something people react negatively to. (I've already seen some people complain about it.)

I would be very on board with replaying Killer 7 for a game club sort of thing. That game is pretty clearly divided up into distinct chapters that would facilitate having clear checkpoints to reach as a group, to ensure non-spoiler discussion about the part of the game everybody just played.

Killer 7 was so great, for a while now i've been feeling like i need to go find a reason to replay it.

This is the part where i pull my hair out while screaming about how cool the ending of Wind Waker is.

I just ran through the first five levels with a buddy on normal. (Netcode is pretty solid.) We tried to start out on hard, but kept getting beat to hell on the second level. The harder difficulties will probably be where the real fun is to be had with this game, but with just the starter gear, the enemies are such incredible bullet sponges. So I don't recommend starting out on hard, even though normal actually feels too easy. (Normal is the lowest difficulty level in the game.) The different armors are all pretty interesting, i focused mostly on the battle armor which has extra health, a shield, and a burst attack. (There's also the tactical armor, which is all about auto turrets and support. The jet armor is based on the Pale Wing character from EDF2, so flight and energy weapons. The final trooper armor has no explicit abilities, but ultimately gets the best weapons and can perform special interactions like co-op revives at a faster rate than the other characters.) Anyways. It's good. It is a good game. After playing for a few hours, I think Vicious Cycle has done justice to Sandlot's games, while refining a lot of the rough edges. (Vehicles are actually useful, and you don't have to spend your entire magazine before you can reload.) I mean, and for how different that game is visually? It's actually really very faithful to the b-movie tone of the series, there is some really great bad dialogue in that game, heh. It also pulls in a lot of small touches and details from past games in a way that i think shows that these guys actually knew what they were doing. (For example? Weapons with long reload cycles will retain progress through that cycle when stowed, which is a small detail, but it's an important one for the way these games handle their weapons.) And all those worries people have had that this game would be tamed down compared to the other games, it's now evident that literally all of the pre-release footage was being pulled from the first two levels. Actually playing the game, by the time we got to the first major boss fight, i found myself in the position of having my vision obscured by all the enemies bearing down on me. That has me pretty convinced that they've got the feel down right, that is completely the experience of playing EDF, and it's awesome. So i played five of fifteen levels, and i'm feeling pretty confident in saying that this game is pretty awesome. (Fifteen levels is a little worrisome, compared to the fifty plus of 2017, i will say. Though the average level in EDF:IA is longer than the average level in EDF 2017, and there's also a remix mode. Not exactly clear what that entails, but it's probably exactly what the name suggests, remixed levels.) Edit - Just to be clear about some of the co-operative options. Campaign co-op is three people online, two players as local split-screen. There's also a survival mode that supports up to six players annnnnd i'm not sure if you can split-screen that. (Only the trooper armor is available in the survival mode, which seems odd.)

I suppose this version does seem easier, but it's still more of a challenge than the games that followed it, i would say. (Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, which were both just insultingly easy.)

I didn't make a case for it earlier, so let me state my opinion on this - If you're only going to play one of these games, San Andreas should probably win out simply on grounds of it being the last arrival of the GTA3 ilk. I mean to say that you saw a lot of refinement in Rockstar's craft by the time they got around to San Andreas. It's the easiest game to go back to, having the best control and most likable characters, and it's just an absolutely enormous game with so much to do. (It can't be said enough, San Andreas is an immense game. It's not just one big city, it's three and the wilderness in between.)

Buddy of mine picked up a copy and says it's pretty awesome. Outside of the brown/realistic visuals, which the devs are talking up as a concession to just try and get more people in the west to play it, it apparently does a pretty awesome job retaining the b-movie tone. (The main character is named Lightning Alpha, which i think is a pretty amusing spin on the name of the protagonist in Sandlot's own games.) Glad to see that EDF:IA isn't an outright disaster, at least. If it does well, maybe we'll get Sandlot's next EDF game too. Those guys make just such weird and interesting action games, and we have seen disappointingly few of them in North America. (Just two, to be exact, just Robot Alchemic Drive and EDF 2017. Europe fared better, with localizations of all of the EDF games.)