I've gotten past the beginning bits of Xenogears; what I'm playing now is what I haven't seen since first playing it 10 years ago. Being back in these places that I only vaguely remember (like Nisan), but that were very meaningful to me back then, is eerie.
Also, I'm driving the Yggdrasil all around Aveh! Wheeeee!!
(I stayed up until 4:00 last Monday and finished Persona 3. The last boss wasn't as bad as I'd expected!)
I have wanted to play through Xenogears again since… well, since I first finished it in Christmas break of 1999. The 10-year anniversary of that first playthrough seemed like a fine opportunity to do so. In those intervening years, I have learned enough to be perfectly comfortable with the Japanese version of the game. So, I downloaded it to my PSP for ¥600 and jumped in.
I've seen the beginning of the game several times, in showing the game to others and in my own dropped attempts to play through again. So the main interesting thing so far has been the differences between the original and localized versions. For some reason, the main difference that stands out to me so far is that Hob-Jerky, one of my favorite items, was originally "Tsuchinoko Meat". The enemy Tsuchinoko is a probably-mythical creature of Japan; localizing it to "Hobgob" was pretty shrewd. (Especially since, based on information revealed later in the game, the enemies are clearly not supposed to actually be creatures from Japanese legend; their names are just names.)
I'm also surprised at how early some of the mysterious characters show up. Less than 4 hours in, I've already seen Grahf, Wiseman, the Emperor, and Id. Well, and Miang, of course, in the intro. I'm also surprised by how quickly it's hinted that Citan is more than he seems; for some reason I remembered thinking for a longer time that he was just an ordinary guy.
The other thing that has struck me is how beautiful everything is. Sometimes I can't believe it's a PSX game. Maybe the crisp screen of the PSP is helping.
(Reposted from my forum thread at A Reyvateil's Melody)
The first link is to a blog post that I stumbled upon; it leads to the article in the second link. It's mainly about a new system called ADAMS, for creating "adaptive music" in games. Basically, this system would change the character of the music based on what's going on in the game; I didn't read into much detail, but it sounds pretty excellent.
What's most interesting, though, is the tantalizing bit where the article refers to an "unannounced game" that Tsuchiya Akira is working on, expected to be released next Spring. Tsuchiya's demonstration images in his presentation used Ar tonelico 2 art, and the series is overdue for another entry, considering that three Atelier games (Mana-Khemia 2, Atelier Rorona, and Atelier Annie) have come out since At2. And what better game to use an advanced music system in than the intensely music-focused Ar tonelico?
This is pretty exciting; if the game is due in Spring, we should hear an announcement very soon!
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I am pretty confident that Ar tonelico 3 will be a PS3 game. GUST finally committed to the platform with Atelier Rorona. I see that game as a way for them to build up their codebase and development chops on PS3, so that they'll have some experience before tackling the next Ar tonelico, which needs to live up to its legacy as GUST's new (relatively) hit series. GUST relies heavily on shared engine code between their games; moving to a whole new platform is a huge deal for them, and I doubt they're going to look back to PS2 or switch platforms now that they've started their PS3 journey. (That doesn't rule out hiring other development teams to make side-games on other platforms, like the Atelier titles on DS, but they wouldn't do that for a flagship title.)
As for the music system being used in the game, the article says that Tsuchiya and GUST have spent 10 months working with a beta version of ADAMS, in an unannounced title, and that this title will be the first product to use the system. So there doesn't seem to be much doubt that the next GUST game will have the ADAMS system in it. Also, the article is pretty specific in saying that this unreleased title will be announced within this year, and released next Spring.
As for a fan translation, if NISA doesn't take it on for some reason, it would likely have to be a text script to read along with (like the Xenosaga Madness Project or Kayama's Sakura Taisen scripts) rather than a patch. I don't think that PS3 hacking has gotten to the level of patching games yet, has it?
As for the music system being used in the game, the article says that Tsuchiya and GUST have spent 10 months working with a beta version of ADAMS, in an unannounced title, and that this title will be the first product to use the system. So there doesn't seem to be much doubt that the next GUST game will have the ADAMS system in it. Also, the article is pretty specific in saying that this unreleased title will be announced within this year, and released next Spring.
As for a fan translation, if NISA doesn't take it on for some reason, it would likely have to be a text script to read along with (like the Xenosaga Madness Project or Kayama's Sakura Taisen scripts) rather than a patch. I don't think that PS3 hacking has gotten to the level of patching games yet, has it?
Julian came over and was all excited to have me finish Persona 3. Until he saw how weak my personas were, and how few minerals I had for buying cards. Now I'm running around lower Tartaros blocks, with enemies fleeing in fear, while I look for rare items to bring to Elizabeth in exchange for cards.
New strategy: go to the arcade every afternoon and every night, to try to get my persona's stats up. Rush through to the end of the game, ignoring any more commus. I hate turning people down, especially Aegis, but I don't think I'm going to fuse any new personas. I will keep a save 2 weeks before the end, though, in case this plan fails.
Hmm, going to the arcade doesn't seem to give me an opportunity to increase my persona's defense. If I want to use Norn in the final battle, I'm going to have to get those cards.
Some people are saying that enemies on Block 2 drop Onyxes, but I'm barely getting any drops at all, let alone that one.
Whoa... I leveled up Norn, and she gained Absorb Lightning. That was the only weakness she had; now she is pretty unstoppable! Her defense is still 42, though... :\
Okay, broke 90 hours, and reached the final day of the game. It feels funny, among all of the foreboding atmosphere, to be spending all of my time in the arcade.
The condescending dotted red underlines were driving me insane. It seemed like nearly every time I typed anything, the computer was chastising me, “WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!” It’s surprisingly out of line with Apple’s usual hands-off policy for users’ content.
So few applications allow you to disable spell checking by default, and some (like Twitterrific) even reenable it every time you enter a text field. Nope, I do not want to teach Mac OS X every proper name, username, technical term, foreign word, and whimsical misspelling I may ever use. I do not want to right-click every text field and navigate a submenu before I start typing.
Despeller is a miracle. I can type in peace again. Thank you.
