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This Week in Games: Secret of Mana




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Lord Geo



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 2530
Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey
PostPosted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 11:33 am Reply with quote
Shame that the Namco/Data East/Jaleco Catalog IP program is only for mobile & browser games, because I'm sure there would be plenty of developers that would love to make new entries in the included IPs, but have them be available for consoles & PCs. At the same time, though, I fully understand that anything larger than mobile & browser would likely result in Namco & the associated companies wanting a larger say & approvals over.

Also, just to clarify, are the Data East IPs in this program the ones that G-mode own, which is the large majority of them, or are they the few that Paon own, which include the likes of Windjammers, Karnov, Glory of Heracles,, & Chelnov? Yeah, Data East's IPs are amusingly strewn about, especially since it's resulted in weird stuff like Karnov being with Paon, yet Fighters History (which has Karnov as the playable boss) is owned by G-mode.
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belvadeer





PostPosted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 12:33 pm Reply with quote
Gomatsu: Namco should consider making a new Valkyrie title if you ask me. She's pretty much been reduced to appearing in crossovers, as well as being cameos in Tales games, ever since they stopped her series ages ago. Her latest appearance was in the mobile Valkyrie Profile, just so they had an excuse to put two of the most famous battle maidens in the same thing.

Quote:
For a retro supernerd like me, it's fantastic, even if I'm sad Kissy from Baraduke and Hiromi from Burning Force aren't covered by the Catalog IP Project and thus not available for inclusion.


Last time those two appeared in playable capacity was Namco x Capcom. I can completely understand your disappointment.

Shining Resonance: Color me very surprised after hearing the announcement about Resonance getting a localization. I really didn't think we'd ever get another Shining title ever again after EXA in 2007. We have to keep in mind that Shining has long since gone down the "action RPG + pick your lady" route for years now, so we won't be seeing the strategy roots that made the series famous during Sega's better years.

Secret of Mana 2018: Since downloading the title, I've reached up to the point the party gets Flammie. Truthfully, the game does indeed have some good points and bad points. It's not awful to play, but it's not impressive either. It still has some of the flaws the SNES title had, and in one case the hit detection and hit rate seem a little worse for the wear. The shortcut magic option is a fine addition though, and the added chat dialog at the inns is a nice way to flesh out Randi, Primm, and Popoi. The English voice acting is fine for what it is, and Popoi's English VA needs to be given a lot of credit as she perfectly captured the gender neutrality in the sprite's voice. If this remake had only banked a little less on nostalgia and focused on more quality improvements (such as not using the watered down SNES translation for the umpteenth time as it's outdated as hell), then maybe it could have done more than just earning average or less reviews online right now.
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Northlander



Joined: 10 Feb 2009
Posts: 900
PostPosted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 2:28 pm Reply with quote
I haven't really bought it yet, but while one could argue about the necessity of working over the graphics (and music) of Secret of Mana, it is nevertheless the only version we have on the PS4. The fact that it exists on hardware I don't own isn't really helping me much. (Save maybe the smartphone version, but I've never been fond of playing games on my smartphone that would otherwise require a controller.)

But dear God, yes, I would love to see Seiken 3/Secret of Mana 2 get a proper release in Europe like this game did.
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I_Drive_DSM



Joined: 11 Feb 2008
Posts: 217
PostPosted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 3:29 pm Reply with quote
I was a bit more upset at the Little Witch Academia; Chamber of Time fiasco that I think I probably should have been. It did not help whatsoever that Bandai Namco has been very hush about updates for the game while simultaneously promoting SAO en massse. The only official manner that I found out that LWA:COC was delayed was the day before the 20th Bandai Namco responded to a Twitter post that the game was delayed. Otherwise there were NO OTHER indicators nor confirmations by Bandai Namco from news outlets that the game wasn't coming out on the 20th.

It's quite a shame honestly because LWA is not a small time series; it's very popular on Netflix. And here is one of the first really good tie-in goods outside the series Americans are getting that has had a ton of ambiguity around it.
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 5:29 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Hey, remember Sega's Shining series? If you replied “Oh yeah, Shining Force! That game was great!” then, well, you remember classic Shining


Oh yeah, Shining Force! That game was great! Razz

...No, seriously, it was--Got caught up all over again when the whole Shining series turned upon Sega's Classic Collection for the PS3.
Basically more in the style of old fashioned hexagonal tabletop-strategy games, where characters can only move a certain number of spaces per turn. Very good in setting up "chess" style battles that the enemy can walk into.

But, since everything PS2 era and later Shining never came over here, I have now idea how gameplay upgraded for new consoles, and I'm still nostalgic for cartridge JRPG.
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FireChick
Subscriber



Joined: 26 Mar 2006
Posts: 2385
Location: United States
PostPosted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 6:11 pm Reply with quote
I actually really like Secret of Mana's remake. It's not perfect, nothing ever is, but I like it, flaws and all.
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harminia



Joined: 24 Aug 2015
Posts: 1987
Location: australia
PostPosted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 10:35 pm Reply with quote
Oh, I love Gothic. It's fun and the touch screen interface means the bullet hell isn't so overwhelming you want to quit
datura best girl
I haven't played it in ages because I changed phones and haven't moved across my account...
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CatSword



Joined: 01 Jul 2014
Posts: 1489
PostPosted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 10:53 pm Reply with quote
The PlayStation Store says Little Witch Academia's game will come out on June 30th.

The ESRB rating is slightly concerning..."partial nudity" and "suggestive themes" in Little Witch Academia? Confused
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OtherSideofSky





PostPosted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 11:59 pm Reply with quote
Chamber of Time is...OK. It's got some neat ideas, but also some absolutely bizarre ones (like janky low-frame-count animations that make the game's FPS look way lower than it actually is, presumably in a misguided effort to replicate the look of TV animation). It's plot also suffers from generally refusing to acknowledge events from the second half of the show, which feels like a big step backwards in terms of character development.

The Japanese version launched missing a bunch of quality-of-life features (a cutscene viewer, better quest log organization, etc.) as well as co-op (which is kind of a staple for a beat-em-up), so hopefully the English release will bundle a bunch of patches into the base game.
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se37



Joined: 08 Dec 2007
Posts: 229
Location: Annapolis, Maryland
PostPosted: Fri Feb 23, 2018 11:43 pm Reply with quote
For Secret of Mana, whenever I hear people say "can we get some of the cut content back" is makes me cringe. While we do know that Secret of Mana has problems due to the Super NES CD never being released, the cut content was used in other games, most notably Chrono Trigger used a lot of ideas from Secret of Mana cut content. I remember this was also the debate for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD by adding back the cut dungeons. However, the cut dungeons were later changed and put in other Zelda games.

Unless SquareEnix decides to do a full new game, like Sword of Mana with Final Fantasy Adventures, we will never get the "full version" of Secret of Mana and even then it might not work right. I'm happy with this remake as the translation is much better than the old one and does explain more with the game (like why Dyluck is needed for example)
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belvadeer





PostPosted: Sat Feb 24, 2018 2:38 am Reply with quote
se37 wrote:
I'm happy with this remake as the translation is much better than the old one and does explain more with the game (like why Dyluck is needed for example)


The remake uses the SNES translation, with the only new dialog being the inn skits and a few altered lines.
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Borderite92



Joined: 20 Apr 2015
Posts: 47
PostPosted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 2:06 am Reply with quote
I happen to be fortunate to have a copy of Timewalk's english version of Secret of Mana 2 for Snes and have all 3 chapters of Shining Force 3 (1-english,2 & 3-japanese) and they work to complete the story. Now if that Sega official will allow someone to do remake of all 3 or even the premium disk.
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