@Lyon Artime extreme summary of 358/2 days: After Roxas, Sora's nobody, is created, Xemnas finds him, discovers he can use the keyblade, and lets him join Organization XIII. He becomes fiends with Axel, another member, but leaves the Organization when he feels that the Organization members are hiding who he really is from him. Riku starts assisting Namine in recovering Sora's memory, finds out he has a Nobody, and also that that nobody is needed for Sora to fully restore his memory and wake up. Roxas tries to assault the Organization, but Riku stops and defeats him before he goes and kills himself. However, in order to do this, Riku, opens his heart to darkness and takes on the appearance of Xeahnort's heartless.
KH2 time:
DiZ puts Roxas in a computer world to control him while Sora wakes up. Axel goes to try and save Roxas, but fails because Roxas lost his memory. Roxas vanishes, Sora and friends wake up, and start another journey to look for Mickey and Riku. Sora learns about the nobodies, and fights Organization members multiple times along the way. Kairi, now much older and more attractive, gets kidnapped by Axel. It turns out the Organization were putting Sora in situations where he had to kill heartless, so that when their hearts were released, the organization could collect them and construct an artificial kingdom hearts, which could hopefully give them all hearts again. This is why Marluxia wanted to control Sora in CoM, and why Roxas was allowed into the Organization. Sora eventually find out DiZ is Ansem the wise, and reunites with Kairi and Riku, who still looks like Ansem seeker of darkness. Ansem the wise tries to destroy the artificial kingdom hearts with a container thing, but it explodes, sends Ansem back to the Darkness, and somehow brings Riku back to his normal form and lets him use a keyblade. Xemnas them fuses with the damaged kingdom hearts, while Sora and Riku pursue him inside kingdom hearts itself. They think they kill him once, Namine and Roxas fuse back together with their original selves, and everyone starts to go home. Then Xemnas comes back, traps Sora and Riku, in his world, where they have an awesome fight which the keyblade duo eventually wins. They get trapped in darkness for awhile, but find a door back to light and reunite with everyone on destiny islands. End of KH2.
This is also where the plot should of ended, I can't see them topping KH2, though BBS came close. Anyone who read all of this deserves a medal :D
@Lyon Artime I'm skipping 358/2 days because it was nearly irrelevant story wise. KH: Chain of Memories
The Disney trio reach a mysterious castle named "Castle Oblivion", which is secretly the land Aqua, Terra, and Ventus lived in but with a "defense field" put up. This field forces all of those who enter it too loose more and more of their memories as they go up the floors. They start exploring and meet members of Organization XIII. They're using a girl named Namine (secretly Kairi's nobody) to manipulate Sora's memories and try to control him for their own gain. One Organization member, Marluxia, wants to use Sora for a Coup of the Organization, but one member named Axel (more on him later as well) stops him. Sora kills Marulxia and a few other organization members and rescues Namine, who starts the extremely long process of fixing his memory, at the expense of all his memories from Castle Oblivion. Meanwhile, during all of this, Riku was in the basement working his way up. He met DiZ, a weird masked man who is secretly Ansem the wise, who survived his ordeal and is now out for revenge. Riku deals with and accepts the Darkness remaining in his heart. So, Riku escapes castle oblivion, meets DiZ, rejoins Mickey, all while Sora is comatose on the top floor getting his memory restored. End of CoM.
@Lyon Artime Pre-KH1, but no game yet (this is going to most likely be BBS2) So Xeahnort, under Ansem, starts doing dangerous experiments with a number of other assistants. He accidentally unleashes the Heatless onto the world, and willingly gives up his heart for power. Now, when someone looses their heart, and heartless is created (main KH enemies) and, if the person attacked was strong enough, a Nobody is created. Essentially a soulless shell of a person (main KH2 enemies). Xeahnort's Heartless continues his "research" and steals the name Ansem from his teacher after Ansem gets lost in darkness. Xeahnort's Nobody joins the Nobodies of his previous assistants, takes on the name Xemnas, and creates Organization XIII, a union of the most powerful nobodies, all bent on getting hearts back.
Ok, KH 1 time.
So Sora and Riku gets older, and eventually a girl named Kairi shows up as a kid too. They play around on destiny islands, Sora starts having "weird dreams", and Riku, with all of his desire to get off the island, starts acting evil. He accidentally opens the "door to darkness", which begins to consume their island. At this point, Riku was meant to acquire the Keyblade Terra had given him when he was a boy, but since he turned evil, and since Sora had a piece of Ven's heart inside him, It goes to Sora instead. Kairi looses her heart which gets trapped inside Sora's, and Sora is sent to Traverse Town, where he meets Donald and Goofy (King Mickey's lackeys who were told to look for the Keyblade by Mickey before he left to try and fix problems caused by the Heartless) and they all set off to look for Mickey, Riku, and Kairi. This is the bulk of the KH1 story. Riku finds Kairi's body with no heart, starts being more evil, and gets taken over by Ansem, "seeker of darkness" (xeahnort's heartless). Riku and Sora fight, Sora wins, but Ansem stays in control of Riku, just taking his true form. At this point Sora realizes that Kairi's heart is inside of his own, and unlocks his heart to bring Kairi back to life, turning himself into a heartless at the same time. (BIG PLOT POINT: Sora also created a nobody here named Roxas, who looks like Ventus. more on him later) Kairi somehow miraculously turns Sora back into a normal person, and Sora pursues Ansem toward the end of the world, where all of the worlds the heartless consumed went. Ansem finds Kingdom Hearts, the heart of all worlds, and attempts to use its power for himself. He and Sora fight, Sora wins, and when Ansem tries to use Kingdom Hearts, it kills him instead, because "kingdom hearts is light". Riku gets in control of himself again, and the group finds Mickey inside Kingdom Hearts. They work together to close it again, locking Riku and Mickey on the other side. All the worlds the Heartless consumed come back, including Destiny Islands, and Kairi gets caught there during all the craziness, but not before Sora promises he'll come back for her. Sora, Donald, and Goofy keep looking for Mickey and Riku, while Kairi waits for Sora back at their home in Destiny Islands. End KH1
@Angel Mass ok here goes, test of fanboyness accepted. I'll try and go chronologically.
BBS: Long ago a collection of heros wielded "Keyblades", magical swords that could unlock anything imaginable which they used to defend the many worlds. They fought a huuuuuuge war over the best keyblade, called the X-Blade, and most of them died in the process. Flash forward, there are now 5 remaining wielders. Master Eraqus (good), Master Xeahnort (bad), and 3 trainees: Aqua, Terra, and Ventus. Ven used to be Xeahnort's apprentice, but master X ripped his heart in good and evil halves (Evil Half turned into Vanitas) . Ven lost his memory and became Eraqus's apprentice instead. Aqua passes a test to become a master, but Terra fails because "there's darkness in his heart" Afterwords they all go off adventuring, which was orchestrated by Xeahnort. The adventures are the bulk of the BBS story. At some point, all 3 of them get to Destiny Islands, home of Sora and Riku, and Terra gives Riku the ability to use the Keyblade when he grows up. Master X manipulates Terra into using darkness and killing Master Eraqus. The three of them come together to try and kill Master X when they figure out he and Vanitas caused everything, but in a nutshell they fail pretty bad. Turns out Master X made Terra evil so he could take control of his young body, and separated Ven into good and evil halves so that when they fought, the X-Blade would be "forged". He succeeds in controlling Terra, but Ven defeats Vanitas in his heart, but since he was a part of his heart, he falls into a coma. Aqua destroys the X-Blade, there's a big explosion, Terra-xeahnort looses his memory as well, and Aqua and a comatose Ven get rescued by Mickey. Aqua fights the memoryless Terra-xeahnort and wins, but when his body falls into darkness, she sacrifices herself to bring Terra-xeahnort back into the real world. She gets stuck in darkness, and back in the real world, Terra-nhort gets found by Ansem the wise, a scientist, and trained as his apprentice. Meanwhile Ven, still unconscious, keeps his heart by linking it with kid Sora. End BBS
I'll post the other games in a few minutes. Obviously, this is very convoluted lol.
My theory: 2K is simply respecting the memory of DNF by continuing to tease the game until the end of time. Like the titanic, cosmic joke it has become to every living person who knows of its existence.
lol at Smogon comment. Umm hundreds of hours is only a slight exaggeration, my team hit all 100 at about 150 hours, but that's with 4/6 traded pokemon + lucky egg + knowing what you're doing. Why can't they make EV's editable at lvl 100? That seems like such an easy feature to implement, and it would open up more people who used to play at a more average level into hardcore play. Oh, and a way to change Natures. Maybe.
I'm going to try not to take any sides here; as I can see both sides of the argument. But as someone who's got 160 hours into Soul Silver, and 450 in Diamond, I think i'll try to give some educated opinions on the topic; both commendations and complaints.
The EV and IV systems fantastic ways to add depth for the hardcore, but I can't see a reason not to make at least EV's plainly visible. They already have many vague ways to find the IV's in game, and i think it should remain that way to avoid an on-screen stat overload. I do agree that the Training Items are too difficult to acquire, but that addresses another main point: the Battle tower point system. Many of the best items (combat and training) and TM's are only available for costs of 16-80 points each, and when you get 3 points for a 7 win streak against the hardest opponents you'll face in-game, it's simply depressing. Even the bonus 20 points you get for winning against the tower tycoon (who will, frankly, kick the living crap out of anyone unprepared) is still not enough.
The turn based combat is refined to near perfection. And I see that as a statement of fact. If you dislike it, I'd like to see an example of it Implemented better, FF included.
A graphical refinement, regardless of how many pokemon there are, will be necessary very soon. It will be increasingly hard to market shaking sprites to a new generation of children (who I'm sure we agree is still the bulk of the market for these games), when they're used to full 3D from other DS games. (Kingdom Hearts: 358/3 Days?)
As for a new storyline, or any kind of major variety, I'd love to see more creativity implemented, but It's very, very unlikely. Many critics of Gen3 cite the attempt at a story as one of the major flaws, and if they KNOW these games will gain massive profit as is they're no financial incentive either. The "Your Rival has stolen your badges!" is the best and most likely idea I've heard so far, in my opinion.
Umm... sorry for ranting :D. Please don't hate me!
Duke Nukem Forever delayed
Mar 24th 2011 3:56PM (Joystiq)CALLED IT!
Toys R Us now distributing TV's Pikachu to your DS
Feb 3rd 2011 7:43AM (Joystiq)Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: Volume 2 teased by Final Mix secret ending
Jan 20th 2011 12:28AM (Joystiq)After Roxas, Sora's nobody, is created, Xemnas finds him, discovers he can use the keyblade, and lets him join Organization XIII. He becomes fiends with Axel, another member, but leaves the Organization when he feels that the Organization members are hiding who he really is from him. Riku starts assisting Namine in recovering Sora's memory, finds out he has a Nobody, and also that that nobody is needed for Sora to fully restore his memory and wake up. Roxas tries to assault the Organization, but Riku stops and defeats him before he goes and kills himself. However, in order to do this, Riku, opens his heart to darkness and takes on the appearance of Xeahnort's heartless.
KH2 time:
DiZ puts Roxas in a computer world to control him while Sora wakes up. Axel goes to try and save Roxas, but fails because Roxas lost his memory. Roxas vanishes, Sora and friends wake up, and start another journey to look for Mickey and Riku. Sora learns about the nobodies, and fights Organization members multiple times along the way. Kairi, now much older and more attractive, gets kidnapped by Axel. It turns out the Organization were putting Sora in situations where he had to kill heartless, so that when their hearts were released, the organization could collect them and construct an artificial kingdom hearts, which could hopefully give them all hearts again. This is why Marluxia wanted to control Sora in CoM, and why Roxas was allowed into the Organization. Sora eventually find out DiZ is Ansem the wise, and reunites with Kairi and Riku, who still looks like Ansem seeker of darkness. Ansem the wise tries to destroy the artificial kingdom hearts with a container thing, but it explodes, sends Ansem back to the Darkness, and somehow brings Riku back to his normal form and lets him use a keyblade. Xemnas them fuses with the damaged kingdom hearts, while Sora and Riku pursue him inside kingdom hearts itself. They think they kill him once, Namine and Roxas fuse back together with their original selves, and everyone starts to go home. Then Xemnas comes back, traps Sora and Riku, in his world, where they have an awesome fight which the keyblade duo eventually wins. They get trapped in darkness for awhile, but find a door back to light and reunite with everyone on destiny islands. End of KH2.
This is also where the plot should of ended, I can't see them topping KH2, though BBS came close. Anyone who read all of this deserves a medal :D
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: Volume 2 teased by Final Mix secret ending
Jan 20th 2011 12:05AM (Joystiq)KH: Chain of Memories
The Disney trio reach a mysterious castle named "Castle Oblivion", which is secretly the land Aqua, Terra, and Ventus lived in but with a "defense field" put up. This field forces all of those who enter it too loose more and more of their memories as they go up the floors. They start exploring and meet members of Organization XIII. They're using a girl named Namine (secretly Kairi's nobody) to manipulate Sora's memories and try to control him for their own gain. One Organization member, Marluxia, wants to use Sora for a Coup of the Organization, but one member named Axel (more on him later as well) stops him. Sora kills Marulxia and a few other organization members and rescues Namine, who starts the extremely long process of fixing his memory, at the expense of all his memories from Castle Oblivion. Meanwhile, during all of this, Riku was in the basement working his way up. He met DiZ, a weird masked man who is secretly Ansem the wise, who survived his ordeal and is now out for revenge. Riku deals with and accepts the Darkness remaining in his heart. So, Riku escapes castle oblivion, meets DiZ, rejoins Mickey, all while Sora is comatose on the top floor getting his memory restored. End of CoM.
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: Volume 2 teased by Final Mix secret ending
Jan 19th 2011 11:51PM (Joystiq)Pre-KH1, but no game yet (this is going to most likely be BBS2)
So Xeahnort, under Ansem, starts doing dangerous experiments with a number of other assistants. He accidentally unleashes the Heatless onto the world, and willingly gives up his heart for power. Now, when someone looses their heart, and heartless is created (main KH enemies) and, if the person attacked was strong enough, a Nobody is created. Essentially a soulless shell of a person (main KH2 enemies). Xeahnort's Heartless continues his "research" and steals the name Ansem from his teacher after Ansem gets lost in darkness. Xeahnort's Nobody joins the Nobodies of his previous assistants, takes on the name Xemnas, and creates Organization XIII, a union of the most powerful nobodies, all bent on getting hearts back.
Ok, KH 1 time.
So Sora and Riku gets older, and eventually a girl named Kairi shows up as a kid too. They play around on destiny islands, Sora starts having "weird dreams", and Riku, with all of his desire to get off the island, starts acting evil. He accidentally opens the "door to darkness", which begins to consume their island. At this point, Riku was meant to acquire the Keyblade Terra had given him when he was a boy, but since he turned evil, and since Sora had a piece of Ven's heart inside him, It goes to Sora instead. Kairi looses her heart which gets trapped inside Sora's, and Sora is sent to Traverse Town, where he meets Donald and Goofy (King Mickey's lackeys who were told to look for the Keyblade by Mickey before he left to try and fix problems caused by the Heartless) and they all set off to look for Mickey, Riku, and Kairi. This is the bulk of the KH1 story. Riku finds Kairi's body with no heart, starts being more evil, and gets taken over by Ansem, "seeker of darkness" (xeahnort's heartless). Riku and Sora fight, Sora wins, but Ansem stays in control of Riku, just taking his true form. At this point Sora realizes that Kairi's heart is inside of his own, and unlocks his heart to bring Kairi back to life, turning himself into a heartless at the same time. (BIG PLOT POINT: Sora also created a nobody here named Roxas, who looks like Ventus. more on him later) Kairi somehow miraculously turns Sora back into a normal person, and Sora pursues Ansem toward the end of the world, where all of the worlds the heartless consumed went. Ansem finds Kingdom Hearts, the heart of all worlds, and attempts to use its power for himself. He and Sora fight, Sora wins, and when Ansem tries to use Kingdom Hearts, it kills him instead, because "kingdom hearts is light". Riku gets in control of himself again, and the group finds Mickey inside Kingdom Hearts. They work together to close it again, locking Riku and Mickey on the other side. All the worlds the Heartless consumed come back, including Destiny Islands, and Kairi gets caught there during all the craziness, but not before Sora promises he'll come back for her. Sora, Donald, and Goofy keep looking for Mickey and Riku, while Kairi waits for Sora back at their home in Destiny Islands. End KH1
I'm doing all of this from memory BTW :D
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: Volume 2 teased by Final Mix secret ending
Jan 19th 2011 11:23PM (Joystiq)BBS: Long ago a collection of heros wielded "Keyblades", magical swords that could unlock anything imaginable which they used to defend the many worlds. They fought a huuuuuuge war over the best keyblade, called the X-Blade, and most of them died in the process. Flash forward, there are now 5 remaining wielders. Master Eraqus (good), Master Xeahnort (bad), and 3 trainees: Aqua, Terra, and Ventus. Ven used to be Xeahnort's apprentice, but master X ripped his heart in good and evil halves (Evil Half turned into Vanitas) . Ven lost his memory and became Eraqus's apprentice instead. Aqua passes a test to become a master, but Terra fails because "there's darkness in his heart" Afterwords they all go off adventuring, which was orchestrated by Xeahnort. The adventures are the bulk of the BBS story. At some point, all 3 of them get to Destiny Islands, home of Sora and Riku, and Terra gives Riku the ability to use the Keyblade when he grows up. Master X manipulates Terra into using darkness and killing Master Eraqus. The three of them come together to try and kill Master X when they figure out he and Vanitas caused everything, but in a nutshell they fail pretty bad. Turns out Master X made Terra evil so he could take control of his young body, and separated Ven into good and evil halves so that when they fought, the X-Blade would be "forged". He succeeds in controlling Terra, but Ven defeats Vanitas in his heart, but since he was a part of his heart, he falls into a coma. Aqua destroys the X-Blade, there's a big explosion, Terra-xeahnort looses his memory as well, and Aqua and a comatose Ven get rescued by Mickey. Aqua fights the memoryless Terra-xeahnort and wins, but when his body falls into darkness, she sacrifices herself to bring Terra-xeahnort back into the real world. She gets stuck in darkness, and back in the real world, Terra-nhort gets found by Ansem the wise, a scientist, and trained as his apprentice. Meanwhile Ven, still unconscious, keeps his heart by linking it with kid Sora. End BBS
I'll post the other games in a few minutes. Obviously, this is very convoluted lol.
Duke Nukem Forever footage: Press Right Trigger to urinate
Sep 3rd 2010 4:46PM (Joystiq)2K is simply respecting the memory of DNF by continuing to tease the game until the end of time. Like the titanic, cosmic joke it has become to every living person who knows of its existence.
You're invited to a Scott Pilgrim soundtrack listening party
Aug 31st 2010 5:16PM (Joystiq)and this movie.
and most of all....... this comic.
First Pokemon Black & White images revealed (in color)
Apr 12th 2010 6:59PM (Joystiq)Why can't they make EV's editable at lvl 100? That seems like such an easy feature to implement, and it would open up more people who used to play at a more average level into hardcore play. Oh, and a way to change Natures. Maybe.
First Pokemon Black & White images revealed (in color)
Apr 12th 2010 6:33PM (Joystiq)The EV and IV systems fantastic ways to add depth for the hardcore, but I can't see a reason not to make at least EV's plainly visible. They already have many vague ways to find the IV's in game, and i think it should remain that way to avoid an on-screen stat overload. I do agree that the Training Items are too difficult to acquire, but that addresses another main point: the Battle tower point system.
Many of the best items (combat and training) and TM's are only available for costs of 16-80 points each, and when you get 3 points for a 7 win streak against the hardest opponents you'll face in-game, it's simply depressing. Even the bonus 20 points you get for winning against the tower tycoon (who will, frankly, kick the living crap out of anyone unprepared) is still not enough.
The turn based combat is refined to near perfection. And I see that as a statement of fact. If you dislike it, I'd like to see an example of it Implemented better, FF included.
A graphical refinement, regardless of how many pokemon there are, will be necessary very soon. It will be increasingly hard to market shaking sprites to a new generation of children (who I'm sure we agree is still the bulk of the market for these games), when they're used to full 3D from other DS games. (Kingdom Hearts: 358/3 Days?)
As for a new storyline, or any kind of major variety, I'd love to see more creativity implemented, but It's very, very unlikely. Many critics of Gen3 cite the attempt at a story as one of the major flaws, and if they KNOW these games will gain massive profit as is they're no financial incentive either. The "Your Rival has stolen your badges!" is the best and most likely idea I've heard so far, in my opinion.
Umm... sorry for ranting :D. Please don't hate me!