ToastyBiggins

@RickGhastly

I would spend real, US Dollars on Pokemon Turbo Tax. No joke. If only to make filling out W-4's less soul crushing.

@TCJJ

He's not referring to Naruto's quality, he's referring to the fact that fansubs typically have the characters cussing like sailors, when in reality they rarely say anything that would get you more than a disapproving glance. As a result, a lot of people believe that the Japanese version must be more "hardcore," which, while sometimes true, is not always the case, and especially less so now than it was a decade ago.

I mean, at least Naruto has blood and sexual innuendo, Pokemon had, what, an episode they didn't show because someone had a gun, and one where James was crossdressing? Even in Japan, it's still targeted mostly at kids.

And if you're worried about Nintendo, have you ever even played a Fire Emblem game? People got mad because they changed a few of the names, that's about it. People still die all the time, there's still that one creepy pedophile guy, there's still that lesbian Rogue from Radiant Dawn...this isn't the 90's anymore. As other people have pointed out, Nobunaga's Ambition has been localized before, I'm sure they'll do the game justice.

Whoa, final build. Good to see they're so close to being done, I'm really excited for this game.

...but truth be told, I'm also excited for Mike Z to go back to being a legendary Tager player so I can watch him dish out some REAL SOVIET DAMAGE

@Skipjack451

Yep, definitely trolling. Knowing that makes me feel better.

@Skipjack451

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/131/351/eb6.jpg?1307463786

Oh also, "sometimes she wants to know more about the games Sean and MAIA want to play."

This is what makes me think you're trolling, because the alternative is that you didn't even read the text before you started decrying these three (3) ads which feature a whopping total of six (6) people for not meeting your obviously exacting standards of diversity.

This article had some good points, but just to throw a monkey wrench in everything I'd like to bring up Nier as a counterexample. It's not exactly a traditional JRPG, but a lot of the same arguments apply.

Nier is a very average game in many respects. The gameplay is okay -- not amazing, not particularly memorable, but you can play it. The graphics are below average, but not actively offensive to the person playing it. The fetch quests, weapon upgrades, and fishing "minigame" (if you can even call it that), are certainly not groundbreaking and might even aggravate some people so much that they stop playing altogether.

If the story had been just as average, I would have stopped playing after maybe two or three hours. But it was just a complete pleasure to play through a game that didn't sound like its script was written by aliens (Ahem, ahem, Final Fantasy XIII). I later found out that the script was written simultaneously in Japanese and English, to avoid awkward translations, and it really shows. But the game also tackles an impressive number of "heavy" subjects in a mature, non-pandering, usually not overwrought, and at times, shockingly subtle way.

The characters are interesting and interact well. There are only four characters in the main "party", who are all equally fleshed out and believable interactions with each And I want to hear them interact -- yes, you heard that right, it's a game where I WANT TO HEAR THE CHARACTERS TALK. I owe this to the good writing, the almost universally good voice acting, and the game's penchant for dispensing tantalizing little tidbits of character information when you least expect it.

It was about fifteen or twenty hours into the game before I realized that I was doing every single sidequest, even though I had absolutely no use for the reward money, simply because the characters had a few new lines of banter for each mission. Even the much-hated fishing quests featured pieces of a gradually emerging conversation about the pointlessness of an activity that mostly consists of sitting on the bank of a river and doing nothing, and how fishing is mostly just an excuse to take a break from the fighting and relax. To me, those lines of dialogue were a much better reward than a fish I didn't care about or some gold I didn't need.

A lot of games are touted as having good stories, but what their proponents really mean is that they have good stories "for a game." Because these games are usually discussed with other gamers, it's easy to understand how the distinction between "good" and "good, for a game" could get muddied. But make no mistake, to people who live outside of gaming culture, the stories of most games are a joke, and as much as I hate to admit it, they are usually justified in thinking so. But unless I've gone completely bonkers, Nier has something that even non-gamers can respect. It's not without its awkward moments, or cliche character designs (single, giant pauldron? Check. Warrior woman in stripper costume? Check. A villain who is LITERALLY named "The Shadowlord?" Check.), but the characters themselves are very enjoyable to watch and learn about.

The depressing part is, Nier performed quite poorly, indicating that most people weren't willing to look past the lukewarm gameplay for the way above par story experience. I'm not really sure I can blame them, but it does say something about most people's priorities.

Now, if someone made a game that had Nier's story AND FFXIII's gameplay?

Oh man.

@jsx92

I get exactly what you're saying. A lot of people say Dark Souls has a bad story, but what they don't understand is that the story isn't about what happens to the CHARACTERS, it's about what happens to YOU, the player.

It's got terror (holy shit this boss can one-shot my character!), suspense (I need to get those 30,000 souls back before something bad happens!), camaraderie (finding that Sunbro soulsign when you're lost and confused in the Tomb of Giants), tragedy (I just lost 15 humanity by falling off a cliff), betrayal (backstabbed by an invader...again), revenge (when you get invaded again and wreck their shit because you're prepared), even comedy ("Amazing chest ahead"...the new Sticky White Stuff?).

Sure, you could say the same about any game that has engaging gameplay, but there's something about this that Dark Souls just does really well. Whenever it's being played in the living room, everyone watches with rapt attention -- even people who've never played a videogame in their life. They cringe when you get killed and cheer when you defeat a boss. For some reason, people get really engaged in the game's metanarrative.

@aristokrat YOU STUPID MONKEY!

@bimmy

"Doesn't anyone proofread these things? BIMMY ISN'T EVEN A REAL NAME!"

@Blay

I don't know, it makes a lot of sense if you read the review. He's just summing up what he explained earlier: One of the best Soul Calibur games (in terms of fighting mechanics) and yet the worst Soul Calibur game (in terms of single player/presentation).