DaviKaze

Wasn't Bahamut Lagoon the first srpg to throw some real traditonal rpg combat in the mix?

I loved ds1, but I didn't love it for being original. It was just Bahamut Lagoon meets smt. That's awesome enough by itself.

By the way, Bahamut Lagoon is the absolute shit.

For those concerned about VA, there's this thing called undubbing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undubbing

Much love for Crystalis.

Nocturne.
Omg please Nocturne. Or SMT4, for crying out loud.

FYI, Kat, Xenoblade was so fantastic (play it) because the story zooms out and grows with your characters and expands to comfortably fill the remarkably massive setting.

Also, I think this article is a little off base. I think the distinction here should be whether a story generally exists or not. For instance, the dungeon crawler genre (with which you erroneously compared FFXIII2 via Etrian Odyssey) is generally known to have incredibly little to no plot outside of the setting. If you're lucky you'll get some NPC action, like in EO and Dark Souls, but I think the point is that they don't try and fail like modern Final Fantasy.

Intentionally providing no or little story is acceptable considering that it was part of the game plan. Failing at what was supposed to be an integral part of your game is unforgivable.

A lot of people are noting memorable modern-day pieces in this thread, and I think it's really, really ridiculous that nobody has brought up the more current works of old, beloved composers.

Anybody hear Uematsu's Blue Dragon score? Or Motoi Sakuraba's dynamic progressive rock in Resonance of Fate? Also, he may not be famous for working in a low tech environment, but Daisuke Ishiwatari's BlazBlue ost is a very satisfying change and evolution on what he was doing for years in Guilty Gear.

This is my one pet peeve about some vg music nerds. While they love the right things they generally forget the importance of the people creating them. I know Uematsu's BD score isn't 16 bits or anything, but some of the tracks, you realize that they could've been. They've even got that feeling. These guys who've been doing this since I was kickin' in my mama's womb, they still got it goin' on.

And one day that Chrono Cross arrange album will come out :(

There's a couple things I really think you should've mentioned here that you just sorta skipped. Like, for instance, the stick you'll end up creating will actually just be a slightly inferior version of the Eight Arc Fusion... and I reckon what you're doing will cost more money... or, at least, an ass load of effort.

Eight Arc Fusion retails at $180, comes loaded with Sanwa parts (although I've read that you can request whatever custom parts set and faceplate artwork you want from them) AND it's been proven in technical tests that their PCB responds noticeably faster than the cthulu.

It's not that I'm knocking your desire to build a custom stick here, I think you might just be pushing some readers without a knowledge base in the wrong direction. Even on streams I very, VERY rarely see a pro with a "custom" stick like you are building. The community standard is probably a PS3 Madcatz TE Fightstick. Why? Evo runs on PS3s, and Sanwa parts are Sanwa parts. TE's can also frequently be found as cheaply as $120 (I purchased a dual modded TE on the SRK forums for just $140 last month!)

One thing I do see is custom faceplates every now and then. Especially on the TE, since it's remarkably easy to just get a clear plexy and a custom artwork print out.. Anyway, I think any number of these things would be good to mention to your readers that might see this and think they need to go out back and chop some wood before they can have a quality stick. I might have also been nice to mention the primary difference between Sanwa and Seimitsu, as well as the fact that Sanwa ALSO makes a bat top (and that it's I-can't-believe-it's-not-butter smooth.) If you're going to be an authority on the topic, please be responsible enough to be more thorough, or next time just leave it in the capable hands of the people at SRK and I Play Winner.

In fact, just curious, why did you decide to go all Bob Evans and make this bastard from scratch? I was under the impression that sticks like that died after Madcatz started provide real, quality instruments. Building your own stick was kind of a staple back in the 90's before their was a quality retail option, but now it's kind of an esoteric luxury that the pros don't even generally practice or encourage.

I think Dark Souls is my GOTY. Either that or Xenoblade.

Anyway, I think there's a huge misconception about this game. I think the only difficult thing about Dark Souls is that it requires a level of discipline as well as a calm mind to be successful.

There were large stretches of this game that I didn't die at all in, and others that I would gladly exchange a large quantity of souls for the smallest bit of information. Dying isn't representative of the difficulty so much as it is an integral facet of the game. You're an undead guy, part of the whole deal is that you die and come back. If you play with enough foresight dying will be used as a tool, like part of your power-set, as much as anything else.

The human brain likes statistics though, and people don't like dying repeatedly. People like getting gold stars and frequent success based milestones. People think Dark Souls is difficult because it makes you cultivate, in some way, a mind that sees beyond such superficial successes. Even character level isn't very important. Modern games generally help you succeed, sometimes even holding your hand from start to finish to make sure you enjoy the whole thing. Dark Souls only motivates you to succeed.

@Robert Boyd

tl;dr, but I agree about S1 here. That game was really kind of a turd with good gimmicks. I busted through it to play S2 with the carry-over and it was bad enough to totally destroy my hype.

Xenogears, however, is a soulful masterpiece. Nothing analytical about that.

@DaviKaze

Derp, DQ was V :( my bad

4 was dope though. The setting and music really leveled up.

DQ is still dope though, derping aside.