Magnus

If they wanted to be more efficient, they could remove the story entirely. That'd save a lot of time and money. Or why have towns at all? There are still people out there who would play a game like that. I don't think there's such a thing as the perfect town. Part of the fun of JRPGs is exploring new areas and meeting new people. Even in Persona 3/4 (both of which I loved), I was dying for a change of scenery after a while, as the entire games take place in just one area. It sounds like you want games that are more like Dragon Quest and Etrian Odyssey, which are more about combat and getting better equipment than they are about story and characters. Which is fine, I guess, but they're about as far as you can come in terms of fun for me. I doubt we'll see any downloadable, forty-hour (or whatever is an acceptable length), sprite-based JRPGs on the 3DS. With a handful of exceptions, the downloadable side of the DSi has been a joke, and I don't think any developer making an RPG with the scope of something like Chrono Trigger would make their money back. It may be possible for JRPGs that aren't very commercially viable to be released as downloadable titles for the Vita, though, where you can actually download full-size games. That was my point. You said 16-bit RPGs hadn't aged at all, which is mostly true, except a vast majority of them had random encounters (and, of course, this is true for many RPGs on the PS1 and PS2 as well). That's one thing I really don't miss. One of the first things I make sure of when buying an RPG is that it doesn't have random encounters. I can live with them, but it'd have to be a really great game for me to be able to look past them.

Happy birthday, Mikey. Not that you're going to remember any of it tomorrow.

Grazza's vision of the perfect JRPG doesn't sound like a game I'd want to play. I could do without the random encounters, though. This all reminds me of the downfall of adventure games. They were massively popular in the late eighties/early nineties, but they became increasingly expensive to produce while the size of the audience stayed the same. These days, the only developers still making adventure games are smaller ones. All of the things that made adventure games special (stories, characters, puzzles...) have been absorbed into other genres, so adventures games have become pretty redundant. Which is a shame if you were a fan. Someone said in another thread that they were glad the 3DS and Vita are so powerful, because it means Japanese developers could no longer get away with making technically unimpressive games. I think that'd be a sad future, because it would mean we'd never get games like Radiant Historia or Trails in the Sky again.

They'd say sorry and compensate his widow?

Wasn't that the whole premise behind the comic to begin with? I still read it every week. If you feel like you need more validation I could try to comment more often, though there's not much to say beyond "it's still good".

They kill chickens. That's it.

This being Nintendo, I expect a folded-up poster and a Super Mario Sunshine wallpaper.

Dude, just click on one of his YouTube videos while it's playing.

So no long moonlit conversations about why Pikachu is better than Piplup? This is what I imagine dating you would be like.

What Serebii looks for in a prospective mate: 1. Must be female. 2. People on online dating sites need not apply. 3. Must think that Pokémon is the cat's pajamas. That's the list so far.

From Wikipedia:

Compromise: Bob picks girls, but Dyson undergoes a sex change.

I watched Super because people in this thread seemed to like it. It felt like a poor man's Kick-Ass. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. I did like Ellen Page's character, though. She was the movie's only saving grace.

That sucks, Dyson.

Having trouble deciding between two girls again?

Looks more like a Tingle cosplayer to me.

Yes, it was. From Wikipedia: So now you know.

Yeah, it's not a show that often does what you expect. For better and for worse.

That's Atlus for you! It's kind of weird that this particular Atlus game is breaking sales records. We all have our favorites Atlus games, but I don't think this game would top many people's list. Or maybe I'm just bitter because I could never figure out the puzzles. At the same time, it's a bit sad how Atlus is celebrating 200,000 copies sold when Call of Duty sells millions of copies in its first week year after year.

Ugh... that was terrible.

Exactly. Most exclusive games either get a PC release or they're only timed exclusives. I guess that's the problem when you need to support two platforms (360 and PC). Sony did the same thing when they ported most of the good first-party PSP games to the PS2. All it did was undermine the PSP. Not that this has much to do with Catherine (though the PS3 version is a lot easier to import for anyone who doesn't want to wait for the European release).

The PS3 has the better exclusives, unless you're really into shooters and need Gears of War and Halo in your life. Catherine is probably a bit easier to play on the PS3 too, since it has a better D-pad.

Have you read Don Rosa's unofficial sequels? The Three Caballeros Ride Again The Magnificent Seven (Minus 4) Caballeros I haven't watched the movie so I don't know how the comics stack up, but Don Rosa is always worth reading.

They've been very careful not to say whether or not it would be released outside Japan this year, so that's really not surprising at all.