Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[BrightBow]

Konami releasing a brand new Castlevania game as part of a larger collection without really advertising it is all kinds of wild.

I mean, I take it. It's just... why?

[Dayni]

Quick, surround him with childless people. he won't be able to escape.

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

And I forgot Fuuka's name was also Japanese.😅 ...I think we're kinda limited on who can show up now that I think about it, since RF5 is after all the other games, so most people from prior games will have seriously shriveled up or perhaps even died.

Wait, RF doesn't just have all the games in the same setting, but close enough time wise for reasonable cameos? Huh, TIL.

4 minutes ago, BrightBow said:

Konami releasing a brand new Castlevania game as part of a larger collection without really advertising it is all kinds of wild.

I mean, I take it. It's just... why?

It's a remake of an old arcade title. Pretty sure that's why it's a footnote.

It's an oddity that it's on there for sure, but I guess we take it?

People seem to be liking it so far from what scouring I'd happened to be doing on related topics.

[Armagon]

7 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

think we're kinda limited on who can show up now that I think about it, since RF5 is after all the other games, so most people from prior games will have seriously shriveled up or perhaps even died

Margaret, Doug, and any other member of a long-lived race might show up.

6 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Well, three if you count Ethelberd (RF1),

.....huh.

2 hours ago, Codename Shrimp said:

or let the a certain someone work on the music, Falcom

Singa Will and you will like it.

37 minutes ago, Lightcosmo said:

Hopefully they take the Kai route with animating and go all in, Sky characters deserve love since CS arc screwed them over so badly.

This is like the best looking Trails game of all time, not even Kai looks this good and Kai looks pretty good.

[BrightBow]

18 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Well "Dominus" starts with "D" and ends with "s".😝

Wait, is this why Barlowe says "Stupid Disciple"?

[Armagon]

28 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Wait, RF doesn't just have all the games in the same setting, but close enough time wise for reasonable cameos? Huh, TIL.

For the first four and any spin-offs, yes.

Rune Factory 5 and onwards is a pretty big time jump. The only returning characters are the two elves from 4 and one of them mentions it's been like 50 years since she left 4's town setting.

[Interdimensional Observer]

https://noisypixel.net/more-tales-of-remasters-confirmed-tales-of-series-30th-anniversary-remastered-project/

Under the first topic of the Tales of Series 30th Anniversary Remastered Project, the team confirmed that they will be remastering past tiles in the series, giving prospective players around the world to play them on modern platforms.

Namco is listening to fans.

 

3 hours ago, Codename Shrimp said:

(I am saying that since Trailer is using arrange ost - just don't use Evo

For a moment I thought you meant Revo.

 

7 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Regarding Asian inspired characters, RF4 had Lin Fa and Xiao Pai (mother and daughter pair running the inn/bathhouse, the latter being a bachelorette).

Mimicking RF3 I see. -And now resulting in three numbered games in a row with the inn & baths being Asian-operated. Maybe RF6 can break the trend and have them ran by someone with a very Roman name instead, or Finnish if you want to invoke their saunas.

 

44 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Wait, RF doesn't just have all the games in the same setting, but close enough time wise for reasonable cameos? Huh, TIL.

It's like Pokemon in that regard? Same world, mostly disconnected and light stories. I don't think they ever give exact ages for almost anyone, so the chronology isn't the most precise. However..

• Rune Factory 1 takes place first, after which Raguna leaves and an undefined but not long time period later ends up in the village in RF Frontier.
  • Since Anette and Candy are normal humans (Tabatha an elf) and they look the same in Tides of Destiny, it takes place about the same time as Frontier. Candy in particular should be taken note of, since as Frontier's female child, any aging on her should've been readily noticeable.
• RF2 takes place like 8-10 years after RF1, however long it takes for Cecilia to mature into a young woman of legal age.
• RF3 is a mystery. Mei and Yue show up, but Mei as mentioned before has some unexplained (RF1 had really thin writing) really really old yet unaging thing. Yue doesn't look any older than she did in RF2, and is a perfectly normal human.
• RF4- Barrett has two children I've heard. This means this takes place after RF2 concludes, and RF2 has an eight-year timeskip after which you take control of Kyle's child- Aaron or Aria. Only Barrett's first child exists in the second generation, so it has to be from after that. 

 

17 minutes ago, Armagon said:

.....huh.

RF1 is the only game prior to RF4 to do something with the Sechs Empire (or as Frontier named it- the Zzyxx Empire). You get to fight one of their tanks in the second to last dungeon, the final boss is Earth Dragon Terrable under their control, you stop their attempted invasion in the ending. IIRC, they had actually captured Raguna and induced his amnesia, and they set up the monster-summoning machines that fill the caves instead of the naturally-occurring portals that all the other games use. Upon completing the story, Lynette defects and becomes the last bachelorette, so a Sechs waifu even.

-Why RF2 and RF3 (and Frontier and ToD) ditched having a struggle with Sechs, I do not know. But I can imagine that it made its return in RF4 kinda jarring, no longstanding overarching buildup.

Edited August 28 by Interdimensional Observer

[Codename Shrimp]

27 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Singa Will and you will like it.

I'd rather play CS2 again

As much as i hate that game the music is absolutely stellar 😛 

[Saint Rubenio]

47 minutes ago, Dayni said:

It's a remake of an old arcade title. Pretty sure that's why it's a footnote.

It's an oddity that it's on there for sure, but I guess we take it?

People seem to be liking it so far from what scouring I'd happened to be doing on related topics.

From what I've gathered the game was a pretty poorly regarded and obscure piece of Castlevania history. Also a small arcade game, so best suited to be a little bonus in a larger collection than anything else.

19 minutes ago, BrightBow said:

Wait, is this why Barlowe says "Stupid Disciple"?

God, DS gimmicks could get so obnoxious, not even the dialogue was safe

[BrightBow]

Heh, the Haunted Castles aren't even grouped together with the other games. They are put in the "Extras" menu. Talk about not advertising that sucker.

Took a small peak into both games, and yeah, the remake is like Rebirth in that they are completely different games from the title they are based on. Revisited most certainly looks promising.
Wish with all those extra buttons, they would have given sub weapons a dedicated button. But oh well. Might as well get used to it, considering all those fancy DS games did the same goddamn thing for whatever reason.

Meanwhile the original Arcade game looks like... an acquired taste, to say the least. It doesn't really feel... fair, I suppose.
Arcade games being cheap is hardly a surprise, of course. But your character still controls like a classic Belmont, with all the limitations that entails. A classic Belmont is not terribly enjoyable to control by itself. It's only when the level design works with your limitations that things get fun.

Edited August 28 by BrightBow

[Armagon]

Holy shit, Blue Protocol is getting shutdown and the planned global release is cancelled. People were actually waiting for that game to come out.

21 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Under the first topic of the Tales of Series 30th Anniversary Remastered Project, the team confirmed that they will be remastering past tiles in the series, giving prospective players around the world to play them on modern platforms.

Namco is listening to fans.

Inb4 delisting after a year.

Interesting that they started with Graces but i'm guessing it's one of the more popular titles not named Symphonia, Abyss and Vesperia.

22 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Upon completing the story, Lynette defects and becomes the last bachelorette, so a Sechs waifu even.

People are expecting this to happen with the military girl from the Azuma trailer.

23 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

But I can imagine that it made its return in RF4 kinda jarring, no longstanding overarching buildup.

Considering the devs went bankrupt after 4 came out, you think they saw the writing on the wall and went out with a swan song? 4 does have noticeably a lot of reference to the prior games.

 

[Lightcosmo]

51 minutes ago, Armagon said:

This is like the best looking Trails game of all time, not even Kai looks this good and Kai looks pretty good.

Sure, but I can't deny that Kai's animating looked extremely amazing. I hope Sky remake follows up with that and gives them the life and energy they deserve similar to those of Kai's standard. (mostly referring to battle animations, here)

[Armagon]

4 hours ago, Codename Shrimp said:

They were at the same height as airship as back then?

The background when you were at the top of the towers had you way above the clouds.

[Acacia Sgt]

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

For the first four and any spin-offs, yes.

Rune Factory 5 and onwards is a pretty big time jump. The only returning characters are the two elves from 4 and one of them mentions it's been like 50 years since she left 4's town setting.

Doug is a dwarf, actually.

59 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

https://noisypixel.net/more-tales-of-remasters-confirmed-tales-of-series-30th-anniversary-remastered-project/

Under the first topic of the Tales of Series 30th Anniversary Remastered Project, the team confirmed that they will be remastering past tiles in the series, giving prospective players around the world to play them on modern platforms.

Namco is listening to fans.

Come on, this could be the chance for a worldwide Phantasia remake/remaster that's not the GBA one!

59 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Mimicking RF3 I see. -And now resulting in three numbered games in a row with the inn & baths being Asian-operated. Maybe RF6 can break the trend and have them ran by someone with a very Roman name instead, or Finnish if you want to invoke their saunas.

I suppose if they do want to keep it exotic, yes. If not, it'd still be trend-breaking if instead the establishment is local, even if it means still being Asian-inspired.

59 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

RF1 is the only game prior to RF4 to do something with the Sechs Empire (or as Frontier named it- the Zzyxx Empire). You get to fight one of their tanks in the second to last dungeon, the final boss is Earth Dragon Terrable under their control, you stop their attempted invasion in the ending. IIRC, they had actually captured Raguna and induced his amnesia, and they set up the monster-summoning machines that fill the caves instead of the naturally-occurring portals that all the other games use. Upon completing the story, Lynette defects and becomes the last bachelorette, so a Sechs waifu even.

-Why RF2 and RF3 (and Frontier and ToD) ditched having a struggle with Sechs, I do not know. But I can imagine that it made its return in RF4 kinda jarring, no longstanding overarching buildup.

35 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Considering the devs went bankrupt after 4 came out, you think they saw the writing on the wall and went out with a swan song? 4 does have noticeably a lot of reference to the prior games.

I'd say, I kinda liked that approach? Not make the Norad-Sechs conflict the spotlight in every game. Makes the world feels much larger. Still, considering the Sechs' plans with both Terrable and Ventuswill, then it is odd they did nothing with Firesome and Aquaticus, then.

[BrightBow]

Japanese, American and European version of the DS games...

Europeans usually got games last, which meant they had more fixes. The US version of Portrait of Ruin in particular had a really nasty softlock after the Death fight.

Although with Dawn of Sorrow... the PAL version turned the blood orange. And the US version removed a lot of the voice lines. So maybe the Japanese one is the best version there?

Besides, not being able to read the dialog in Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Sorrow is clearly a perk in itself.

Edited August 28 by BrightBow

[Acacia Sgt]

On the flip side, getting to hear this

In multiple languages!

[BrightBow]

I wonder what even the point of removing those voice clips was. I'm no stranger to the 4Kids method of localization, but there are still plenty of voice clips left with the characters speaking Japanese.

Besides, the cast is explicitly Japanese too. Iga gave Dracula his final death offscreen just so that the protagonist could be "Ordinary Highschool Student™".

Idk, maybe they just needed extra memory for something.

Edited August 28 by BrightBow

[Armagon]

13 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I'd say, I kinda liked that approach? Not make the Norad-Sechs conflict the spotlight in every game. Makes the world feels much larger. Still, considering the Sechs' plans with both Terrable and Ventuswill, then it is odd they did nothing with Firesome and Aquaticus, then.

Norard also having gone some restructuring in 5 makes it really feel like the passage of time has passed too. Beatrice pretends to be a mere noble than the actual princess of the kingdom, as opposed to Arthur who not only made his status known but didn't come with any escort at all.

[Acacia Sgt]

Just now, Armagon said:

Norard also having gone some restructuring in 5 makes it really feel like the passage of time has passed too. Beatrice pretends to be a mere noble than the actual princess of the kingdom, as opposed to Arthur who not only made his status known but didn't come with any escort at all.

Indeed. Though I guess it also comes down to the why. Arthur was meant to take charge of Selphia if momentarily, so makes sense he'd need to openly declare being a prince. Although he ends up delegating that to the MC, keeping his full identity secret to the rest of the townsfolk, if for a bit.

The escort bit is a bit weird, but I suppose it also comes down to the perceived safety of Selphia, even if the Sechs Empire was right next door.

[Dayni]

When I think my bluff has worked.

32 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

It's like Pokemon in that regard? Same world, mostly disconnected and light stories. I don't think they ever give exact ages for almost anyone, so the chronology isn't the most precise. However..

• Rune Factory 1 takes place first, after which Raguna leaves and an undefined but not long time period later ends up in the village in RF Frontier.
  • Since Anette and Candy are normal humans (Tabatha an elf) and they look the same in Tides of Destiny, it takes place about the same time as Frontier. Candy in particular should be taken note of, since as Frontier's female child, any aging on her should've been readily noticeable.
• RF2 takes place like 8-10 years after RF1, however long it takes for Cecilia to mature into a young woman of legal age.
• RF3 is a mystery. Mei and Yue show up, but Mei as mentioned before has some unexplained (RF1 had really thin writing) really really old yet unaging thing. Yue doesn't look any older than she did in RF2, and is a perfectly normal human.
• RF4- Barrett has two children I've heard. This means this takes place after RF2 concludes, and RF2 has an eight-year timeskip after which you take control of Kyle's child- Aaron or Aria. Only Barrett's first child exists in the second generation, so it has to be from after that. 

Sounds like they're closer together geographically though.

15 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

From what I've gathered the game was a pretty poorly regarded and obscure piece of Castlevania history. Also a small arcade game, so best suited to be a little bonus in a larger collection than anything else.

Sure does-

29 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

God, DS gimmicks could get so obnoxious, not even the dialogue was safe

Oh no.

1 minute ago, BrightBow said:

Japanese, American and European version of the DS games...

Well that's something I was kinda not expecting, nice.

[Codename Shrimp]

An Estelle a day keeps the sadness away

[Acacia Sgt]

3 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Sounds like they're closer together geographically though.

 

For its worth, almost every game does take place in or around the same Kingdom. RF4 has a set of Easter Eggs where you can spot the different locales through the town's various binoculars/telescopes.

[BrightBow]

According to TCRF, it seems there was actually a Japanese revision of Portrait of Ruin with more fixes than the PAL one.
So I guess I hope this is the rom they put in this collection.

Edited August 28 by BrightBow

[Codename Shrimp]

Am...am i healed?

[Interdimensional Observer]

After two weeks of waiiiiting b/c I'm very particular, I'm back to playing Megaton Musashi.

Maybe I shouldn't have taken a momentary pause, that it possibly ruins the immersion -but I am.😅 

First impression- things are feeling like a sequel?😆 -Not that you absolutely couldn't see this coming in everything beforehand, the story needed what's going on now. After the dramatic events I witnessed two weeks ago, things on a started with a palette cleanser that was kinda "WTF" -but then got wicked awesome 😁, and now I'm looking forward to this final arc. Given somebody outright said "Musashi Wired", I'm going to guess that the original version of the game left the story unfinished and this stuff is new that the original Japan-only release didn't have? -The game put a ⭐ next to my save file after what I did last time -yet this is also the game that weirdly unlocked New Game+ after the tenth chapter when the plot was faaaaaar from over.

Not sure how long this is going to be, I'm doubting I'll be able to enjoyably wrap it up in like 5-6 hours, but I'll witness what I can.😄

 

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

Interesting that they started with Graces but i'm guessing it's one of the more popular titles not named Symphonia, Abyss and Vesperia.

Opinions May Vary. But general consensus is Graces = good, or even best, Tales gameplay. The game also has what others identify as shoujo vibes. Music is the Tales Blur as has been the case, and the visuals ofc the franchise's cel-shaded anime usual. Characters and plot? ...On the weaker side.😐

Rumors were expecting Xillia to be remastered, the home console entry after Graces, and Namco is now basically saying they'll do that too. It'd be easy remastering/porting, being a PS3 game like Graces (although Graces began, in its inferior non-f version, as a Wii game).

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

Considering the devs went bankrupt after 4 came out, you think they saw the writing on the wall and went out with a swan song? 4 does have noticeably a lot of reference to the prior games.

I could see that, the same way FEAwakening is chock full o' references. And they were on the last of the major dragons at that point.

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

People are expecting this to happen with the military girl from the Azuma trailer.

Wouldn't surprise me. Curious if they're going to make the villain characters less one-dimensional this time (not that I have any real problem with RF doing the minimum for story).

 

1 hour ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I'd say, I kinda liked that approach? Not make the Norad-Sechs conflict the spotlight in every game. Makes the world feels much larger. Still, considering the Sechs' plans with both Terrable and Ventuswill, then it is odd they did nothing with Firesome and Aquaticus, then.

I get that.

Though skipping Firesome the outright destructive one is an oddity indeed for an evil empire. Perhaps being buried deep beneath the earth is what keep the deadliest dragon away from their ambitions? ...Maybe an RF2 remake could add an NPC who happens to be an undercover Sechs agent investigating oddities that may bear fruit for the Empire (-and doubles as a husband for Alicia to "fix" the oddity that she stays single without Kyle). Not exactly an imperial stooge, the investigator after the events of RF2 chooses not to report back to their country, realizing one best not play with Firesome. -Just an idea.😅

Edited August 28 by Interdimensional Observer

[Codename Shrimp]

this looks pretty good