RPG (ROleplaying Games) Biggest Cliques (spelling?)

[Starcade]

You know, what are some things that are WAY overused in most all RPG's? I will list a few..

1. Okay when you play an RPG YOU KNOW THE MAIN CHARACTER STARTS OFF IN A SMALL VILLAGE.

2. Why the hell do monsters carry money??

3. Why is the king always in trouble???

4. How the hell does the hero (you) already know how to handle dangerous weapons like swords, nunchucs, ect??

[Alex Kidd]

You know, what are some things that are WAY overused in most all RPG's? I will list a few..

1. Okay when you play an RPG YOU KNOW THE MAIN CHARACTER STARTS OFF IN A SMALL VILLAGE.

Lets elaborate on this

1. main character lives in small town and begins by sleeping in too late for something he was supposed to attend.


5. Second person to join your group is a girl that you grew up with and is like a kid-sister.

6. After that first day of gametime you're not going to see your home town untill you're much older.

Alex Kidd

[Achika]

http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html

[zmeston]

A clique is "a narrow exclusive circle or group of persons," such as the members of these forums. :) The word you want is cliché.

There's an amusing article about RPG clichés at http://www.gamespy.com/top10/september00/rpgsuck/index3.shtm

-- Z.

[davidbrit2]

I can answer all of those questions: because "RPGs" suck. :-)

[CrazyImpmon]

I can answer all of those questions: because "RPGs" suck. :-)

:smash:

[kainemaxwell]

Not to mention barging into people's houses and taking their stuff.

[bargora]

I can answer all of those questions: because "RPGs" suck. :-)

:smash:
HA HA

[davidbrit2]

I've become very disenchanted with these kinds of games, for a number of reasons.

1. Excessive linearity
2. Little or no control over the flow of events
3. Random battles
4. Unrealistic, monolithic, evil factions - everything is out to get you, and there is no infighting. Yeah, right.
5. As was said earlier, how in blazes can a sewer rat carry plate mail, a dozen torches, and 240 gold pieces?

I blame Squaresoft for most of these things. Other companies don't constantly do such idiotic things with their games. Try Fallout sometime, and you'll see what I mean.

[zmeston]

I've become very disenchanted with these kinds of games, for a number of reasons.

1. Excessive linearity
2. Little or no control over the flow of events
3. Random battles
4. Unrealistic, monolithic, evil factions - everything is out to get you, and there is no infighting. Yeah, right.
5. As was said earlier, how in blazes can a sewer rat carry plate mail, a dozen torches, and 240 gold pieces?

I blame Squaresoft for most of these things. Other companies don't constantly do such idiotic things with their games. Try Fallout sometime, and you'll see what I mean.

Well, console RPGs (Japanese, such as Final Fantasy) and PC RPGs (American, such as Fallout) are willdly different, to the point I consider them separate genres.

During my days (daze) at Working Designs, our Japanese friends at Game Arts were porting Lunar: SSSC to the PC, but we eventually canceled the project -- not only because the game was so buggy, as reported, but also because it was so radically different from the PC aesthetic that we knew it would be ravaged by critics and rejected by consumers. Lunar: SSSC on the PC looked like a lame shareware game. WD's prez even toyed with the idea of releasing PC Lunar as a budget title before finally canning it completely.

The one regret I have about PC Lunar's death is that the movie sequences used gorgeous 640 x 480-pixel animation frames (which were de-rezzed to 320 x 240 for the PS1). Seeing those gorgeous scenes without nasty MPEG compression was like watching a restored print of a classic film.

-- Z.

[Kid Fenris]

I've become very disenchanted with these kinds of games, for a number of reasons.

1. Excessive linearity
2. Little or no control over the flow of events
3. Random battles
4. Unrealistic, monolithic, evil factions - everything is out to get you, and there is no infighting. Yeah, right.
5. As was said earlier, how in blazes can a sewer rat carry plate mail, a dozen torches, and 240 gold pieces?

I blame Squaresoft for most of these things. Other companies don't constantly do such idiotic things with their games. Try Fallout sometime, and you'll see what I mean.

I'd say that Squaresoft is guilty of only number 3 on your list. Linearity and the inability to divert the storyline have been part of console RPGs since the genre's inception, and blaming Square for it is like blaming Nintendo because you can't make Mario kill the Princess and marry Bowser. And I remember a number of power struggles within the antagonistic elements of Final Fantasy VI, VII, VIII, IX, and X. Go figure.

And rats eat anything, you know.

As for Fallout, it's pretty good, but it shares the PC RPG habit of sacrificing atmosphere and a cohesive sense of story development to give the player options that usually don't prove more rewarding than a decent scrap of plot from a linear console RPG. For a game that manages to combine freedom of exploration with both personality and a storyline worth following, check out the PC RPG Planescape: Torment. On an interesting note, the creators of Torment credit Final Fantasy VII and VIII for inspiration. If Square games aren't moving the genre forward, they're inspiring those who are.

Edit: I hate typos.

[Kid Fenris]

The one regret I have about PC Lunar's death is that the movie sequences used gorgeous 640 x 480-pixel animation frames (which were de-rezzed to 320 x 240 for the PS1). Seeing those gorgeous scenes without nasty MPEG compression was like watching a restored print of a classic film.

-- Z.

:(

By the way, I never tire of hearing stories about the inner machinations of Working Designs. Got any tales about that E3 where Sega stuck WD in the show-floor equivalent of a restroom stall or something?

[zmeston]

The one regret I have about PC Lunar's death is that the movie sequences used gorgeous 640 x 480-pixel animation frames (which were de-rezzed to 320 x 240 for the PS1). Seeing those gorgeous scenes without nasty MPEG compression was like watching a restored print of a classic film.

-- Z.

:(

By the way, I never tire of hearing stories about the inner machinations of Working Designs. Got any tales about that E3 where Sega stuck WD in the show-floor equivalent of a restroom stall or something?

I was going to write a column about my WD experiences for RPGFan, but WD prez Victor Ireland -- always one to hold a grudge -- threatened to sue me, claiming I'd signed an NDA (untrue, but not something I could afford to prove in a court of law). Fortunately, said fictional NDA has since expired, as I've been gone from WD for just over two years now.

No good anecdotes about the Sega/WD thing, alas, as that happened before my three-year stint. I did meet with WD at that show, and remember having a hell of a time finding their booth. Victor just never got along with Bernie Stolar -- it was the Battle of the Enormous Egos.

I worked on Rayearth, WD's last Sega game, and we received no end of hassle from Sega during the approval process; they knew WD was bailing on the system, and they were using every corporate machination to make our lives miserable. Not that we needed any help delaying that particular title!

-- Z.

[davidbrit2]

Yeah, Square's not entirely responsible for the unnecessarily linear story lines. Enix was also one of the first, with their Dragon Warrior series. Dragon Warrior is quite possibly the only game of the genre that I've bothered to finish, and that's because it's short enough to escape tedium. Brevity is what's severely lacking from Sqare's titles these days.

[boatofcar]

LOL...a 40 hour Square RPG is nothing after you've put 123 hours into Dragon Warrior VII. PS Final Fantasys are a joke in terms of putting time into gaining levels. Most of your time is spent watching movies move the story along :( I've noticied this to be the case in FF X especially (though I've only played IX and X of the PS FF's). I hate all the cinemas and how freakin linear everything is. That was the one thing DW VII had going for it; at least you could go wherever you wanted whenever you wanted for the most part and had to figure out what you had to do next, even if it was just because you forgot to talk to that one person in that one town :) Ah, the joys of old-style RPGs....

[YoshiM]

You know, what are some things that are WAY overused in most all RPG's? I will list a few..

1. Okay when you play an RPG YOU KNOW THE MAIN CHARACTER STARTS OFF IN A SMALL VILLAGE.

2. Why the hell do monsters carry money??

3. Why is the king always in trouble???

4. How the hell does the hero (you) already know how to handle dangerous weapons like swords, nunchucs, ect??

Interesting points, but as Kid Fenris mentioned RPGs have pretty much been linear to some point since day 1.

As ever the diablo's advocate (and the fact I'm in a rather geeky mood) I think I can shed some light on some of your points:

1. I think this is for simplicity's sake. While I have played RPGs where you start in a large city (or at least large in the sense of the game world). It gives a sense of origin rather than leaving the player high and dry without knowing what the hell is going on (remember, general observation says that many mainstream gamers really don't read manuals anymore. Wait, did ANYONE really read manuals?). To start a player say after his platoon is nearly wiped out by a horde of orcs and the survivors were taken prisoner is probably NOT going to be a fun way to start.

2. For the more "intelligent" monsters (console RPGs never really gave the impression that certain monsters were smarter than others, just more powerful)-they know its value. They see humans/elves/insert game world victim here use it to acquire goods, so they take it from the weak and use it for barter when they need goods from those who are more powerful. Even the mightiest wizards or warlords need money-power and fear can only go so far. So they carry their money on their person, along with any other item they might have procured.

Less intelligent monsters, like sewer rats and the like, are attracted to shiny objects and tend to collect them. Now in a "realistic" sense (or at least in a pen and paper RPG sense), they usually keep those items back at a nest. However in game terms, no one is really going to go searching for such a thing so the program just coughs up some small amount to reward the player to indicate that they uncovered such a stash. Large creatures (that can either mostly devour or entirely devour a human) may just consume said items. The larger the creature, the more likely it is that it carries more than just money in its gut. Probably eating lesser heroes than your character. They could also (depending on intelligence, I doubt things like jellies or worms would do this) collect the "shiny stuff" to take back to lairs. So that explains #2

3. To draw a player's attention, something catastrophic has to happen through the span of the game. The earliest hooks were to "save the King" or "save the princess", but later on it was more kingdom, realm, and eventually world/galaxy saving. Still, the ruler/monarch/president/supreme being is directly effected and they want to have the problem eliminated to save their people (and to keep them in the throne for being a good leader).

RPGs in the past that were mainly "meander about and do jobs for people" were usually shunned by critics (don't ask me which ones, I don't remember, but I did read reviews stating such things). Thus a reason for having an "ultimate goal" to "win" the game. To give the illusion of a non-linear world, a bunch of mini quests were strewn about from the mundane (take this letter to Mr. So-and-so in the next town) to quests that were almost as hard as the main quest itself. Still, there was still and "end". Sure it may take a character a while to get to the resolution (I've yet to see many RPGs with a time limit) but there had to be a definite end that saved the king/princess/land/realm/world/universe. If there was nothing that big to save (and the fame and wealth you'd received by actually beating the odds and winning), what would be the point of adventuring?

4. All great (and sometimes deadliest of the time) weapons are the easiest to use. Everyone knows how to inflict pain and damage: you hit it. Punch, kick, head butt, whatever. You can usually do MORE damage if you hit your target with something other than your person like a stick, rock, knife, sword, etc. In an RPG, most characters usually start at 1st level. As many are aware, your first battles are usually pretty nail biting as your character will miss a lot and/or will not do a lot of damage. However, with each successful battle your character learns how to fight more effectively (experience points), and thus becomes more successful.

Then there's the idea of using certain weapons and getting used to them. Take a sword for example. It handles like a stick: you can swing it, poke with it, and block with it. Sure it feels different (heavier for sure), but the concept of whacking something with a sword or a stick is almost the same. Now I know someone is going to mention that a sword and a stick are two totally different things but if anyone has handled a sword-a decent sword-they are well weighted items. Sure a young child may not be able to heft a long sword as its going to be taller than it, but a teen who probably had a vigorous lifestyle of working in fields or doing some other sort of heavy labor to help the family could easily pick one up. Of course, a person off the street who picks up a sword may not carve through a horde of goblins with ease, but man to man they have an advantage against an unarmed or lesser armed foe even without experience. Hence a leveling system or the ability to raise ability scores to show improvement.

Many games usually give you characters that are "trained". The first Final Fantasy gave us Fighters, Martial Artists, and such. Obviously these people were given some sort of rudimentary training, or else why would they be given such titles? So that answers #4 to a degree.

Anyway, that's my 1,230 copper pieces on this. I've been sick the last week so stringing together something this big, much less a sentence, on a computer monitor was near impossible (and painful). Consider this a mental belching of couped up words :D

[delbogun]

not to mention, to increase the joy of playing the rpg, some tricks and tweaks of the rules might be necessary. don't say that you only play realistic games, do you?

[Anonymous]

One thing that always bugged me about RPGs is the fact that as you move along in the game, the enemies become more and more powerful. This is one of the largest SOD (suspension of disbelief) breakers for me. What I'd like to see is enemies that you run into from the beginning of the game, and that you can only beat once you've acquired X weapon.

The other thing is that weapons get progressively more powerful. You should be able to acquire any of several weapons in a fairly random (user selectable) sequence, which will allow you to defeat the enemies that you couldn't beat before.

The nice thing about this system is that you can then create dungeons that can be completed in any number of ways (say, for simplicity's sake, 4 weapons and 4 dungeons, and 4 ways to complete the 4 dungeons), and depending on how many weapons you have you gain access to more powerful/useful items, giving reasons to return to the dungeons, and creating challenges. For example, if one of the 4 weapons is really hard to get, and you get it first, then you will be able to get better items in the dungeons which will reward your hard work, and still allow you to complete the dungeons in any order you choose. and since the enemies are based on your having distinct weapons, having only one weapon means you can create different difficulty levels within the same dungeon.

(c) anotherIndustris, inc. 2003.

[bizounce]

[quote=davidbrit2]
During my days (daze) at Working Designs, our Japanese friends at Game Arts were porting Lunar: SSSC to the PC, but we eventually canceled the project -- not only because the game was so buggy, as reported, but also because it was so radically different from the PC aesthetic that we knew it would be ravaged by critics and rejected by consumers. Lunar: SSSC on the PC looked like a lame shareware game. WD's prez even toyed with the idea of releasing PC Lunar as a budget title before finally canning it completely.


-- Z.

Argh, Lunar SSSC. I was in much dissapointment for that game. Not only because of the bugginess of the game, the long wait for it to come out, but because of the DAMN hacking job they did on the spells and attacks. How boring can an RPG get. Seriously, when you take an RPG, especially a remake, wouldn't you want to add more rather than TAKE AWAY!?! I mean 8 spells a character....4 on Kyle...how boring. They weren't even visually impressive either....sigh. Sega CD version was a lot better. I will admit however that the videos and the music were nice, along with the packaging, and the pleather bound book was VERY nice. Working Designs did a nice job in the long run, but the poor game was nothing compared to the original.

[Raedon]

you should also make the distinction between Anime RPG, and good ol' hard core AD&D RPG.. Try saying Everquest or UO are linear and see how many odd looks you get.

[zmeston]

[quote=davidbrit2]
During my days (daze) at Working Designs, our Japanese friends at Game Arts were porting Lunar: SSSC to the PC, but we eventually canceled the project -- not only because the game was so buggy, as reported, but also because it was so radically different from the PC aesthetic that we knew it would be ravaged by critics and rejected by consumers. Lunar: SSSC on the PC looked like a lame shareware game. WD's prez even toyed with the idea of releasing PC Lunar as a budget title before finally canning it completely.


-- Z.

Argh, Lunar SSSC. I was in much dissapointment for that game. Not only because of the bugginess of the game, the long wait for it to come out, but because of the DAMN hacking job they did on the spells and attacks. How boring can an RPG get. Seriously, when you take an RPG, especially a remake, wouldn't you want to add more rather than TAKE AWAY!?! I mean 8 spells a character....4 on Kyle...how boring. They weren't even visually impressive either....sigh. Sega CD version was a lot better. I will admit however that the videos and the music were nice, along with the packaging, and the pleather bound book was VERY nice. Working Designs did a nice job in the long run, but the poor game was nothing compared to the original.

I agree that the gameplay was dumbed down to an almost tragic degree, although the story was MUCH better (if I may be so damn egotistical), with more depth and humor and more natural-sounding dialogue than the SEGA CD version. I still think that precious few RPGers really care about a well-told story (which, to me, is the core of any RPG), not if they can defend the horrendous translations of Final Fantasy VII, Suikoden II, et al.

I'm curious about your "bugginess" statement -- to what do you refer? I know of a few glitch-a-ramas in Lunar 2, and I know that Arc the Lad Collection is a total bugfest, but I don't recall much wrong with SSSC.

-- Z.

[kainemaxwell]

I never had any glitch problems in Lunar: SSSC or Lunar 2 for PSX...and how you think the gameplay was dumbed down from the Sega CD?

[zmeston]

I never had any glitch problems in Lunar: SSSC or Lunar 2 for PSX...and how you think the gameplay was dumbed down from the Sega CD?

As pointed out by the previous poster, the considerable simplification of the spell system, along with the dumb-ification of boss battles and dungeon layouts. In the SEGA CD version, they were genuinely complex labyrinths in which you could get, you know, lost and stuff; in the PS1 version, with a precious few exceptions, very straightforward. But, as I pointed out, while the gameplay suffered, the storytelling was tremendously improved.

Have you played both the SEGA CD and PS1 versions of Lunar 1, out of curiosity?

-- Z.

[Kid Fenris]

I agree that the gameplay was dumbed down to an almost tragic degree, although the story was MUCH better (if I may be so damn egotistical), with more depth and humor and more natural-sounding dialogue than the SEGA CD version. I still think that precious few RPGers really care about a well-told story (which, to me, is the core of any RPG), not if they can defend the horrendous translations of Final Fantasy VII, Suikoden II, et al.

-- Z.

I think that a number of RPG fans, especially those who discovered the genre on the NES and the 16-bitters, are used to appreciating a story through the fog of censorship and mediocre translation. For them, the text of FFVII might be a cut above average just because it allows profanity and doesn't excise suggestive dialogue. When I first played the game, I didn't even notice lines like "This guy are sick" at first, since I was so caught up in the novelty of seeing the word "shit" in a Final Fantasy. Ah, nostalgia.

And then there are those who refuse to allow that their beloved RPGs have any flaws, even in the often problematic realm of localization. But they're just nuts.

[zmeston]

I agree that the gameplay was dumbed down to an almost tragic degree, although the story was MUCH better (if I may be so damn egotistical), with more depth and humor and more natural-sounding dialogue than the SEGA CD version. I still think that precious few RPGers really care about a well-told story (which, to me, is the core of any RPG), not if they can defend the horrendous translations of Final Fantasy VII, Suikoden II, et al.

-- Z.

I think that a number of RPG fans, especially those who discovered the genre on the NES and the 16-bitters, are used to appreciating a story through the fog of censorship and mediocre translation. For them, the text of FFVII might be a cut above average just because it allows profanity and doesn't excise suggestive dialogue. When I first played the game, I didn't even notice lines like "This guy are sick" at first, since I was so caught up in the novelty of seeing the word "shit" in a Final Fantasy. Ah, nostalgia.

And then there are those who refuse to allow that their beloved RPGs have any flaws, even in the often problematic realm of localization. But they're just nuts.

Yeah, I'm picking up what you're laying down. It always was/is such a bizarre process to try and enjoy a story while simultaneously ignoring localized dialogue (which I tried and failed to do with Okage: Shadow King).

Heh! I remember the novelty of "shit" as well. I was allowed to use nothing worse than "bitch" and "bastard" in the SSSC and EBC localizations, which was fine; it was more rewarding, and almost always funnier, to write without the crutch of profanity.

I haven't played through the retail version of The Getaway, but one of the beta versions I played through had a line of dialogue with the word "cunt," the first time I'd ever seen that in a game. Does anyone know if that made it into the final? (And once again, I drag a topic into the gutter.)

-- Z.

[bizounce]

I'd say the most annoying glitch was when you'd walk around a town and the top of the screen would jerk left and right, a LOT.

As for the story of the game, yeah, I'd agree with you. It was a lot more complex in the storyline, and that really is the most important part of a roleplaying game. I do look for nice game play as well though. Hope you weren't taking my last post as an insult, I wasn't implying it that way. Working designs is still tops to me, especially for bringing Dragon Force to Sega Saturn. I'm playing Japanese Import Dragon Force II. I use import games to practice reading my Kanji.

[zmeston]

I'd say the most annoying glitch was when you'd walk around a town and the top of the screen would jerk left and right, a LOT.

As for the story of the game, yeah, I'd agree with you. It was a lot more complex in the storyline, and that really is the most important part of a roleplaying game. I do look for nice game play as well though. Hope you weren't taking my last post as an insult, I wasn't implying it that way. Working designs is still tops to me, especially for bringing Dragon Force to Sega Saturn. I'm playing Japanese Import Dragon Force II. I use import games to practice reading my Kanji.

Didn't take it as an insult at all, my friend. Believe me, many people have said much harsher things about the "quality" of my localization work. Heh.

Ah, yes, the ol' scrolling glitch. As I vaguely recall, WD's in-house programmer (the insanely talented Tim Trzepacz, who wrote the Warlords mini-game in SSSC and now writes kick-ass code for Insomniac) reduced the level of jerkiness in the U.S. version by very slightly reducing the size of the screen. It was a trade-off in that if he'd reduced it further, the glitching would have gone away entirely, but the shrinking effect would have been too noticeable.

SSSC also has the usual batch of damnable typos, and a very embarrassing mistake, totally my fault, in which the "hint" poster at the bottom of Myght's Tower displays placeholder text. Such is the dumbed-down nature of SSSC that as a result of that boo-boo, we got more hint-line calls about the related puzzle (in which you walk through four doors in a certain order) than anything else in the game.

Victor passed on Dragon Force II because he felt it simply wasn't up to the standard of the original, and also because his relationship with Sega was already soured by that point. (Of course, now it's his relationship with Sony that's soured; WD is missing E3 for the first time in its history because it's been struggling for a year to get any of its three PS2 titles approved by SCEA.)

-- Z.

[bizounce]

Wow. Damn, I only wish I could have the experience you have right now. I'm going to school for Computer Science. I'm studying C right now, and with my school, I'm not exactly getting much of a challenge, or the understanding of C/C++ I would like. I'm going to be transferring soon, my only ray of hope.

[zmeston]

Wow. Damn, I only wish I could have the experience you have right now. I'm going to school for Computer Science. I'm studying C right now, and with my school, I'm not exactly getting much of a challenge, or the understanding of C/C++ I would like. I'm going to be transferring soon, my only ray of hope.

Working Designs was an experience, alright. Heh. There isn't anything I didn't do there, since it was/is such a tiny organization. I got to write localizations, write and lay out strategy guides, write blurb copy for game boxes, write and edit instruction manuals, tweak program code and graphics, bug-test localizations in progress, throw 20-pound boxes of SSSC and EBC around a warehouse, observe and participate in voice-acting sessions, walk around E3 in a mascot suit of a 400-pound wizard, supervise the creation of a puppet, and answer hintline calls -- among other things. (I was especially fond of Oliver, an almost-daily and slightly insane caller who I fucked with by speaking to him in the voices of a six-year-old boy, a flamboyantly gay man, and an East Indian, among others.)

I was very lucky (in a sense) to end up with Working Designs, which is the only game company in the world where a clueless writer-boy like myself could break into the gaming biz. Game developers need programmers and artists, but they don't need writers. You're very wise to get a college edumacation in the programming arts.

-- Z.

[bizounce]

You said edumacation, I fucking love you!

Seriously though, thanks for the confidence. I feel better going into this now, even if I don't end up programming videogames. I just hope I'm going about this the right way.

[kainemaxwell]

I never had any glitch problems in Lunar: SSSC or Lunar 2 for PSX...and how you think the gameplay was dumbed down from the Sega CD?

As pointed out by the previous poster, the considerable simplification of the spell system, along with the dumb-ification of boss battles and dungeon layouts. In the SEGA CD version, they were genuinely complex labyrinths in which you could get, you know, lost and stuff; in the PS1 version, with a precious few exceptions, very straightforward. But, as I pointed out, while the gameplay suffered, the storytelling was tremendously improved.

Have you played both the SEGA CD and PS1 versions of Lunar 1, out of curiosity?

-- Z.
Actually I still have my copy of Lunar for the Sega CD. I haven't played it in years but last I remembered I was sometime after Ghaleon killed Quark (which is still one my favorite moments in my gaming past that I tend to know the dialogue for). Lunar: SSSC my friend has and I borrowed it and beat it, currently building some levels before smacking through the rest of the Epilogue in Lunar 2 (I wish I could see the 'first ending again").

And you worked for WS, I worship you man.

[zmeston]

I never had any glitch problems in Lunar: SSSC or Lunar 2 for PSX...and how you think the gameplay was dumbed down from the Sega CD?

As pointed out by the previous poster, the considerable simplification of the spell system, along with the dumb-ification of boss battles and dungeon layouts. In the SEGA CD version, they were genuinely complex labyrinths in which you could get, you know, lost and stuff; in the PS1 version, with a precious few exceptions, very straightforward. But, as I pointed out, while the gameplay suffered, the storytelling was tremendously improved.

Have you played both the SEGA CD and PS1 versions of Lunar 1, out of curiosity?

-- Z.
Actually I still have my copy of Lunar for the Sega CD. I haven't played it in years but last I remembered I was sometime after Ghaleon killed Quark (which is still one my favorite moments in my gaming past that I tend to know the dialogue for). Lunar: SSSC my friend has and I borrowed it and beat it, currently building some levels before smacking through the rest of the Epilogue in Lunar 2 (I wish I could see the 'first ending again").

And you worked for WS, I worship you man.

No worshiping allowed, yo. I'm just a lucky schmuck who parlayed a slight talent for writing and a huge talent for shmoozing into a goofy-ass career. Be glad that you've kept gaming as a hobby; while you get to play any game you want this weekend, I get to write a strategy guide for the GBA version of X2: Wolverine's Revenge, a game that will be forgotten by the world a month after it ships. Heh.

Lunar 2: EBC suffered even more from dumbing down than Lunar: SSSC; in particular, the battle against Borgan is almost embarrassingly easy by comparison to the SCD version. Lunar 2 also has quite a few text bloopers (only one of which is my fault, I swear), including one I mentioned in the strategy guide because it's so incredibly confusing.

I blame WD's short-lived "test department," a group of high-school kids who came in and played beta versions of EBC during the summer months. (You can catch glimpses of these chitlins on Lunar 2's "Making Of" video CD, which also features me looking exceptionally dorky and mispronouncing the name of the lead female protagonist.)

The testers were a disastrous experiment, not least of which because we quickly learned that the youth of America (and these were A and B students!) don't know how to read or write, so they didn't catch text errors and didn't know how to describe bugs. It sure was fun goofing around with those little bastards, though.

WD used external testers for Arc the Lad Collection, although that game is buggier than both Lunars combined because of the inexperienced programmer hired to replace Tim, and the overwhelming nature of the project. Localizing one RPG is hard enough; localizing three at once (four if you count the Monster Game) is a living nightmare.

-- Z.

[kainemaxwell]

Kinda sounds like me..I have a talent for writing and a huge love for gaming myself. ^_^ I heard about the huge change in the Borgan fight between the Sega CD/PSX versions of Lunar 2 also. Presently building levels in the White Dragon Cave so I can finish off Dragon's Nest and somewhere else before hitting the final tower (or somehting, i forget!).

You ever meet any the VAs of the games? I've always liked Ghaleon's voice myself.

[zmeston]

Kinda sounds like me..I have a talent for writing and a huge love for gaming myself. ^_^ I heard about the huge change in the Borgan fight between the Sega CD/PSX versions of Lunar 2 also. Presently building levels in the White Dragon Cave so I can finish off Dragon's Nest and somewhere else before hitting the final tower (or somehting, i forget!).

You ever meet any the VAs of the games? I've always liked Ghaleon's voice myself.

Yep, I met most of 'em and got to watch many of 'em lay down dialogue, although John Truitt (the voice of Ghaleon) was the one I spoke with the least; as Victor was especially protective of him. Most of the female VAs were very cool; Jenny Stigile, in particular, was much nicer than a young woman of her hotness level has any right to be.

At one point during my WD tenure, I went on a couple of dates with, and even kissed, a female VA who shall remain nameless. Here's how that went:

Her: "What I am thinking right now?"
Me: "That you want me to kiss you?"
Her: "Uh, no... but you can if you want to."
Me: "Okay..." [engages in brief and awkward tonsil-hockey session]
Her: "It's getting late..."

I am catnip to the ladies, I tell ya.

Miss VA shortly thereafter took up with a bodybuilder dude whose physique, I assume, was the polar opposite of mine.

My first and last VA appearance was in Silhouette Mirage, which is one of the all-time worst localizations ever, and I am eternally regretful for helping to make it so. If you've encountered the "DUUUUDE!"-speaking worm in SM (I forget which level he's on), you've heard my voice.

-- Z.

[Kid Fenris]

My first and last VA appearance was in Silhouette Mirage, which is one of the all-time worst localizations ever, and I am eternally regretful for helping to make it so. If you've encountered the "DUUUUDE!"-speaking worm in SM (I forget which level he's on), you've heard my voice.

-- Z.

Oh yeah. Silhouette Mirage. I've been meaning to ask you about that. Is it true that Treasure disliked the changes that WD made to the game (jacking up the weapon prices, altering the energy meter, etc.), or that said changes were made solely because of recommendations from a single play tester?

[zmeston]

My first and last VA appearance was in Silhouette Mirage, which is one of the all-time worst localizations ever, and I am eternally regretful for helping to make it so. If you've encountered the "DUUUUDE!"-speaking worm in SM (I forget which level he's on), you've heard my voice.

-- Z.

Oh yeah. Silhouette Mirage. I've been meaning to ask you about that. Is it true that Treasure disliked the changes that WD made to the game (jacking up the weapon prices, altering the energy meter, etc.), or that said changes were made solely because of recommendations from a single play tester?

At the time of SM's release, Victor claimed that Treasure not only approved of the changes, but preferred the WD version. False on both counts; the changes were not run past Treasure for approval, and Treasure so "loved" the changes that they never worked with WD again. (The PS2 Silpheed was co-developed by Treasure, but WD licensed it through a complicated arrangement with Game Arts and Capcom Japan.)

Yes, the changes were made because Victor and the sole "tester" on the game felt that SM was too easy in its original Japanese form. (Victor is notorious for boosting difficulty levels during the localization process.) Unfortunately, the design changes sucked literally all the fun out of the game, as they required the player to drain virtually every enemy of maximum coinage, using the same tedious techniques over and over again. Victor simply forgot that a tester who plays SM every day for weeks on end ain't the same as Joe Gamer, who just wants to have fun.

Working with Japanese developers is always touchy if you're making fundamental changes to their design, since you're really saying "Your first try wasn't good enough." If you say this to Treasure, a legendary developer (whose best days are admittedly behind it), you'd better have a damn good reason for doing so. We didn't.

All Hell broke loose when GameSpot posted a brutal (and very accurate) review of SM. Victor blacklisted the reviewer and, for a long time, refused to support GameSpot wth any preview materials, accusing them of "bias." Victor also once blacklisted GameFan after a negative review of Lunar 2 for the SEGA CD, until he and the notorious Dave Halverson made amends.

I see the disaster of SM as a turning point for WD. Victor had gotten so confident after the sales success of SSSC that he really believed he could do no wrong, but SM showed that, in fact, he'd lost touch with what gamers really wanted. Since SM, WD hasn't had one genuine hit; EBC underperformed at retail, Arc the Lad Collection shipped two years too late, and both of WD's PS2 games were massive failures. Now WD is skipping E3 for the first time in its history because Sony has refused to approve any of its current localization projects (Goemon and Growlanser 2 & 3). I will personally be astonished if WD survives until E3 '04.

While I parted with WD on butt-ugly terms, I console myself with the knowledge that I would've been laid off by now anyway.

-- Z.

[kainemaxwell]

I've always liked Ghaleon's voice myself- it just sounds deliciously evilish. The outtakes at the end are funny too and Luna's boat song is SO pretty too.

[zmeston]

I've always liked Ghaleon's voice myself- it just sounds deliciously evilish. The outtakes at the end are funny too and Luna's boat song is SO pretty too.

John Truitt (Ghaleon) has appeared in many theater productions in Redding, which makes him one of the very few Working Designs VAs with gin-u-wine acting ability, and it shows. Also helps that he's got a bitchin' voice. He's definitely superior to the Japanese Ghaleon VA.

-- Z.

[kainemaxwell]

I've always liked Ghaleon's voice myself- it just sounds deliciously evilish. The outtakes at the end are funny too and Luna's boat song is SO pretty too.

John Truitt (Ghaleon) has appeared in many theater productions in Redding, which makes him one of the very few Working Designs VAs with gin-u-wine acting ability, and it shows. Also helps that he's got a bitchin' voice. He's definitely superior to the Japanese Ghaleon VA.

-- Z.
And one my favorite lines of dialouge of his is when he kills Quark in the Sega CD Lunar. ^_^

"...I'll soon rule the world, but first you have to die!!"

You got any audio clips of Ghaleon's Japanese VA by chance?

[zmeston]

I've always liked Ghaleon's voice myself- it just sounds deliciously evilish. The outtakes at the end are funny too and Luna's boat song is SO pretty too.

John Truitt (Ghaleon) has appeared in many theater productions in Redding, which makes him one of the very few Working Designs VAs with gin-u-wine acting ability, and it shows. Also helps that he's got a bitchin' voice. He's definitely superior to the Japanese Ghaleon VA.

-- Z.
And one my favorite lines of dialouge of his is when he kills Quark in the Sega CD Lunar. ^_^

"...I'll soon rule the world, but first you have to die!!"

You got any audio clips of Ghaleon's Japanese VA by chance?

'fraid not, as Victor threatened to sue me if I didn't delete all data files related to WD. (Like I said, butt-ugly.) I still have betas of a few of the games I worked on, which have radically different text than the final versions, but audio/graphic/text data went buh-bye.

-- Z.

[Kid Fenris]

Since SM, WD hasn't had one genuine hit; EBC underperformed at retail, Arc the Lad Collection shipped two years too late, and both of WD's PS2 games were massive failures. Now WD is skipping E3 for the first time in its history because Sony has refused to approve any of its current localization projects (Goemon and Growlanser 2 & 3). I will personally be astonished if WD survives until E3 '04.

While I parted with WD on butt-ugly terms, I console myself with the knowledge that I would've been laid off by now anyway.

-- Z.

I get the feeling that I should just start a new thread called "Q & A with zmeston," but I promise to stop after these questions:

1) Why do you think Sony is opposing an American version of Growlancer? I know they don't like Goemon, but if SCEA approved anime-styled niche releases like Sky Gunner and Thousand Arms, I don't see why they'd object to Growlancer.

2)Did Chris Hoffman (formerly of Gamers' Republic, now apparently of Play) ever work for WD?

[zmeston]

Since SM, WD hasn't had one genuine hit; EBC underperformed at retail, Arc the Lad Collection shipped two years too late, and both of WD's PS2 games were massive failures. Now WD is skipping E3 for the first time in its history because Sony has refused to approve any of its current localization projects (Goemon and Growlanser 2 & 3). I will personally be astonished if WD survives until E3 '04.

While I parted with WD on butt-ugly terms, I console myself with the knowledge that I would've been laid off by now anyway.

-- Z.

I get the feeling that I should just start a new thread called "Q & A with zmeston," but I promise to stop after these questions:

1) Why do you think Sony is opposing an American version of Growlancer? I know they don't like Goemon, but if SCEA approved anime-styled niche releases like Sky Gunner and Thousand Arms, I don't see why they'd object to Growlancer.

2)Did Chris Hoffman (formerly of Gamers' Republic, now apparently of Play) ever work for WD?

1) Each third-party company deals with a certain account executive at SCEA (I forget the job title), and those executives wield a great deal of power over what gets approved and what doesn't. As I've been told by people in the know, Victor is now dealing with a new executive who isn't a fan of his, as opposed to the old one who was. So that's part of it.

WD also has more difficulty with approval than larger publishers simply because Sony makes many more licensing bucks from the latter. EA and THQ can ship crap because it will still sell; WD can't because it won't. While I don't have sales stats in front of me, I want to say that Gungriffon Blaze and Silpheed combined have sold through fewer units than, for example, Ty the Tasmanian Tiger.

Another example: Sony only approved Anthology because Activision included bonus content and downloadable content (the latter ironically removed) to spice up the presentation. If Activision had tried to ship a straight-up collection sans '80s music and commercial clips, Sony would have rejected it. What can WD do to "spice up" Goemon and Growlanser 2 & 3? Nada. It's all WD can do just to get Goemon running with an anti-aliasing filter.

Even when WD was on good terms with Sony, there were hiccups. Lunar 2: EBC was almost rejected because Crave pulled the bizarre and incredibly low stunt of approaching Sony, claiming that they had the U.S. rights to the game, and giving a wretched proposal. If a seeming no-brainer like a sequel to a quarter-million-selling title can run into such difficulty, imagine the challenge of trying to convince SCEA to approve a zero-generation platformer and a 2D strategy/RPG title that their own publishers declined to bring to the States.

Perhaps if Victor was to release the very dated Goemon as a $10 budget game instead of a $40-50 premium title, SCEA might go for it, but Victor simply can't afford to do that. As for Growlanser 2 & 3, Atlus (which released them in Japan) passed on both, presumably because they anticipated the approval problems that WD is encountering. SkyGunner and Thousand Arms weren't technologically dated; Goemon and GL 2 & 3 are.

Of course, beggars can't be choosers, and there really isn't anything left for WD to localize but stuff like Goemon and GL 2 & 3. Bigger companies (Eidos, Activision, Ubi) are taking the bigger games, budget companies (XS Games, ZeniMax) are taking the smaller games, and all the Japanese developers and publishers are merging with each other.

Here's what Victor had to say about the situation on the WD message board (note the ominous final sentence):

"...The games we've had trouble with are solid 7 or 8/10 games. In fact, Growlanser II rates higher than Gran Turismo 3 in Japan on the reader vote for one of the mags (Famitsu? Dengekki? I don't remember). We've had trouble getting approval with these for almost a year now, and yet dreck like My Street has NO problem getting to retail to rot on shelves.

"Anyway, I'm not going to turn this into a bash-fest, because up until all of this happened, Sony had been really supportive. I'm also glad that it looks like the issues have been resolved, but I don't think how it was resolved will please many people."

I love how he bashes My Street in one sentence, and then says "I'm not going to bash" in the next. That's a very Victor thing to do.

2) Chris Hoffman was at WD for a short while (6 to 9 months?) as their PR manager, but got the boot when it became clear that WD had nothing to promote. Ouch. I wonder if he's still as much of a WD/Victor fan as he used to be.

As I understand it, the only "employees" left at WD are Victor's immediate family. He might even have relocated to the rent-free upstairs bedroom (attached to a dingy rural warehouse) out of which he ran WD until 1998, but I haven't yet confirmed this by stalking the old and new office locations.

I sincerely hope these ever-longer manifestos aren't boring the hell out of you and everyone else, by the way...

-- Z.

[Bighab]

I get the feeling that I should just start a new thread called "Q & A with zmeston," but I promise to stop after these questions:

That would be a cool topic :D I have enjoyed reading everything he has had to say about WD. Hey Zmeston did you ever work on any of the TurboDuo WD games? Were there any games considered being ported(like Dragon Force 2) but were for some reason or another cancelled?

[zmeston]

I get the feeling that I should just start a new thread called "Q & A with zmeston," but I promise to stop after these questions:

That would be a cool topic :D I have enjoyed reading everything he has had to say about WD. Hey Zmeston did you ever work on any of the TurboDuo WD games? Were there any games considered being ported(like Dragon Force 2) but were for some reason or another cancelled?

Nope, I had nothing to do with the TG-16/Duo stuff. My initial involvement with WD was writing the official strategy guide for the Sega CD version of Lunar; I also did guides for L2 and Vay (and kind-of sort-of edited the Popful Mail guide). I wrote the localizations of Albert Odyssey and Alundra on a freelance basis, then went in-house from April '98 to March '01.

I think I rambled in another thread about the many games that WD at least semi-seriously considered doing, and we evaluated so many that I honestly can't remember 'em all. But I'll try to come up with the most interesting.

Dragon Force II (sucked)

Iron Storm III (REALLY sucked)

Pepsiman (licensing nightmare)

Policenauts (Konami declined)

Snatcher PS1 (Konami declined)

Samurai Shodown RPG (an a-hole "agent" got involved and ruined the deal, which was quite far along; Victor had even made a promotional video clip)

Guitar Freaks (Konami declined)

Remote Control Dandy (the PS1 prequel to Enix America's final PS2 release, Robot Alchemic Drive; not enough manpower/time to do it)

Hoshigami (Atlus snatched it out from under WD, much to Victor's shock; he was so confident about gaining the rights that E3 signage had been made up)

Grandia (not enough manpower/time, and the PS1 version we saw sucked)

Radiant Silvergun (never-released PS1 version didn't cut it)

Lunar SSSC PC (sucked and buggy...but, damn, the 640 x 480 anime clips looked awesome; I used the high-res frames from the PC version in the strategy guide)

Vib-Ribbon (Victor took it home, played it, didn't understand its appeal)

Unnamed Samurai-Cat (?!) Game (Dragon's Lair gameplay; sucked)

Animals-Driving-Tanks Game I Forget the Name Of (not enough manpower/time)

Septentrion II (PS1 sequel to the Vic Tokai SNES game S.O.S.; sucked)

And these are just the ones I saw; Victor evaluated and rejected many other titles in the privacy of his home.

-- Z.

[Bighab]

Dam! Policenauts and Snatcher would have been nice. Did you do any work on Vangaurd bandits? Did it sell well?

[zmeston]

Dam! Policenauts and Snatcher would have been nice. Did you do any work on Vangaurd bandits? Did it sell well?

Yeah, working on Snatcher would have been awesome. I was also bummed that we had to pass on Remote Control Dandy, and that Septentrion II sucked, as I really enjoyed S.O.S. (and almost had the chance to write the localization for it, but that fell through).

I wrote Vanguard Bandits, for better or worse. I definitely forced too much personality into that localization, and ended up creating a bunch of stereotypical characters. (The Valley-girl chick is especially unfortunate.) Not that some of the alternate paths through the game weren't extremely goofy to begin with, but I surely didn't help.

VB also has a gameplay flaw that we failed to repair during the localization; once you get a certain long-range wind-based attack, you can pretty much annihilate any opponent in the game.

VB wasn't a great game, but we picked it up for the simple fact that 1) we needed a game to fill the gap between Lunar 1 and Lunar 2, and 2) the licensing fee was extremely cheap. We sold enough copies (I believe it was in the 30K-40K range) to make a tidy profit.

Human, the developers of VB, went bankrupt during the localization process, which prompted me to beg Victor to pick up the rights to their incredible Fire Prowrestling G, which I would have worked on for free. Victor declined, insisting that a wrestling game without an official license would be destroyed at retail. Maybe true, maybe not, although bam! did well enough with the GBA version of Fire Pro to release a sequel.

WD's in-house progammer discovered a way to make a small amount of text pop up in VB when the player ended a turn with any of his ATACs on a certain square, so I was going to plant an Easter-egg "secret message" into every one of the 56 levels -- but we ran out of time, and it was kind of a lame idea to begin with. I think the first two or three levels in the final version have messages that we forgot to remove, but I honestly don't remember where to position the ATACs, or what the messages are. Just move onto every square on the map until the message appears. Heh.

-- Z.

[Dahne]

since I'm a Paladin I have enchanted my shoes with Velcro straps so I never need to tie any laces.

I know a couple paladins who could really use that ability...

[kainemaxwell]

Were you with WD whent hey did vay for the Sega CD, or was that before your time and whateer happened to that title anyhow?

[zmeston]

Were you with WD whent hey did vay for the Sega CD, or was that before your time and whateer happened to that title anyhow?

I wasn't in-house, although I did write the strategy guide -- which was, 'til that point, the most miserable guide experience of my life. Three weeks of 20-hour days, cutting and pasting thousands of screenshots into dungeon maps, is mental torture, and I could only have done it back then, when I quite literally had no life. (My current girlfriend / future fiancee starts to riot if I put in more than 12 hours a day.)

Whatever happened to Vay? Not much. It was a second-string RPG with perhaps Working Designs' most notorious example of shit-joke humor, the "farting fairy." In a game where one of the characters dies a tragic death (not as RPGfan-scarring as the character deaths in Phantasy Star II or Final Fantasy VII, but still neat), all the lame/dated humor was WAAAAY out of place. I forget the pop-culture-reference count in Vay, but it's undoubtedly high. Playing through WD's SEGA CD games is like that old Dennis Miller interactive CD where he riffs on decade-old events.

Digression: my approach to the pop-culture references, in all but a very few situations, was to avoid direct brand-name or celebrity references -- as was Victor's style ("You look like Shannen Doherty!", "I've been eating my Wheaties!") -- and use catchphrases that you'd find funny or goofy if you didn't know the reference, and extra-funny/goofy/stupid if you did. The best approach of all, of course, would be to avoid references entirely, but I thought mine was a more palatable approach. The one WD game that genuinely benefitted from Victor's silly-ass localization style was Popful Mail, which I consider a top-20 Sega CD title.

-- Z.

[Bighab]

It seems you did alot of work on the strategy guides. What was the reason behind Arc 3's cancellation?

[zmeston]

It seems you did alot of work on the strategy guides. What was the reason behind Arc 3's cancellation?

As Victor stated, there simply wasn't a retail or consumer demand for the Arc 3 guide, which was already, what, six months late? There was a time when you could ship a strategy guide at a leisurely pace, but not anymore. Now you have to release the guide with or before the game, or retailers will slash their orders to almost nothing. That's what happened to my Lunar 2 guide, which shipped a few months after the game (although, in that case, both Victor and retailers underestimated the demand).

I haven't actually seen the Arc 1/2 guide, but the fact that WD still has them for sale on its website means there isn't a high demand (or that WD overprinted, but my guess is the former).

-- Z.

[kainemaxwell]

Were you with WD whent hey did vay for the Sega CD, or was that before your time and whateer happened to that title anyhow?

Digression: my approach to the pop-culture references, in all but a very few situations, was to avoid direct brand-name or celebrity references -- as was Victor's style ("You look like Shannen Doherty!", "I've been eating my Wheaties!") -- and use catchphrases that you'd find funny or goofy if you didn't know the reference, and extra-funny/goofy/stupid if you did. The best approach of all, of course, would be to avoid references entirely, but I thought mine was a more palatable approach. The one WD game that genuinely benefitted from Victor's silly-ass localization style was Popful Mail, which I consider a top-20 Sega CD title.

-- Z.
Ah yes, who could forget Ramus' Wheates line!

[zmeston]

Were you with WD whent hey did vay for the Sega CD, or was that before your time and whateer happened to that title anyhow?

Digression: my approach to the pop-culture references, in all but a very few situations, was to avoid direct brand-name or celebrity references -- as was Victor's style ("You look like Shannen Doherty!", "I've been eating my Wheaties!") -- and use catchphrases that you'd find funny or goofy if you didn't know the reference, and extra-funny/goofy/stupid if you did. The best approach of all, of course, would be to avoid references entirely, but I thought mine was a more palatable approach. The one WD game that genuinely benefitted from Victor's silly-ass localization style was Popful Mail, which I consider a top-20 Sega CD title.

-- Z.

Ah yes, who could forget Ramus' Wheates line!

Actually, that was uttered by an NPC in Burg, not Ramus -- but isn't it sad that I can remember something like that and not, say, algebra?

-- Z.

[kainemaxwell]

That's as sad as me remembering Ghaleon's line sin the sega cd version of lunar.

[kainemaxwell]

Ok, at level 66 for everyone in Lunar 2..time to finish off the Dragon's Nest and that last tower or 2.