Persona 5?

[Chainsaw_Charlie]

After playing Digital Devil saga 1,2 Nocturne, Devil Summoner, Persona 3 fes Contact Disgaea 1,2 and Persona 4 all in the last 1.5 yrs and now playing FF12 finally(yes I have played DQ 4 and FF3J as well) Atlus rocks gaming wise to the point the only way Square-enix could ever match up in my eyes is the Snes Era

[maxlords]

Yeah, I have trouble with anyone saying Atlus is putting out shovelware too. Hell...I bought most of their titles this year so far and have a lot more preordered. Even Master of the Monster Lair, which I had initially completely dismissed as a run-of-the-mill random dungeon/building/simish thing is astonishingly fun to play and entertaining. The only game I haven't gotten into yet from Atlus lately is the Izuna series.I've got Devil Survivor, Knights in the Nightmare, and Crimson Gem Saga preordered, and I still need to get Eternal Poison too. Heck, I was thinking about checking out Trackmania too, simply because if Atlus localized it, they most likely feel it's good, and they tend to be right. A phenomenal company IMO.

[Press_Start]

A brief list of quality Atlus games from the last year or two: Etrian Odyssey 1 and 2, Rondo of Swords, Persona 3 and 4, the Trauma Center games, Yggdra Union, Arcana Heart, Odin Sphere, Contact, Summon Knight DS, Tokyo Beat Down... That's a pretty good list of of good games for ANY publisher.

Not to mention reaching extending themselves beyond RPG-venues: Trackmania for racing, Hammerin' Hero for platformers, Tokyo Beat Down for Beat 'em ups, and Hell, even the family fun (a.k.a. "shovelware") aspect with 101 in 1 Explosive Megamix. One genre at a time, they're trying to draw in new audiences and extending their presence through, IMO, a series of great-quality, niche games. Contrary to Square-Enix, gaining exposure via the mainstream route.

Despite Atlus' impressive stream of game releases, they're still holding themselves back. Princess Crown (developed by VanillaWare, the same guys who made Odin Sphere) is an excellent example. Joe and I had a short discussion at NAVA today and pondered why this classic hasn't landed stateside yet despite its release to the PSP. You would think bells and whistles be going off when news of its predecessor (a.k.a. Odin Sphere) reached Greatest Hits status. Yet, nothing is heard. Maybe I should send them an e-mail asking why.

[Kid Fenris]

Not to mention reaching extending themselves beyond RPG-venues: Trackmania for racing, Hammerin' Hero for platformers, Tokyo Beat Down for Beat 'em ups, and Hell, even the family fun (a.k.a. "shovelware") aspect with 101 in 1 Explosive Megamix. One genre at a time, they're trying to draw in new audiences and extending their presence through, IMO, a series of great-quality, niche games. Contrary to Square-Enix, gaining exposure via the mainstream route.

Despite Atlus' impressive stream of game releases, they're still holding themselves back. Princess Crown (developed by VanillaWare, the same guys who made Odin Sphere) is an excellent example. Joe and I had a short discussion at NAVA today and pondered why this classic hasn't landed stateside yet despite its release to the PSP. You would think bells and whistles be going off when news of its predecessor (a.k.a. Odin Sphere) reached Greatest Hits status. Yet, nothing is heard. Maybe I should send them an e-mail asking why.

Word is that the source code for Princess Crown was lost, making a translated version a prohibitively expensive measure. Or so I've heard.

It's a shame, since Princess Crown is actually better than Odin Sphere. It's less of a frustrating chore, at the very least.

[exit]

Rumor has it that they are working on a new Shin Megami Tensei game for PS3, nothing has been said if it's going to be a sequel to anything or a completely new game. Whatever it is I can't wait to see the world of SMT in current gen graphics.

Maybe I used the term emo too loosely. I mean extremely generic anime characters which all the emo RPG wannabe hardcore eat up. I don't need to list any specific titles because it's pretty much "every title."

I've always found the Shin Megami Tensei series to have superb art and character design. It's not nearly as bland as anything in the Final Fantasy games X and above, in which the Male characters would easily be confused as Female for someone who wasn't already playing the game.

[Cryomancer]

Word is that the source code for Princess Crown was lost

Which game, the original or the port? Both? Where did you hear this? Sorry, I'm just curious on this point.

[Kid Fenris]

It's bandied around whenever the lack of a translated Princess Crown comes up, but I don't know if it's ever been confirmed. Here's a thread from the Atlus forums.

http://www.atlus.com/atlus_forum/vie...8484be4756c06a

Summary: the original's source code is lost, and the PSP port is the Saturn game running on an emulator. That supposedly rules out a translation. Perhaps someone here who knows more about source code and ROMs can explain further.

[Press_Start]

Word is that the source code for Princess Crown was lost, making a translated version a prohibitively expensive measure. Or so I've heard.

It's a shame, since Princess Crown is actually better than Odin Sphere. It's less of a frustrating chore, at the very least.

Hmmm....what about a translation patch? If fans can make one for Mother 3, then a company like Atlus is capable in producing one, right?

[Aussie2B]

I also strongly disagree that their games are shovel-ware, although I'm positive that's just another negative buzzword that you choose regardless of it's actual meaning. There's a very strong difference between the likes of Ys, Summon Night, Etrian Odyssey, Growlanser, etc. to say Carnival Games or Ninja Bread Man.

It's one thing to say that you don't care for a certain art style or entire genre of game, but another entirely to suggest that all post-Disgaea Atlus releases are low budget, rush jobs, thrown out on the shelves to make a quick buck off the ill-informed consumer. Because that is exactly what shovel-ware games are.

He's made the "shovelware" claim before, and, no, logical arguments and explanations of what shovelware really is don't work. :P

[carlcarlson]

He's made the "shovelware" claim before, and, no, logical arguments and explanations of what shovelware really is don't work. :P

Well he's the guy that said Disgaea sucked, so it's pretty clear that his tastes are a little... odd.

I mean. I know Disgaea sucks, but come on now. Thanks alot ATLUS. Instead of owning an rare and expensive shitty game, now I just own a shitty game. Isn't it enough that you guys release nothing but shovelware anymore?

[Daria]

Well he's the guy that said Disgaea sucked, so it's pretty clear that his tastes are a little... odd.

It's times like these that you wish you had a face palm pic handy. :/

[Kid Fenris]

Hmmm....what about a translation patch? If fans can make one for Mother 3, then a company like Atlus is capable in producing one, right?

That's where things go into unfamiliar territory for me. There are fan translations of CD-based games out there (Ys IV, the in-progress Policenauts), so I guess it wouldn't be impossible. Perhaps it would just be time-consuming and expensive compared to localizing a new RPG with the source code ready and waiting.

It's really a question for the programmers reading this: how important is a game's source code?

[Icarus Moonsight]

Source and documents are extremely important. When all that exists is the final build compiled code you have to dig into it and convert it all back into something more readable and accessible for people. You have to separate game code from just raw data, then you have to separate the types of data. Sprites/graphics, sound/music files, text dialog etc. Translation is a pretty specialized field and so is software engineering. Finding a group of people that can just look at the machine code, find the bits of dialog in the data and translate it to English is pretty much not happening.

With a documented source it is much simpler a task and literally one quarter of the work. It is possible to do so from a final build but, it is an expensive proposition and a huge pain in the ass.

[kupomogli]

Well he's the guy that said Disgaea sucked, so it's pretty clear that his tastes are a little... odd.

The only good thing to come from Disgaea is Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero. Instead of making shitty RPG's with flashy attacks and porting them to 30 different systems, they should stick with platformers.

I personally think that people only like Disgaea because of the flashy attacks and an AI that is specifically catered to retards. "OMGZ. The dumbass AI is killing me in one hit! LEVEL GRIND!!!!" Level grinding really isn't needed in the main game due to how stupid the AI is, but there are the extra areas where the enemies are far overleveled.

[Daria]

The only good thing to come from Disgaea is Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero. Instead of making shitty RPG's with flashy attacks and porting them to 30 different systems, they should stick with platformers.

I personally think that people only like Disgaea because of the flashy attacks and an AI that is specifically catered to retards. "OMGZ. The dumbass AI is killing me in one hit! LEVEL GRIND!!!!" Level grinding really isn't needed in the main game due to how stupid the AI is, but there are the extra areas where the enemies are far overleveled.

Did somebody say something?

Anyways, since Saturn translations are actually feasible now, I would expect a Princess Crown translation will surface eventually. Besides the Shining Series, I can't think of a more well known RPG import for the system.

[kupomogli]

Princess Crown is only well known because all of the bullshit hype about it being Odin Sphere's spiritual successor. Saying Princess Crown is good is like the really hardcore Street Fighter fanbase who say the original Street Fighter is a good game. Except for one thing, the majority of people are basing Princess Crown off of absolutely nothing. Never having played the game and all the bullshit hype brought up about it, they rant about how amazing it is. As for Street Fighter, these people are basing it on nostalgia. Neither are good games.

I compared the game against the original Street Fighter for a single reason. Control. Both games control like ass. Odin Sphere(pictured below) brought this up to speed to make the gameplay not suck as hard, but Odin Sphere is nothing more than a "decent" game.



However. Odin Sphere was probably praised so highly by fanbase for a single reason. ATLUS released this pile of shit(pictured below.) Worst SMT game I've played. Storyline is boring as shit, gameplay is just plain shit, and highest random encounter rate ever in a video game(yes, even more than Beyond the Beyond.) In a town? Random encounter. In a house? Random encounter. Title screen? Random encounter. The only good thing about the game is the music and amazing 2d prerendered backdrops(which makes me wish more PS2 games would take this style of graphic quality.)



So yeah. Odin Sphere's release. OMG. ATLUS GAME!!! Coming off of a piece of shit like Devil Summoner Raidou Kuzunoha released almost a year earlier, who wouldn't think that Odin Sphere was a great game? I'd rather play a new Tales of game and those have been getting worse with every release, even though they are all worth playing(except Vesperia. Dunno if that's any good.)

And these are high profile ATLUS games. So I'll also list some of their games that are pretty much a joke.

Rondo of Swords. Broken gameplay with it's crappy move through the enemy system. Not really that fun either. Izuna. Was ATLUS trying to make a joke here? B-Daman. I only played this on rom, but I'd say this one is closest to fitting the shovelware bill. Trauma Center. Very overrated series, repeatedly do the same shit(basically) until you beat the game or get bored first, and remember to draw a crap load of stars as some of that stuff at the end is a bit hard. This is just to name a few. I had to name Trauma Center as it's a high profile game that's crap, yet an amazing game like Feel the Magic barely get any sortof recognition from most everyone(if only Feel the Magic had ATLUS or Squaresoft on the side then it'd probably get the praise it deserves -- let's not forget it's almost as good sequel Rub Rabbits.) Though this is only to name a few.

Though ATLUS does have SOME good games that have been released in recent years or look to be good(Crimson Gem Saga and Devil Survivor look to be amazing.)

[Cryomancer]

Yeah, hate them so much you bought them. That'll show em!

[Kid Fenris]

Kupomogli, your penmanship suggests either Asperger's or closeted coprophilia. I recommend therapy.

Princess Crown is only well known because all of the bullshit hype about it being Odin Sphere's spiritual successor.

I don't think you know what "successor" means, Chuckles.

Saying Princess Crown is good is like the really hardcore Street Fighter fanbase who say the original Street Fighter is a good game. Except for one thing, the majority of people are basing Princess Crown off of absolutely nothing. Never having played the game and all the bullshit hype brought up about it, they rant about how amazing it is. As for Street Fighter, these people are basing it on nostalgia. Neither are good games.)

Yes, no one who praises Princess Crown could have played the game, as it was only a popular import for the Saturn and an accessible re-release on the PSP. This devastating one-two punch ensured that only people who hated the game were able to experience it.

[G-Boobie]

I've got twenty bucks that Kupomogli earns himself a ban within six months. Any takers?

[thedeityofhardcore]

360 plz