The Off Topic Lounge: Summer of Nothing Edition

My New Leaf town must be in a dreadful state by now. It was so pretty, but it has been a while since I have been there for the last time.

I went back and played AC every day in December. Partly because I wanted to collect the Jingle furniture set. Haven't touched it at all since New years though. I actually like most of my villagers so it'll be sad to see who's left by the time I decide to play it again.

Beat Black Flag last night, clocked in at like 59 hours. It was way more fun than other AC's I've played, definitely my last in the series though. Lot of boring filler, story was alright at first and fell flat at the end, but there were quite a few fun things so I enjoyed it on the whole, wouldnt play it again, but fun.

I really really want to try Animal Crossing.. I've been looking for City Folk but its a major PITA to find around here :(

@ttualumni13: if I still had my copy I would've given it to you.

@haziqonfire: I love you too Haz. I think I'll just ask my local GS to ship it from another store.. Speaking of GS, the one by my house had three copies of Xenoblade for 53 an two copies of MPT for 45 :O Was surprised to see them, much less that many copies

@ttualumni13: I'm glad I still have my copies. While in the process of moving I was terrified. "WHAT IF I LOST THESE?!"

Did everyone get their platinum/gold rewards?

Mine hasn't arrived yet. I contacted them through email, but they haven't answered . :(

I got my calendar about a month ago.

@JordanElek: That's not good. );

@zeroyaoi: They'll sort it out. Nintendo always does. Just give them at least a couple of weeks to respond.

I hate you Samsung.

Call me superficial (I guess that is an adjective that apply to all Animal Crossing players when picking their villagers), but I hope Katt is gone when I return. She just looks plain weird!!

However, she is also the only Uchi villager I have. I am dying to get a Windmill, and since only Uchi villagers request it, I kind of need her. =/

"Seven" just joined my party in Xenoblade last night. This game... no doubt i'll be playing it nonstop this weekend!

Having finally played it, it really makes me appreciate the hype for 'X'.

I still need to finish it...

I have no idea how people like that game so much

For everything is does right it does two things wrong

It was released on the wrong platform. Put it on the 360 or PS3 or even better put it on the One and the PS4 and you have a great game that's only major flaw is pacing.

@moltenix: awesome, you're gettin into some great parts of the game :D Have you done any colony upgrading? It gets pretty satisfying towards the end as it all comes together.

@haziqonfire: GET ON IT! :)

@ttualumni13: Actually, I haven't touched the Colony upgrading. I "might" try doing some of the extra stuff but i'll likely just keep progressing through the story. I have a habit of wanting to rush through the story in most games; gotta know what happens next!

Am I missing out on anything major?

@Jaysonguy: You played 10 hours of an 80 hour game, that's why you don't understand.

I played 20

20 hours of a game that isn't that great because it was released on weak hardware.

@Jaysonguy: Hardware is not an issue in that game. It runs great with magically nonexistent load times, the art is fantastic and loses absolutely nothing without HD, the music is beautiful.

If anything, stronger hardware would've made it worse. I doubt current hardware would've been able to handle the same scale with higher res textures and more polygons, and the load times would definitely not have been instant. Not to mention the exponentially longer amount of time it would've taken to create.

You haven't seen the most beautiful parts of the game because every new section is better than the last, all the way until the end.

Go back and finish it, then I'll still make fun of you for not liking it, but instead of accusing you of ignorance, I'll just call it bad taste.

:)

@moltenix: nah nothing too major. There is some backstory to the titans and ancient races you can uncover along the way but it's nothin critical. Just neat Easter eggish information for people like me who eat the game a ton of times and want all the little tidbits :P

Ahahah. Perfect.

It sucks seeing Nintendo struggle like this... As long as the WiiU can hold on long enough for Zelda and X to release...

@roboccs: Honestly, so long as they get DKC and X out, I don't care if they discontinue the dang thing and move on to the next console :P I HAVE TO HAVE THOSE TWO GAMES. I've got a lot of value out of the console so far, but those are my two system sellers, haha.

I've actually been really enjoying the stuff that's been coming out on the U. It's too bad that people aren't giving it a chance. On the other hand, it's also a bit disappointing that Nintendo didn't make the system a bit more powerful. It didn't need to be on the exact same level as XB1/PS4 but cmon, it's missing out on games left and right. It's not hard to see why people that aren't too crazy about Nintendo games discrediting it so easily.

It'll be interesting to see how they try to turn things around this year. They're gonna need to push out some big games outside of just Smash, MK and X for 2014. They also gotta keep the 3DS momentum going. I don't know about you guys, but compared to 2013, there's not much on the 3DS i'm excited for; I don't really care for Kirby Triple Deluxe or Yoshi's Island. Last year at this same time, I was pumped for Fire Emblem, Monster Hunter, Luigi's Mansion and Animal Crossing. In their attempts to save the Wii U, I hope the 3DS doesn't suffer because of it.

@moltenix: I don't know how they save the WiiU... With no 3rd party support at this point, even if they jumped aboard now it would be years before we saw anything... Really sad, they took too many gambles after they caught lightning in a bottle with the wii.

I can't see them abandoning making consoles though.

Oh and I'm glad you're enjoying Xenoblade. My advice is stay on comparable leveling with the bosses you're fighting, it makes a huge difference in this game. I'm on my second playthrough and I'm leveled a lot higher at this point than I was last time. Parts that took my 10 tries to beat last time I'm breezing through this time. Equipping gems is huge too! I honestly haven't messed with the skill trees much, I have a bit but I honestly never understood the system that much.

Best story and music in a game since Tales of Symphonia in my opinion!

@roboccs: The third parties are totally gone at this point. Now that the newer games are coming out for XB1/PS4, we're either gonna see inferior versions or none at all (it's the Wii situation all over again but this time the system isn't selling at all). I also doubt they can pump out enough must-have first party stuff to make a big difference. Even 3D World didn't do all that well compared to previous 3D Mario games.

@roboccs: Aaah man you've got to get into the skill trees more, they can really beef up/add versatility to your characters. Right now I've got skill links setup where I've basically got 100% crit chance, and a skill link where critical hits restore health, so I heal myself everytime I hit the enemy :P

@JordanElek:

@ttualumni13: That's power!!

Sorry about your Pats Jay. Once Taliba went out the Pats had no answer. They beat Belichek at his own game by controlling the clock and picking an under-manned D apart.

They threw Brady off his game too. He missed a few opportunities.

Super Mario 3D World is really, really, really good, but I have a problem with it which I've had with most of the top Nintendo games on the Wii U. It's everything I've come to expect. I don't know if Super Mario 3D World gets better later on (I'm at the last world, after world 6) but so far it hasn't excited me quite as much as Super Mario Galaxy/Galaxy 2 did.

I feel like Nintendo has come to a point where a new Mario and a new Zelda isn't really exciting anymore and that's crazy ... because they're not annual franchises but they kind of feel that way now. I'm hoping with the Wii U they'll bring back some of their older franchises or invest in new ones ... I mean I wouldn't mind a brand new Nintendo IP made by the Zelda team, Retro or Nintendo EAD.

Just finished Xenoblade after playing non-stop this weekend (and the past week for that matter)! What an adventure it's been, I haven't been hooked on something like this for a while now. It's honestly a real shame that more people haven't gotten to play this.

I'm absolutely in love with this soundtrack right now.

@moltenix: Congrats man! I know, it got better and better as it went on. Once I got to Alcomoth, I was hooked. I'm hooked on the soundtrack too, I listen to it a lot while working. Prologue B is glorious.

Nice job moltenix! I listened the the full OST on youtube a lot when I was working a lot of overtime, its soothing haha.

I love working a state job, I get so many holidays off its ridiculous. I'll be enjoying my monday off catching up on a bunch of great gamecube games I missed out on back then. Been playing Double Dash a bit tonight, loving it so far, a lot of great tracks that I wish had made it into MKwii.

Looking back, I had a choice of getting an Xbox with Halo or a Gamecube with Pikmin, wish I'd picked the Gamecube now! Double dash would have held me over for ages haha

I don't think I've ever posted in here before. Good day, gents and gals.... Are there women here? If no, I'm not staying.

No, Jaysonguy scared them all away.

I'm not joking.

I thought the greek guy who stalked vampire chicks scared them off? :P

Just played F-zero for awhile. What a fun game! Freakin hard though! Haven't mastered drifting yet.

Damn it, Jayson...

It's gonna feel bit weird jumping into Wind Waker HD (next game on my list) having just finished the masterpiece that is Xenoblade. On the bright side, I think that might be the last time I use the Classic Controller Pro for anything. U Pro Controller is much more comfortable.

Anyway, how long is Wind Waker? I believe I left off having just arrived at Dragon Roost Island.

Well we have people who think it's ok to recycle and I think at one point we had a vegetarian, is that close enough?

@Jaysonguy: We also had that dude in here who made those anti-Semitic remarks too... Can't remember his name for the life of me.

Oh lord, vegetarians? I'm all for vegetables, but only if they are surrounded by bacon and glorious meat.

@yokofox33: You'll do just fine here :)

I did this just two days ago.

A year and a half has passed and I still regularly listen to its soundtrack. I look back at FF6, Chrono Trigger / Chrono Cross, Ocarina of Time, my favorite gaming ost soundtrack does go to Xenoblade, not by a landslide but I can't deny still hearing the tracks well over a year later.

On another note, I'm like seeing Jayson complain that the glorious Xenoblade is not be on one of those lesser consoles :)

I decided to start replaying Skyward Sword today.

I cleared the first dungeon and even though I already knew how great the game was in those aspects, I could not help but be amazed at the character development at the game's early stages (you really feel terrible for Zelda and Link when things go sour) and how great the first dungeon is (something that is rare for a Zelda game, on which most initial dungeons are merely introductory).

The controls are stellar and the combat is great!

My only complaint is that the game looks really murky on my by HD TV. It makes me wish Nintendo had gone HD last gen, because Wii games lose a lot of their visual qualities when put in those big modern screens.

Thank you, this made me put the Xenoblade OST on my iPod. I loved the music in that game, not sure why I hadn't done that already.

I'm not sure if I knew Mitsuda had worked on some of the tracks.... I looked it up, and he only did the ending theme, which is usually my favorite song in any game. Zelda games in particular have fantastic staff rolls. Wind Waker's is the best.

Anyway, it made me curious if there were any other games Mitsuda had worked on that I didn't know about, since Chrono Trigger has one of my favorite game soundtracks. Other notable games he worked on:

Xenogears - I knew that. I used to have Grahf's theme on my computer but that's gone now. Maybe I should look into that again, see if the music still resonates with me.

Mario Party - ..... why?

Bomberman 64: The Second Attack - I only mention this because I had no idea that there was a sequel to Bomberman 64. That game pissed me off. It was impossible and frustrating and not nearly as fun as 2D Bomberman multiplayer. I'm sure hearing the music would bring back terrible memories.

Xenosaga - I did like the music in the first game. But the game itself wasn't good enough for me to want to remember it through its music. I tried the second one and it was just too slow paced and boring with a story that ceased to make sense.

Arc Rise Fantasia - Haven't played it, but I know @roboccs has. Was the music good?

Kid Icarus Uprising - Also a game with fantastic music, didn't know Mitsuda worked on it.

@JordanElek: I'm 46 hours into Arc Rise and still going strong. And yes, the music is one of the high points of the game. I won't say it's as good as the Chrono music but it's very good. Since it's been one of my main games lately I've had a few of the tracks constantly in my head. Happens all the time, I probably have game music in my head these days more than regular music.