Community > dowolf

Aurora
Speed
Redemption

Lots of close matches, third in particular.

Super Metroid
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Ori and the Blind Forest
Metroid Prime

Ori and Hollow Knight are both fighting for that third slot, but it feels wrong not to have SM or SotN, or to not have the first great 3D Metroidvania.

To follow-up from last topic: Gina's great for sure. She's easily my favorite character in DGS. I don't recall much shady Gregson from 2-3, but again, that's something the localization might have chosen to focus on. And it's to the game's benefit if they did!

As for this case... Hoh boy. Stronghart / Vortex is not a good villain. His choices to let the trial be prolonged don't make sense. Again, it's been 7 years and memories are vague, but I recall it really being a vibe of "Yes my master plan means that I've already won, but I suppose I can humor you and let the trial continue anyways." But more than that, this is the second time in the series where we, as the Ace Attorney, are miracle'd out of what should be a losing position. The first time was in 4-4, where the jury system just says "screw the evidence we have feelings." And now here, it's "screw the rules I'M THE MOTHERLOVING QUEEN OF ENGLAND." Did anyone find that satisfying? Like I'm not saying you can't have a last-second event that turns the board around, that you can't have Gumshoe come flying in with the evidence that you asked him to get hours ago and only barely remember. I'm saying that I want to feel like I'm not a puppet in Holmes' mad offscreen triumph, a pawn on Hobo Wright's 5D chess board, that the main character was integral in the end to the victory.

andyit raises really good points about how we don't bother to fix any institutional issues, which maybe Ace Attorney doesn't need to do. But what it does need to do is provide hope that those fixes are possible and worth fighting for. That's where we started -- we were fighting for the little guy in a court where guilt was assumed and to argue to the contrary was considered insulting. "Royal Monarch Fixes Everything" spits in the face of that.

I'm sure there's details that those of you who played it more recently will remember that might help mitigate those complaints. We certainly got Vortex to admit to the crimes in what turned out to be the Queen's earshot. But what has stuck with me over the years were those two impressions: "Why didn't this trial end five hours ago?" and "...that's it?"

BCPP
memoria
lights

memories returned is wonderfully bittersweet. It feels like an ending song, which i normally don't like, but I am in a bittersweet mood at the moment.

i am very afraid right now that i am screwing everything up forever. so is love psalm, I think.

And then we transition to a song that is exploring a very very very messed up ancient ruins. there is nothing good there. fly, fool!

lights is bouncing off of me right now.

well.

now i'm sad.

I really did not like this case, or G2-5. Maybe some more time in the oven to provide foreshadowing would've helped. Or maybe it was just that I didn't like how everything was tied together and never would have, with Gregson in particular feeling like this new side of him came out of literally nowhere. Maybe it was better foreshadowed in EN? It would be a reasonable thing to change, I think. But most of all, Stronghart is just... boring. He should probably wait, though.

Also there's the fact that, despite the jury system being one of the main hooks for DGS, it's used literally... four times? Out of 10 cases? I might be miscounting but it's still absurd.

Imperial Flower Brigade's... wait. "Declaration"? That's... God that's a machine translation isn't it. That would explain a lot. Rip.
Somnia Memories
Tower of Memories

I wrote enough about Tunic last year. My opinion hasn't changed. I'm not the biggest fan of french melodies either, but it still has a cool ethereal quality that does appeal to me.

TOWER OF MEMORIES featuring BYAKKO <squee>. When they opened up the Tower of Memories last year, I was blown away by this tune. The entirety of the Garden of Memories is a place defined by distortion. Every potential party member is there, with a message that's heavily distorted, and slowly but surely over the course of the game's duration we've been making those messages less distorted. But for the most part, it's a place where you can watch what are basically interludes featuring each of the characters. And fight some endgame challenges. I digress. The point is this entire realm makes no sense. Some of the interludes are explicitly canon -- as in, they're referenced in events and/or the MSQ. Others are explicitly impossible -- one interlude for one character unambiguously has us talking to her after her death. Also we're followed around by a talking cat who sometimes wears a crown. Not to be confused with Byakko, who is the giant white tiger and who can understand human speech but cannot talk herself. God there's so much I'm hungry to learn about this 'verse. I digress even more. The Tower of Memories is one of those lategame challenge / strengthening areas -- it doesn't have any real story behind it -- but this song is the perfect way to transition from weird semi-creepy afterlife interlude hub thing to strange battles against distortions of your party thing. I dunno if any of that context is actually useful but you get it anyways HAH.

softbank is fine I guess. That quote looks like a horrible translation but it's a UF8 game so maybe it's on purpose. You never really know with UF8. But it never crosses that line over to stupendous for me. Just a pleasant jaunt into a database, this.

clearly this tie was caused by my failing to translate lyrics. Time to correct that mistake!

The Imperial Capital trembles, rent asunder as the night howls
Till the warriors spring onto the stage, belting out their song of love
Maidens all, armor-clad down to their hearts
Questing to trample evil and fight for what's right

Run forth, lightspeed Imperial Opera-tions Team *
Bellow loud, shock-troop Imperial Opera-tions Team

We fight for justice
Though that may mean we put our lives on the line,
We won't take surrender a single inch!
That is what it means to be in the Imperial Opera-tions Team!

The Imperial Capital shivers as the last light goes dark
Till the warriors spring onto the stage, painting rainbows
Maidens all, shining a spotlight on passion at the dawn
Questing to eliminate evil and fight for what's right

Run forth, lightspeed Imperial Opera-tions Team
Bellow loud, shocktroops of the Imperial Opera-tions Team

Run forth, lightspeed Imperial Opera-tions Team
Bellow loud, shocktroops of the Imperial Opera-tions Team

*yes this is a pun in JP. I regret nothing.

Funky
Burning, Churning, Empowering
Springy Windy Sky Larky

"One more awesome" is a great title. This is such a UF8 song. Weird jazz is interesting, something I can appreciate intellectually even if it's something I would never seek out on my own.

Funky Dealer is silly fun. It doesn't have the majesty of Wrapped in Black, or the anthem-like glory of Concept of Love, but it's still up there as one of Naganuma's best. The funky instrumental segment right in the middle is cool. I might like this more without the (blackjack?) dealer's calls, actually. Although, without them, would it still be a Naganuma song? An interesting question.

i kinda want to play this game solely based on the title ngl ANYWAYS this changes pretty drastically post-intro into something decently cool! The background flute is really nice.

"Burning, churning power plant" is almost good. But just two -ing adjectives is a mistake. Consider "Burning, Churning, Powering." Or "Empowering." Okay whatever the heck that instrument was at 1:00 was really cool. Ooh and the bells at the chorus :)

Okay the first thirty seconds of Astral are not promising. I hope it's not six minutes of this.

Well it was but Skylark is Asano and Asano always knows how to put a smile on my face. I love the Gust flute so much, and then the strings and accordion are just so beautifully arranged together. I just love how effortlessly everything trades off with each other, how we keep adding more instruments, how we go full HAM FLUTE! Wild Woods, take notes.

Now this case is the exact opposite of G2-2; it is the one case that has absolutely stuck with me through the years. Absolute peak from start to finish, which is only slightly marred by the amount of raw rage I felt at Kazuma's return. And while perhaps in the trilogy-version of DGS we would've gotten more time between Zieks and Harebrayne, I love how we're given just enough that it shows us more of who Zieks really is, without feeling like he ever becomes the protagonist. I also love their (final, I believe?) conversation in court in 2-3, which I did a translation of back in the day:

"That man mocked you. Named you talentless.
"Yet he knows nothing.
"Nothing of the sacrifices you've made in pursuit of what you believe to be true.
"He has no right to scorn such a thing. No one does."

Rage
Moiety
About That

Not much to say here, except that if you listen to Rage and don't think "wow this is a dowolf song" I am very confused but also this was everyone's reaction to it in the pre-nom guessing game so I don't think I'mma be very confused!

Wild Woods is almost a dowolf song, but it's really a nintendo song and lacks the kind of depth I'm usually looking for out of my Celtic-inspired world music.

I have only vague memories of this case, since it's been seven years for me and I did not like DGS2 very much so I haven't replayed it. Some of the antics have stuck around in my head, but no emotional beats have, for better or for worse.

I'm not sure how I feel about the update overall. It's good, but a step down from 2.0 and 2.1. I think you could've cut 1-2 hours from the plot and just made everything a lot tighter.

14.3
Declaration! Imperial Floral Assault Group
Boing T11

It's hard to judge 14.3 Billion years out of context. How much of what I feel is the culmination of that experience, and how much is the actual song itself? I think 22 minutes does a bit better in isolation, which is why I prefer it, but the universe has chosen otherwise. Though I wonder: what were the odds that the Outer Wilds 'verse is exactly the same age as our own? Does it matter, given that the point of the number is to evoke a certain connection in the listener? Hmm.

Aria math is not for me sorry progheads i'm secretly not one of you (GASP). I do like the strings late in the loop a lot.

this song makes me laugh so much. It's just so, so... Nostalgic? Nostalgia, for a game I never played in a series I played one game of? Look if I start questioning my brain now we'll be here all day. The chorus is just so happy. The mixture of western and eastern sounds works so well; i'mma assume the game is set in Taishou-era Japan? Or somewhere around there. Maybe Meiji but ~1920 feels more right to me. The backup singers I think really seal the deal, just adds that extra bit of magic and uniquity the song would otherwise be missing.

Did you know rinne means samsara, which refers to metempsychosis? If so, congrats on knowing what metempsychosis is! The song feels mysterious. I wonder how much Buddhism is engrained in the game's story. I think this is really cool but it doesn't quite blow me away as much as its opponent, I don't think.

I don't know why I like this song. It feels like a broken music box at first, but then the lower notes come in and it feels like it was right and it was always right and why did you think it wasn't dowolf? Yeah. I dunno. I wish I did.

TCG2 has such a good OST why wasn't it localized boooooooooo. Again a close match where one song just resonates.

also i'm surprised at the G1-2 dislike. I remember really liking it in Japanese, especially with how it played with the real-world Case of the Speckled Band.

oh i'm not opposed to the decision at all, it just made me go "huh."

(God I wish they'd localized Susato and her father's names. And Seishiro Jigoku, though that given name hits the nail perhaps a little too hard on the head.)

Leonhart4 posted...

I don't think it was ever officially confirmed, but it was originally rumored to be a trilogy, and there are things that are mentioned in the first game that are altogether forgotten or just rushed through in the second game.

The Russian plot in particular is just absent from the second game, and I can't imagine that was Takumi's intention, especially since we visit the World's Fair.

It was supposed to be a trilogy, yes. Then the first game sold worse than expected.

I think G2-1, like all the Natsume Souseki cases, probably suffers a lot in translation. Though now I'm just curious why Rei Membami is the only person who got a localized name in the case -- and it's one that's only legal Japanese in traditional Hepburn! (deep dive: is usually transliterated as 'n' but it is pronounced closer to "m" before some consonants, so older transliteration styles would write it as 'm' in those cases. "Asahi Shimbun" is perhaps the best example of one where that style has survived to the modern era, but it's all over the place -- "senpai" should be pronounced "sempai," for instance.) Granted I'm the one that always writes e.g. "Tempei Sato" so I'm not complaining, but it is weird.

...oh i guess Menimemo from Mamemomi counts too, that one's so similar though.

...

i somehow never knew that his last name is sacred.

I feel like Kurt is a lot better in the alternate universe where him and Juna become a couple, instead of Juna being stuck in Rean's harem.

FightGod
Nerby Suite
Live and Urn

oh god i accidentally clicked on the link because I didn't realize it wasn't a video and proceeded to lose everything I'd written WELP. Basically it was just me liking New Battle but complaining about the semi-loop points making me feel like I'd wasted my time, liking FightGod a lot despite the ugly underscore but being minorly depressed that it doesn't have a snail's chance in hell, thinking Donk isn't for me even if I am a big ol' donkhead and also Darkwing Duck is so much cooler, gushing over Nerby Suite and how it fills its time with a glorious slow burn into three of the greatest final minutes in all of VGM, and i like butt rock but do i like it more than my favorite Final Fantasy soundtrack? Let's find out after the break...

WHAT DO YOU MEAN NERBY SWEET ISN'T THE LONGEST SONG TODAY?! This song is not twelve minutes long. It's not. It can't be. Is it? I mean this is one of the "what if we just mashed TWO songs together" uploads but even so. "Do you remember the song of the ocean waves"? okay I'm not mad anymore. but i can't believe in magic anymore and ibasho de wa nai kedo. i just feel so small listening to this. not small as in "i was THIS TINY when i played FFXIII2" but like "i am THIS TINY when i listen to this song now." man i usually hate muted instruments but the solo just works here, i am a dream on a shore bordering another final fantasy. Loop point is 3:40 fight me. I refuse to waste my time let's fast forward three minutes. oh hi giant loud rhythm. I would've voted for the first half of this in a heartbeat. Second half is the bad half. This is the bad place. Why. Sometimes all phases mixes are a mistake. Robot voice vocals are cool at the end of the loop but is it worth the journey? I don't really think so. Anyways the moral of the story is "if your track length is above 5 minutes stop arbitrarily doubling things kthx .

Myst
Monkey Island
The Walking Dead
Riven

I think I give the nod to Myst over Riven due to its impact, even though I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue Myst is the better game. Though at the same time, Riven is so much better it's ridiculous. Monkey Island over Maniac Mansion feels wrong somehow, but eh. Something from the Telltale renaissance has to make it in, and then I'll give the fourth slot to Riven out of blatant favoritism. It should probably be Zork though.

Scarlet's kinda been rescued from the scrappy heap and maybe should be higher? But the other two are absolutely in "oh right those were people who existed" territory.

Won the 50/50 on Topaz. I'm leaning towards "pass" on Robin but we'll see if she blows me away in the story and that changes my mind.

i would play the heck out of AA x P4.

i don't disagree that it's good, but also 8/10 sounds about right to me. I also do think genre impact needs to matter, which it sounds like you disagree with me on. Which is fine >_>

As for Ace Attorney, the dividing line for me is something like "Do I have freedom of movement in 2D or 3D spaces, or am I interacting solely with text?" Ace Attorney is solely text, so it counts. AAI would not count under that definition, though.

Snake5555555555 posted...

I usually hate using this example since my mom is a life-long gamer who plays new releases, but she doesn't know anything about VNs and knows what DDLC is.

well that is the other side of things, right? Most VNs and certainly most of the stuff DDLC draws from are 18+ and that's going to alienate a lot of potential fans. DDLC is not.

Like Steam vs. VNDB is exactly that: steam reviews from people who've never read anything like it and are blown away, VNDB reviews from people who know other things in its genre to compare it against.

Undertale is fairly well liked, but the games it's pulling from (like Moon RPG Remix) didn't exactly sell like hotcakes in Japan either.

DDLC certainly isn't hated in Japan, but at the same time it isn't put on a pedestal either. I'd look up the exact reception but I am at work and it turns out they have very nsfw banner ads on the main JP-language VN rating site (whoops). (edit: found a way around that, looks like it has a 76. A good score, nothing outstanding.)

Thorn posted...

When I say redundant, I mean that you're basically all pulling from a similar slice in time in the 2000s rather than a more diverse representation of the history. If you don't care about that or think that their impact is great enough that it overrides it (as I ultimately did) then yeah it may not.

Ah. Hmm yeah that's a fair point. For better or for worse I'm not really familiar with pre-2000 VN's (it doesn't help that many of them are really hard to run on modern PCs), there was a broad stretch of moeblob everywhere where I didn't like much of what was coming out, and I do think for something like this that you shouldn't include things in, say, the last 5 years where it's hard to really know their long-term impact. (Also I don't really follow the modern scene much at all.) Like, Lessons in Love is my actual favorite dempa VN but it's being released serially and for all I know it won't stick the landing or will never be finished or w/e.

MacArrowny posted...

Subahibi didn't even manage to get an anime, which would imply it wasn't that popular, right?

also i wish i were in the timeline where oretsuba didn't get an anime.

Thorn posted...

Particularly if you feel like loading up Key/TM/When They Cry as entries is a bit redundant and wanted to free a space up for something a bit different.

Are they redundant? Type Moon basically kicked off the chuunibyou craze, while Maeda (who wrote the Key stuff that's getting discussed) is the master of nakige. Very different beasts.

As for Ryuukishi07, I love his work but it's hard to say he's one of the best four VN authors of all time.

...I think part of why I'm resisting putting DDLC on is that DDLC is generally disliked by a lot of the Japanese-speaking community not because it's bad, but because to them it's not fresh and new and the English-only community was treating it as fresh and new. I'm not that bad -- DDLC does deserve praise -- but I also don't fully disagree with the arguments against it. So it's kinda weird to see it here.

i realize that it's too late to convince folks, but DDLC is a strange choice. It's one of the few dempa VNs that made it big in the West, but I don't think it should be chosen over the things that inspired it. Subahibi (Wonderful Everyday) really should be there instead. My list in total would be:

F/SN
Subahibi
CLANNAD
Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai

Honorable mention to steins;gate, but it's just not influential enough. Oretsuba because Ou Jackson needs a rep and also it's easily my favorite of the untranslated kamige so i'mma put it here and watch it lose.

also if anyone has a song in JP that they want me to provide subs for before their match feel free to ask

i did a subtitled video for before i rise (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uet0MiAFUSk), if folks are okay with swapping to it.

Bit of an easy Pure Fiction this time around. I like taking infinite turns :) Second team would've probably gone better if i'd just broken down and finally built Dr. Ratio by now, but 40k on the first team makes for easy pickings.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/6154178e.jpg

not even close

Moving doubles, because just because I refuse to abandon ALL-STARS doesn't mean I'll watch my other noms die for it.

- Friday Night Funkin': Mario's Madness | All Stars | https://youtu.be/zCnfHxcmXXM
+ Dig Delight Direct Drive DJ | Arcana | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DobmeC7CxWM

CHARGE!

or something

guess i'm staying on tailor now!

probably dropping Almighty Tailor, heads up.

TheManaSword posted...

Yeah, once you have two solid teams, pulling for extra characters seems a bit less useful.

that's true in Genshin, but i'm not convinced it's true here. Pure Fiction and Memory of Chaos both want different characters, and there is a decent impetus to have a DPS of every element.

azuarc posted...

+ Honkai Impact 3rd | Rubia | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIv5lFkBey0
@dowolf

fudgemonkeys.

- Pokemon Sleep | Taupe Hollow (Day) | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpsHttRqSUw
+ Honkai Impact 3rd | Rubia | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIv5lFkBey0

is kaine/salvation a ballad?

...yeah i guess it is. But it also appealing to the weird-music crowd probably helps.

Rubia's such a pretty song. like I know ballads have never historically done super well in these things, but I'm a sucker for them.

I'M SORRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

- Honkai Impact 3rd | Rubia | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIv5lFkBey0
+ Granblue Fantasy Versus | Morning Light Hymnus | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llZgeo_eOKw

Right then.

- Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage | Kashika | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka3AFz5Dx30
+ Heaven Burns Red | Sailing Ship (Broken ver.) | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDQc-pOQTiA

AH I TOLD MYSELF I WOULDN'T

Double, lock
+ Limbus Company | Compass | https://youtu.be/92E0X59wzeg

...screw it.

Double, lock
++ Arcaea | Lost in the Abyss | https://youtu.be/lwyZfuDG2Jw

PLOT TWIST

Double, Lock
+ DEEMO II | Unravelling | https://youtu.be/EGKwpO_v9UY

why double things to lock them when i can double them to put them at 4/2?

+ Friday Night Funkin': Mario's Madness | All Stars | https://youtu.be/zCnfHxcmXXM

doubling, because ya gotta signal boost the saturday morning surprise new song

+ Arknights | Grown-up's Paradise | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ1OD0cL6Qw

PENULTIMATE DAY MILI / ARKNIGHTS CROSSOVER HAS DROPPED THIS IS NOT A DRILL I REPEAT THIS IS NOT A DRILL

- Limbus Company | Canto VI Distortion BGM | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiuYxvTv4aE
+ Arknights | Grown-up's Paradise | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ1OD0cL6Qw

(sorry pyre this is actually emotionally painful but it's the only thing i have at 2/x or lower...)
(also lem and TRE I see you on HBR stuff but i literally can't support both and we need to figure this out somehow.)

- Granblue Fantasy | Zero | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn8yInYg0vs
- Heaven Burns Red | Ichiban no Takaramono (Crow ver.) | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRQg87dPT6w

Sorry Turus. Feel free to yell at me if this gets more momentum and it looks like I might have missed it, but we're starting to get to the cutthroat stages.

+ Deathloop | Pitch Black | https://youtu.be/DYE6QUB4UBs?si=mXXmJO-Hc3VlEClD
+ Arcaea | Lost in the Abyss | https://youtu.be/lwyZfuDG2Jw