Video games with great voice direction, sound design and art

Playing the 3ds re-release of Dragon Quest 8, this shit reminded me of the golden or silver age, in the mid 2000's. Even with the midi music in the 3ds release, it sounded just as good, it wasn't even a slight decrease, in fact the instrument choice sounded just a bit stronger then the orchestral arrangement.

Is it just me, or were video games much more romantic back then? Nowadays it feels like a trip to a 10 dollar hooker.

And it's not just nostalgia talking here, Have you noticed the general feel of video games now compared to back then? Like compare the newer Tales of games to older Tales of games.

Clothes and designs were much simpler, like Lloyd from Tales of Symphonia and his all red outfit with brown hair, or Stahn/Stan from Tales of Destiny and his primary color design plus white as a neutral color for most of it, Blonde hair, red gloves and blue trimmings.

Now compare it to older western games as well, who went the opposite direction, Halo was a primarily blue and "cool" color game, with blues, greens, and lightly tinted blue steel floors as a major, MAJOR aspect of design.

These were games made and designed with passion and simple but clean aesthetic, and nowadays we get character design monstrosities like Velvet here, with a clashing color scheme (pale skin clashes with black outfit and strikes the eyes, edgy bandages, Tetsuya Nomura belts and excessive trinkets, overdesigned impractical legging armor, style for the sake of style etc)

Western games again went the opposite direction and made everyone fucking impossible to tell apart due to generic design.

One thing i've noticed playing newer games is that the color saturation clash is so bad that it's hard to figure out what's going on most times and it gives me a raging headache.

The question isn't "what happened" because everyone knows what happened and it was "2007", the question is "how do we fix this" and the answer is unknown to me.

Dragon Quest 8 is a special case because they definitely did care about the game but there's just a shit ton of crap from back then that used nothing but noise and stock sound effects. Hell, I don't remember hearing stock stuff at all until the PS2 years.

This is all the result of video games being a "guaranteed business" where studios have become glorified playgrounds for artists and animators instead of people working their asses off to make sure they don't get kicked out to flip burgers. It's the builder VS maintenance.

*glorified playgrounds for artists, animators and illegal immigrants

...

With Tales it might be worth bearing in mind that Fujishima and Inomata used to work on separate games, but these days Namco has them doing designs for the same projects.

A more odd case is that fellow Tales artist Okamura (who is usually on NPC duty, I think), has occasionally been given a shot in the limelight for main character designs, and somehow went from Emil's faggy looking design in Symphonia 2, to Ludger's professional looking one in Xillia 2. I've heard he isn't particularly fond of that design for Ludger either (something about him feeling too much like an NPC and not standing out enough), but Namco liked it and the fans did as well.

Also makes me curious as to whether he did his own take on the prior characters in their Xillia 2 outfits, or if those were Fujishima and Inomata updating the designs to fit with the more modern Elympion fashion. Either way, the characters looked pretty good.

make no mistake, the censorship is bullshit
but the fact of the matter is it was censored because of stricter restrictions with the CERO rating system in japan

Actually it was changed by one of the original developers because he felt the dog scene was overdoing it, has none of that accent bullshit from DQ7 3ds due to the voice acting, and is pretty much untouched aside from jessica's costumes, and here's a mod if that really bothers you.

It's generally a better game with loads of added content, costumes for everyone else, and you can play with Red and Morrie, who have their own skills and weapons.

Red's unlocked by the story, and Morrie requires that you complete the S-rank battle at the monster coliseaum before he joins you.

Red's based around stealing and is basically a speed version of Yangus with loads of multi-hit abilities, fan skills and better stealing while Morrie is based around tension and doing nasty things with it.


Wew, someone needs to slap him for that one.

Also, feel free to pirate it if you like, I could care less.

I think that it might be that, if he is normally on NPC duty, he wants what few protagonists he gets the chance to design to stand out hard, hence Emil. Unfortunately for him, I don't think the answer is the deck the boy out in a shoulderless shirt, gloves that might as well be arm warmers, and a rather feminine looking scarf. At least with Inomata's design of Reid in Eternia, the writers themselves acknowledged how silly it looked and every so often you'd get NPCs ragging on his poor sense of fashion, much to Reid's chagrin.

But yeah, with Ludger, the "guy looking professional to try to find work" look works well with the plot. From a design standpoint it was pretty darn good, which makes it feel all the stranger that the guy that made the character didn't like it himself.

Oh, so you COULD care less than you do?
Thats good then, it means you're at least a little bit interseted and could be less interested than that. We'd have a lot of trouble if you COULDN'T care less than you do, which means you're not interested at all because there's no lower interest than 0 interest.

Don't be such a pre-Madonna.

The 3DS version is a fucking turd and you are a shill but I agree censorship is the least of it's problems.


DQ8 is one of my favourite games ever, but I would recommend getting a PS2 and play the game in it's original glory or kill yourself, it's better than the DS version.

Make no mistake, the Golden Age of Video Games took place within the decade between 1995 to 2005. DQ8 fits right in that decade, along with the other highest rated video games of all time

a blind man played through oddworld Abes odyssee and exodus

Yes.

In this doggy dog world, pre-Madonnas are a diamond dozen, user.

To each their own mate, but i'm a massive DQ autist and i'm gonna have to countersignal you. I just finished the 3ds version the other day and I can guarantee i'll never touch the ps2 version again.
Don't really know anything about this, I always turn the voices off in JRPG's if there's no nip audio option. What i did hear of it in jewtube clips and trailers sounded great though leagues better than your average English dub.
Is a fantastic change, it obviously wouldn't suit the 2D DQ's at all, but it's a huge improvement for the 3d titles. Makes farming metals and other mobs an absolute breeze since you can exploit spawns. DQ 9 and DQ 11 and every mainline game after that will also have "enemies on screen", so they likely wanted to bring 8 in line with the newer 3d titles.
Why are you listing positive quality of life changes as negatives lad? I'm confused.
No not because "fuck you" they rebalanced the entire game because of the new party members and their new skills, they also nerfed thin air. Who the fuck even puts more than 23 into whips anyway? The only change that is because "fuck you" is the fact that they nerfed the Gold Golems for no good reason and they drop 320 gold a piece now instead of 720 gold in the original, which is bullshit.
opinions. I thought they did a great job tbh, the decision to not utilize 3d really helped. Obviously their not quite up to par with the ps2 release, but "Tales of the Abyss 3ds" this is not - the only place I even noticed a significant f difference was in Pickham.
That's the first i've heard of that issue, it certainly didn't happen to me at all in my playthrough on a N3ds.
two dungeons** and one of them is really good (one of the best dungeons in the game honestly) not shitty in the least, the new post game one is kind of shit BUT having Estark at the end as the final super boss made up for it.
As for the characters that "noone asked for" your going to have to speak for yourself, because my biggest problem with DQ8 was always the lack of party members which was a massive step backwards from the Zenithian trilogy where party composition is important and allows for more customization and differing play styles. Red and Morrie are both pretty fucking awesome and have unique skill sets, once I unlocked them Yangus was permabenched for the rest of the game.

There also a lot of other changes/additions you didn't mention, but you'd probably consider them all negatives since you sound like some bitter nostalgiafag.
If you've never played the game before I recommend the 3ds version it's better than the ps2 version,If you have CFW installed you can restore Jessica's bikini and the Orchestral music, so the only real benefit to playing the original release is "muh graphics".

...

The games with the best sound direction are Xenosaga games and Cold Steel 2. You can turn the music off and just listen to the world around you, most games would be silent or you would only hear footsteps in that case.

You're really understating the downgrade to the graphics. It was a significant downgrade. That being said, I agree that the 3ds version is better overall.

Nope! Pure sensationalism, it is fully intact and lines were added for the bonus content, there are even lines for the new party members and their join events, new lines for Marcelo in the new bonus dungeon, etc.
No longer shall you be plauged by random encounters every 3rd step, you can now avoid them skillfully and Whistle is now way more useful.
bit of a casual move, didn't like that one.
That's mainly because Red has an even better version of TDL that attacks groups
3ds port, it's a nessessity, also the differences are subtle to the point of nitpickery
Noticed a slightly longer loading time for enemy encounters, but that's a no.
Not due to NOA this time, it's due to JAPANESE laws that now apply to this port, they've gotten more strict over the years.
This nigger hates Morrie
Laugh at him.

Also the new characters turn a very strict game into something more fun, Morrie is pretty much required for many boss battles in the new dungeon (the boss fights there being even harder then teh Dragovian Trials, at least the ones that aren't the Boss Rush Dragon version) You can also farm skill seeds more easily there, as there's a boss you can steal from 4 times with Stainless Steal Sickle, die to, then do it again until you're maxed out.

I don't like censorship, but I also fucking hate it more when you talk bullshit about it, it makes us look like idiots and ruins our arguments against it. You're the type of guy who is willing to shoot the messanger.

Also, note that the voice acting thing sprouted up from the japanese version, and the original PS2 DQ8 in japan did NOT have voice acting. The english release of DQ8 on 3ds retains and adds onto it. I cannot stress that enough, you're a faggot for not actually checking your information. Stop being a goddamned idiot that makes us look bad.

mario 64

DQ8 Is my first DQ game, what should I expect?

*INHALE*
DQ8 is a pretty basic RPG until you get to the skill point system, where you can fuck yourself over if you don't follow 3 simple rules

1. DO not put in skill points that don't give you a rank
2. there are certain skill paths that are genuinely bad and will gimp you badly
3. USE BUFFS AND DEBUFFS IN BOSS FIGHTS

the Hero, Yangus, Jessica, Angelo, Red and Morrie have various skill paths, and not all of them are equal.

The Hero for example is clearly biased towards Swords and Courage, because if you max it out, the redundant ultimate skills from each path actually combine and become a superior skill that doesn't require a specific weapon, Yangus starts out with a Club but the skill path is heavily based on doing extra damage to two minor enemy types that don't show up often, Jessica's Knife path is fucking worthless because everyone else does single target damage better, including Jessica with a whip, and Angelo has bad skill point growths early on so you have to specialize, which either means Bows or Charisma.

When you get to the final boss, you will have two skill paths maxed and one skill path in progress.

Hero's worst path is Boomarangs, Yangus' worst path is Clubs, Jessica's worst path is Knives, Angelo's worst path is Fisticuffs even though his kicks are super stylish.

Hero's best paths are Swords and Courage, although Spears are pretty dank as fuck with Multi attacks and critical stabs,
Yangus' best and most fun path is Axes first, Scythes second due to Axes being great single hitters while Scythes are great support weapons that do instakills and it has a giant explosion attack at the end of it,
Jessica's best path is Whips up to Twin Dragon Lash, Staves and then either back to whips or Sex Appeal
Angelo's best path is Bows, then Swords or Charisma.

Note that you can dip into other skill pools if you like, but having the final skills is fucking great, however at the start you should dip into Hero's Courage for the Zoom spell and into Yangus' Humanity for the Whistle skill for grinding outside of towns so you don't have to chase shit around and get ambushed by an asshole when your HP is low, you can just whistle all day outside a town gate for easy grinding.

Note that there isn't much grinding at all, but if you've been a lazy bitch and at least don't level up twice in each area, you're gonna eat shit at Dhoulmagus about halfway into the game.

Is the 3DS port of DQ8 good? Also, is it n3DS-only?

Oh and Red and Morrie are new characters, and pretty much none of their skill paths are bad ones, with a few exceptions.

When you get Red, you get over a hundred skill points when she joins, so you should either max out Fans or Knives, because her fans have the best support skillset in the game, but her Knives have the single best attack in the game where she juggles em and I shit you not attacks the random fucking 6-10 times in a game where multi-hit attacks are OP as fuck. Her fans aren't a slouch here, because while her knives have the best attack skill in the game, doing that basically makes her one note as the rest of the knife skills are based around single hit poison and leeching life, and her fans are much more well rounded and if you stick with her fans she can keep up in damage, shoot
BUTTERFLY LASERS
and revive people without failure.

After that,

Morrie's best skillset is his GUSTO skills, but only up to the 88 point mark. He gets abilities that boost tension by the assload in a game where tension is the main gimmick, where three levels of it equal XBOX HUEG damage and four levels of it are pretty much a boss-OHKO. Along with those skills, he gets great crowd control and crowd damaging abilities. Now his last skill is in GUSTO is pretty fun, in that it does really random shit, so you might want to go GUSTO 100 anyway.

His second best skillset is Claws, nothing even reaches it. Claw skills are basically made to kill bosses, as he gets attacks that kill debuffs, 3 hit attacks, and the ultimate attack bypasses defense. Unlike teh Hero, he also has way better skills with Boomarangs, same with Clubs.

He basically specializes in the shit that was useless for Hero and Yangus, and makes it way better then anything, and there is literally no path that fucks Morrie over, he's basically the best support AND attack member in the game, no joke. That's probably because he's not unlocked by story and you have to murder the fuck out of the monster arena to get him, but as a result you can get Morrie really early if you know which teams are the best and you explore like you're supposed to.


Yes, aside from Jessica's booty being covered up a bit, the game is just as good as the original and adds loads of shit to it.

Its probably the best fully open-world 3D RPG on the 3DS right now. Its also one of the only ones

And when I say fully open-world 3D, I mean not like Pokemons fixed-camera shit

Its actually not n3DS-only. Which impressed me as well

You are the cancer killing Dragon Quest.

Isn't there an uncensor patch?

Bloodborne has the best art direction I've seen in a video game.

test

Yes. And it should be in working order shortly.

Okay you're just straight up lying or retarded. The graphics took a huge hit, go look at a comparison video. Don't misinform people.

LOOK AT THIS NITPICKING GUYS

Considering that you're comparing a PS2 to a handheld, yes it is nitpicking.

Goddamn, you just love making a mountain out of molehill for attention, I swear to god.

You're a fucking idiot. The visuals were massively downgraded.

So what if it's a handheld? plenty of handheld devices could have handled it without dumbing down the visuals to this extent. It's just that nintendo hardware is fucking trash and they waste resources on stupid shit like 3d and two screens

Yes, the 3ds version is better in every other way. But it's still inferior. DQ VIII is a beautiful game, and the presentation is fucking butchered here.

Even if the visuals are downgraded they never had to be downgraded to the degree I'm seeing. Nintendo has always made shitty hardware and loves to neglect the sound because they see it as an area they can skimp believing videogames are a visual medium only. Even there they fail many many times. The 3DS is a hunk of junk.

The linked video is pretty good. Hunters looked better then Federation.

DQ 8 looks like a lazy port. They didn't even account for wide screen, they just stretched it and now everyone looks fatter and buildings look odd, although that isn't the case for every model? I guess they changed certain models to account for it, but they said fuck it completely when it game to the levels.

Also the lighting effects like fire is completely missing now?

So is this thread actually about the stated topic or is it just a Dragon Quest thread now?

Why don't we make it about the topic, because dragon quest is generic and pretty much sucks

First party Nintendo games always look magnitudes better than games from third party developers when it comes to Nintendo hardware.

Demon's Souls

I actually think the 3DS version looks better, it's less washed out and more bright and crisp

My current theory is this:

Japanese Games:
Subs/Jap Audio = Overacting, hamming it up, but more emotive and expressive.

Dubs/Eng Audio = Underacting and phoning it in, poor character acting, and an insufficient and/or incorrect amount and type of vocal emoting.

VNs:
Emotive, expressive, typically quality voice acting and at LEAST on par with anime voice acting if not BETTER.

Western "games" or "interactive movies":
Much more emotive and a lot more attention to detail in the voice acting, but the games tend to suffer in literally every other aspect as video games.

Also while they're generally speaking better voiced/acted than almost every other type of game, they're still almost never quite on-par with an actual film with a similar budget and actors that actually care about their portfolio.

Honestly though, what can you really expect? A good Actor in a movie dedicates themselves to a role for months (sometimes years) at a time and is absolutely only that character for the duration of the filming process, and they've spent practically their entire life training up to be GOOD at PORTRAYING CHARACTERS.

Voice Actors are usually just interns with good microphone voices that strike it lucky at some point, very few actually care about the craft or portraying a character well, and they voice a lot of lines all at once for many different games. Hell, most of the time they don't even get to read the script outside of their own lines and they rarely even know what's going on.

Of course there are exceptions, but there really just aren't that many.

bullshit

Why did they amp up the saturation so much? It looks noticeably worse simply because of that.
Also the mouse got fat.

Even the fucked up part about it is the same; ripping out the music to for a different version in which likely caused that loading time difference mentioned earlier in the thread.


Localization is the cancer killing Dragon Quest.


Graphics are the least of my concerns. If they are for you, bite the bullet and emulate it.

Blood has to have the best death screams I have heard in a video game, hands down.

If Nier 2 gets censored that's it, I'm done with JRPGs. The SJW infiltration is too deep.

kys

Think Moonman already said he's letting 8-4 call the shots as to how much the game needs to be localized, which doesn't bode well (especially since 8-4 has stated their favorite projects are ones in which they have greater control over every aspect and thus less oversight). Either way, if you ask me, it would be wiser to wait to buy it until some other user opts to play the guinea pig and see just how well or bad off the English script seems. I'd like to hope that maybe it might at least be on par with Nier PS3/360's English script since 8-4 worked on that too, but considering they also handled Drakengard 3 in the interim and Square let them get away with shitting that English script up bad, I have my doubts.

Some companies still seem free of that mindset. I don't think KT and Actill have censored Gust's works, for example (and Ar Nosurge seems like the sort of game the usual suspects would bitch and moan about due to the content, if they were all that aware of its existence). You're right about the infiltration though. They can't do much damage to the native Japanese market if Japan won't bite the SJW bullet (a few companies like Square have opted to censor worldwide to appease the west anyhow, and caught a LOT of flak from their local customerbase over it), so they try to worm their way into localization companies and "fix" (read as: censor and shit up) the western releases.

>>>/cuckchan/

Agreed, the agonizing screams are absolutely brutal.

I'm really not sure why everything looks stretched. It's very strange considering the PS2 version had widescreen support.

Not even Final Fantasy is safe from tumbler words.


8-4 is terrible when no one's got a loaded shotgun to the back of their heads.