PSP advice

yeah man, ive got like 2000 snes games, 2000 megadrive games and 1000 gba games on 1 memory card… theres a few copies, hombrews, hacks/bootlegs and different region versions in the mix but i cba to sort through them… moreover I cant be bothered to individually download single games so I just got the torrent packs. I know for sure all the classics are there and thats all that matters really, but sometimes it's just fun to go digging for gems and guessing just from the name of the .rom files

How did you guys get those emulators to run properly? Because mine refuse to work no matter how much I tweak

You're exaggerating, there's less than 2000 games in the No-Intro set.

I did the pandora battery method, which basically fucked up my battery, but still hacked my psp. There's probably better methods now, youtube walkthroughs are helpful.
There used to be shitloads of CFW images, but now I think there's just one now.
Case mods are a fun challenge. Get something from ebay, usually $5-10, and a precision screwdriver set. You'll get very intimate with your PSP, and learn some important things about it. I reccomend keeping the original face button rubber things, as the replacements can be too sensitive.

Speaking of which, is the last No-Intro the one released this year in January? Is this the best one, or is there one that includes ommited DS ROMs?

Didn't they shut down PSN for the PSP already?

it shuts down in May.

I think, 1-03-16 is the date of the set I downloaded last month. DS still isn't included.

You can have multiple accounts on a PSP. I used to have a JP account for playing PSP2i online, and a US account for everything else. Stuff you download can be locked to your account, but it's not locked to region.

Not that it really matters much though, does it? PSN support for the PSP has been cut off. I can't access any online functions anymore on my PSP.

I'm bored, so fuck it, I'll try and list some good shit to have when you CFW.

For CFW, there's a shit ton of different versions, but currently the best one would be ME. Shit's recently updated to incorperate the Pro C online shit as well, so you can connect Ad-Hoc games to a server to play shit online still such as MGSPO+, MHP3rd, etc. Link has the shit needed.

Of course 6.60 firmware needs to be installed before you bother, and depending on model/motherboard of PSP if you can perma or have to always refresh upon cold boot.

wololo.net/2014/12/14/psp-revision-2-310-3-of-the-me-lme-cfw-is-now-available-adds-pro-online-support-dax-format-and-more/

Next link is to do with the online shit and how to set it up. Plugins are easy as fuck to set up, make a folder on the root of your PSP memory card named seplugins and drop shit in there. It's a little more complicated than that, but not by much, I'll follow this with a guide. 2nd link is the server status of Coldbird, which is the server for all this type of shit.

forum.coldbird.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14
pro.coldbird.net/status/status.xml

Here's a guide to plugins. Simple shit, and it'll become second nature after a while

forums.afterdawn.com/threads/guide-how-to-install-plugins-on-a-psp-includes-on-how-to-install-two-or-more.657638/

You this far? Good. Here's some more good shit. POPSloader is the built in PS1 emu used for Eboots. Once this is set up, all you have to do is download eboots (ISOZone and Emuparadise are good for this shit) and put them in PSP/GAME/Foldername and they'll appear. Note that folder names can't be too long or they'll appear as corrupted. 2nd link is another download of POPSloader for 6.60.

nicoblog.org/psp/how-to-use-popsloader-guide/
theisozone.com/downloads/playstation/other/popsloader-v3-for-660-pro-cfw/

That's the main shit all set up of your PSP if you've read this fucking far. Next up, emulators. Shit's generally easy to set up since it's usually drag and drop, and some emulators require bios files to work (Sega CD region BIOS, GBA BIOS, all are on Emuparadise when needed). Outside that, just do the same as you would any emu, set up, download ROMS (or a fullset if got the space) and play.

wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/Emulation_on_PSP

Need some apps or extra homebrew shit? PSP has that going for it as well. Model 1000 can utilize the IR sensor on top to turn into a universal remote, can get a homebrew Ebook reader, a port of DOOM/Cavestory/Quake, or even completely new games like a Touhou created for PSP. Also apps like PSPFiler for exploring your system if you can't be fucked to connect to a computer, or PMPAdvance for a better media player. Links are to some sites that are good for exploring for shit. If you want a basis of what to look for, check Wololo's homebrew top 50 charts for the years and see what appeals. Oh, and CWCheat if you want to cheat in shit (or sometimes needed to get more out of a game, like Monster Rancher for PS1).

wololo.net/downloads/index.php/download/479

psp.brewology.com/downloads/

Last but not least, PSP games. You know what you want to play, shit's easy to download (Emuparadise), get to it. Maybe invest in a memory card adapter so you can have a ton of shit on your PSP with the use of 2 micro SDs. I run 128GB myself, but probably can go right to 256gb if you give a shit enough.

Last note, PSP has a lot of translations and mods for games as well. Nicoblog usually hosts the weirder shit (Project Diva with translation patch/plugin, Valkyrie Hearts 3 Extra Edition, etc) as well as the more 'harder' to get games (Corpse Party). If it's not on Emu, try Nico, they'd usually have it. If they don't, fuck knows, explore.

Mine has been going good for over 5 years now. Average life is just now starting to get to the point where it's annoyingly short. 3 1/2 hours when clocked at 222mhz, 2 hours & 50 mins when clocked at 333mhz. Which, really it works out to about 3hrs @ 222, and 2:10 @ 333, because I won't let the battery drain to the point of shutting down. Once the indicator reaches one bar, I shut it off until I can plug it in.

Still, two hours is more than enough time for when I'm on the go, and for the most part, I just leave it plugged in when I play for extended periods of time at home.

Just to add that certain VNs (Rewrite, Grisaia Trilogy, Flowers) wont work at all in a CFW PSP because of some weird anti-piracy protection

Kind of funny that VNs, and not even the actual games, would go to such lengths in protecting themselves from pirates

Odd. I know Puella Magika Madoka Portable is glitchy unless in CSO format (or something like that).

Any way to bypass?

Where are you putting the emulators and their associated folder hierarchies? Because those go in the GAME folder where PS1 eboots go, not the ISO folder where PSP games go.

Eh, really?

I updated my CFW just so I could get on PSN in case I wanted to play some shit online,

but in the end I never played online at all except for that one time I borrowed Rogue Squadron, like, >5 years ago.

Stupid question, but you ARE running CFW right? If you turn your PSP completely off you'll have to launch CFW again before you run an emulator.

This might be interesting for those with a non permanent cfw:
wololo.net/2016/02/14/release-davee-releases-project-infinity-6-61-permanent-patch-for-me-pro-cfws/
It's a patch that makes it possible to permanently install 6.61 LME or 6.61 PRO on alle PSPs except for the E1000.

Enjoy one of the best handhelds of all time (if it only had better SNES emulation. At least retroarch devs are still working on the CatSFC cre)

1 thing, I said "like 2000 games"
that means by rough estimate, not quoting an exact figure. Then as I mentioned; copies, multiple region versions of the same game, homebrews, hacks and bootlegs. I just checked and I've got closer to 2500 roms for the megadrive.

OP if you buy one of these kits, KEEP your original buttons and contact pads; the ones supplied in these kits… I found the buttons sticky and the contact pads were garbage altogether. sure. Also, if you dont want to fuck around for 3+ hours, swapping the faceplate and buttons can be done in about 10 minutes. but yeah, swapping the whole case? you are gonna be sitting on that shit for a loooong time.

my old snes emulator consistently wouldnt let me put the system on standby. the one I am currently running freezes the system when i take it out of standby occasionally. The emulation runs smoothly though, just some layer bugs, havent experienced anything gamebreaking. basically just the sprites in super metroid's cutscenes dragged a black box over everything. i could care but pl0x do link your favorite snes emulator here so i can try

If you meant goodset yeah, there's like 21,000 roms in the SNES though, it's hard not to believe you didn't organize a little bit. Then again I haven't bothered downloading the full goodgen set.

I just bought a PSP and my firmware is listed as "6.61 ME-2.3". Does that mean that mean it's already hacked or if it isn't is that an okay starting place at least?

Already done.

You'll still be able to use it and download games via the PSPs web browser.

There are so many fucking games to be played on the PSP, and the damn thing is so cheap that i just don't even feel the need to buy a newer handheld or play newer games nor relate to people whining about having no games to play around here.

Holy shit! Thanks! That's fucking awesome!
It only came with a 1gb memory card, so will I have to redo it when I upgrade or is the firmware installed on some internal memory? I'm so happy I bought this thing.

It's set. Doesn't matter what happens to memory card, the firmware stays the same. Going to assume it's perma.

Probably would want to copy folders like seplugins/pops shit over when change, assuming it's there.

i've had my PSP since they were brand new. First version.

Also, are there alternative servers for the online games now? Sort of like with the DS.

Coldbird with atxpro plugin, only works on Pro-C and ME 2.3 currently. It's here .

This is what I have. That's awesome though. Thank you! I already have Tales of Eternia's undub running. I'm gonna need a card fast. I wanted to play the Star Ocean games first, but go figure the fist one is just slightly too big for my memory card. This is all gonna be so much fun!

Whoops! I forgot the main picture. Need to calm down.

wololo is a pretty good site for that.

Don't forget: PSP game files go in "ISO," PS1 eboots and emulators (with their associated subfolder hierarchies) go in "GAME" (I might be wrong, but I estimate it's inside the PSP folder; I'd have to dig my PSP out though to double check exactly). If it's not there by default, you might need to make one yourself (I had to do so for the ISO folder when I got my PSP set up with CFW).

At least, that's how things are on my 3000 model.

...

I've known about it since its release. There were just a few anons in this thread who obviously didn't.

Star Ocean 1 was alright, but I'd recommend giving SO2 a pass. It was pretty horrible, except for the gameplay - which you can get plenty of already in SO1. The only reason to play SO2 is for the story, and the story is shit - and accented by some of the worst voice actors since Star Ocean 4.

I don't see why people still do this. The joystick nub will get glitchy within a year and die completely in another two or so years. This is probably one of the reasons Sony tried to push the Vita TV, because the Vita's joysticks probably have just as short a lifespan, too, and they didn't want to deal with the inevitable flood of Vitas being sent in for repair. PPSSPP is a much better alternative since it works with whatever controller is plugged into your PC. If you absolutely have to have those games on the go, get PPSSPP for iOS or Android. I don't know about the iOS version, but the Android version runs just as well as the PC version if you have a relatively new (within 2 years or so) phone. Since most of the better PSP games were JRPGs, the touch screen controls won't be too detrimental to the experience. About the only game I've played on PPSSPP that doesn't play just as well as the original is Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity.
Also, threadly reminder that until PPSSPP came out, everyone shit on the PSP and said it had no games.

Mine hasn't. My PSP is over 5 years old, and it's thumbstick is still taut as a virgin asshole with absolutely no play or walk in it, despite literally thousands of hours put into PSP2/PSP2i - not to mention hundreds of hours playing other games.

The only problem my PSP has is that the paintjob has chipped almost completely off the back panels. The front is still ok, but the back is fucked. The power cord also started to fray and split about a year after getting it, but those are easy enough to replace.

Does anyone know if the controls for Tales of Eternia are a little worse than other games? I'm just having a really hard time getting the hang of the directional inputs. I've only played PSP games on my Vita before, so it might just be that I need to get the hang of it more. The slide pad does seem awfully low though. Does it maybe get looser with more use too? It just seems much more tense than what I'm used to on my 3DS. (I have the 2000 or 2001 I think they call it. It's the silver second model.)

Thanks, I would've ended up putting them in ISO like I did Tales of Eternia. I'll have to make a note of this stuff, until I do it enough that I remember everything.

Thankfully, there's an undub. If anyone else is interested in stuff like that here's a whole pack of undubs.
nyaa.se/?page=view&tid=723485
I'll have to see how much I even like the first game. I never played a Star Ocean game outside of like 20 minutes of SO4.

Once the warranty is up they would charge you up the ass to do that, so I doubt they would mind. That's besides the fact that they really don't need to repair shit if they don't want to.
Thankfully, I've put thousands of hours of use on my Vita and it still works as well as the day i bought it. It's how impressed I was with the Vita that made me want a PSP.
I have an "Asus Memo Pad 8" and the damn thing couldn't even run Tales of Eternia when i tried.

Eternia is about as far as back in the series as you can go and still have combat be all that fluid (while Phantasia PS1 did attempt to improve it prior, it only did so for melee combat, as anything above basic level spells interrupts the flow of combat). That said, the strictly 2D style can take a bit of getting used to, namely that you have to double tap a direction to run since walk is the default (there's also some more advanced commands to be found in the manual; not sure how the inputs for them might be on the PSP version). Once you get used to it it's pretty fun; granted, I haven't played the PSP version (I have it for the PS1 for co-op), but I think I mainly used the d-pad in combat as far as movement goes.

Are you playing on semi-auto or manual?

It was set to semi-auto and I finally changed it at the dojo. I'm more just having a problem navigating, walking around objects in towns and stuff. Say, I want to hurry and check what's in a dresser, I'll walk around a bed and slightly bump into the corner and it will make my character stop completely. Also, trying to line my character up perfectly to talk to someone or check something, will feel really sensitive to line up perfectly and I'll make my character squiggle around, sort of, on accident. (Damn, I'm not very good at explaining this.) It's nothing major. I think it probably just comes down to being an older game that I haven't played enough yet to get used to, also, on hardware that I haven't gotten used to yet either.
Do you know how long this game is? I did want to play Eternia, but there was games that I was looking forward to starting first. the problem is I only have a 1gb card so far, so I can't fit them. Since I bought my PSP used it seems like a really bad idea to not play anything on it in the meantime though, since if some problem arose I don't think I would have that long to return it.

Well, it does take some getting used to the way the world is set up too, given everything's sprited (and very nicely too if memory serves); most of the Tales games since then (and the ones people are more prone to play) have all been full 3D modeled environments, which strike me as being somewhat easier to navigate. Anyhow, you'll probably get used to it after a while.

Eternia isn't as long as Symphonia, Abyss, or Vesperia (those have been 60-80 hours in my experiences), if that's what you're getting at. I'd have to dig out my PS1 memory card and double check the file, but I think it was about 40-50 hours for me, give or take some time invested on minigames and sidequests. Eternia was originally a three disc game, and if memory serves there weren't all that many FMVs on it to actually eat up space.

Speaking of FMVs, I might be wrong, but I think there's a patch to restore the original opening to the game, as "Flying" was cut from the western versions (most likely Namco not willing to shell out for licensing at the time). Not sure if it works in conjunction with the undub patch, but if the opening's all it affect, I would like to think it should.

Just checked the memory card, first time playing took me about 40 hours. So yeah, it's a bit on the short side (I think Phantasia was even shorter) compared to the later ones, but still fast paced and fun.

Make sure that you learn to utilize Reid's shield well, as it's really effective at helping negate ranged attacks, especially the kind that would normally cleave through the whole party.

Also, advanced command which I don't recall being mentioned in the game itself (npcs in weapon shops usually have a combat tip), but are found in the manual.
Group Actions:
Again, I'm not sure if these commands still work in the PSP version or if they have a different input, but you can give them a try. The party reversal thing is useful when attacks from behind, since otherwise the AI tries to keep the formation you have set and your casters will wind up being closest to the enemy in that scenario.

Yeah, it looks damn good actually. It seems like the 3D worldmap looks better than Abyss on the 3DS. (It certainly runs better.)

I'm not sure why, but I have it. I don't even remember where the hell I downloaded the game from, I've had it so long. I really like the opening.

Thanks, that's a relief. I'm so backed up on games right now that 60-80 hours would've really sucked for me. I kind of feel like 40 hours is the sweet spot for most JRPGs for me anyway.

They have them, but I don't remember what they all were. I know full party jump is up on the slidepad though. (You can use the slidepad outside of battle to navigate, but for battle it's the D-Pad. I didn't look if it could be changed, since that way seemed nice.)

Abyss is an odd case. Granted, I only know what the 3DS version looks like from screenshots and I assume it still looks better in motion (no 3DS here), but while the PS2 version looks better, I found it lacking in graphical style compared to Symphonia or Vesperia. Good color usage for their shithole world though. And as for the world map, even the PS2 version has issues with the camera lag and time it takes to load the overworld.

Yeah, as far as the series goes, Flying's a favorite opening theme of mine, along with Karma, Ring a Bell, Progress, and Song 4 U.

I usually find longer is better as far as getting my money's worth, but that all depends on the pacing and whether the game can hold itself up as long as it needs to. And with Eternia, I don't remember it having any real issues with pacing, at least compared to Abyss.

Word of advice: at one point, you're going to be sent out to Volt's Ruins. Have all your Craymels set the way you want them set before going there, since (in the PS1 version anyhow) trying to open the Craymel Cage while in there fucks shit up (main issue being that you need both casters in the party to properly access it, and you only have one for that dungeon). Note that this is not the Volt Glitch early PSP prints were plagued with; copies that had that were outright unable to be finished without a save file beyond that point (whereas the Craymel Cage issue is easily avoidable simply by not opening the cage menu until you get back to town). I assume that these download sites are wise to it and would only have downloads from a non-glitched print, or else the comments sections would mention it being unplayable.

Does the PSP version let you set additional arte shortcuts? In the PS1 version, rather than using the analog sticks for it (the way later tales games let you map additional shortcuts to the right stick), if memory serves you can map two artes to the shoulder buttons (I wager L2 and R2, since L1 was already used for reverse formation) for a total of six at once. Just wondering how that works out with less buttons to use.

Man, fuck that raft game. I'm not sure why you'd want to accelerate that much. I couldn't even steer good without accelerating.

I'm sure it does, but the game definitely would've benefited being on the Vita. I suppose that they even got it running as well as they did on 3DS is probably impressive. It's pretty pathetic that Nintendo thought those specs were okay and that the things cost so much for a gimmicky feature that works like shit.

Alright, I'll keep it in mind. They were talking about Craymels, but I'm still not even sure what they are. I only have like an hour into the game so far and most of the time was just me fucking around.

My problem is that I start getting burnt out at around 60 hours usually. It's mainly just the battles. I can pretty much go on exploring and through story events forever, but the random battles just get old after so many. One thing I liked about Ar nosurge+ is that you could wipe out all the enemies in an area in one battle if you wanted to. By the end of the game even those kind of bugged me though, since it still takes awhile.

L+X and L+O gives you the other two arte spaces. I only have two skills right now though, so it looks like I might not need those for awhile.
(The retreat thing is kind of weird. I'm gonna need to remember how many swings he takes before he retreats.)

Yeah, while combat controls well enough, some of the minigames could have used a bit more time (at the very least they didn't fuck up WHIZ, which is actually a pretty fun diversion and if memory serves can be done with multiple players on the PS1 version, though I might be remembering wrong; been a while).

Yeah, it still strikes me as odd that the 3DS was their go-to to port the game to instead of the Vita. I mean, I could maybe see a Phantasia port having worked for the 3DS (Certainly would have been a lot better than the GBA one), and with that game having been on Nintendo systems in the past it wouldn't have seemed entirely out of place. I suppose though they might have wanted to be able to show off more of the capabilities of the 3DS to have 3D games look better than the 3D games the DS saw (though some admittedly look pretty good; I've got a soft spot for both Nostalgia and Avalon Code's graphics), and maybe Namco saw an opportunity to not only hit a different audience with an older game, but also finally give Japan access to the bonus content and bug fixes the US saw when Abyss came out here on the PS2.

They'll elaborate on them more by the time you encounter the first one, if not sooner. Gameplay-wise, most of your spells are derived from what combinations of Craymels you have in each cage, along with their level, allowing you to customize what spells or even passive skills (pretty much a primitive take on the Skills system Abyss would later have; Symphonia's EX-Skills being another test run of them) your casters have access to.

Eternia's a bit of an oddball for learning new artes, at least for Reid and Farah. Not only do you need the right character level, but you also need the right Slash and Thrust levels as well (or Punch and Kick or whatever they are for Farah), which level up as you use associated artes that utilize them (IE: using a thrusting art like Swarm will help increase Reid's general skill with thrusting attacks). Symphonia borrowed the Slash/Thrust statistics for Lloyd, but opted to not have him learn Artes through leveling them (or even the ability to level them at all).

You mean fleeing battles, or before he resets to standard position? Because in the case of the latter, you should be playing on Manual as soon as you can. Have to say that much as I liked Phantasia PS1 (barring the occasional freezing it has, though I think it was the version of the patch I was using), being stuck with Semi-Auto for a solid 8-10 hours sucked. I can see why the Phantasian Productions patch (which hadn't been finished yet when I played; I was using probably an out-of-date patch by A0T) includes a hacked in Technical Ring so the player doesn't have to deal with that shit. Oh, and the technical ring normally being that far into the game means you'd have to wait that long to even do co-op, as manual state is based on an item equip rather than being a key item or present from the start. Thank goodness Eternia lets you find the Manual Manual about an hour or less into the game (and thus letting the player have full control and co-op as well that early), and since it's not an equip it doesn't eat an accessory slot.

I have a 1000 model but until I get a GO one of these days i'm using a vita's hacked PSP mode with TN-V for most of my psp games. It has settings to display it better on the OLED screen and two sticks for armored core and all that junk.

Is it anything TN-V doesn't run?
I love my PSP, but I would like a Vita to have better controls for my emulators (while I wait for the NEVER EVER native vita hack)

I really wish I knew about these games back then. I would've loved to play things like this multiplayer. With handhelds I can't help but feel jealous of people (in Japan) using the ad-hoc features. It just always seemed cool how handhelds have the added benefit of each person having their own screen, but still being together.

Yeah, that whole thing seemed strange to me. The explanation helps. I thought it might've been linked to what kind of weapon I was using, since someone asked if a wanted to trade an axe for a sword. It actually might be fun figuring all this stuff out. Hopefully, I can make some decent progress tomorrow. I just keep making sure I play other games, so I don't forget what's going on. At least I'm almost done with a couple though now.

Shit, it still was on semi auto for some reason. I thought he changed it to manual at the dojo for me, but I guess not. This should be much nicer.

Reid's actually got a pretty versatile array of weapons he can be equipped with, for a Tales protagonist anyhow, including daggers, shortswords, longswords, handaxes, battleaxes, and polearms, each with a different sort of stat distribution and speed. If you're training for various artes in leveling up either slash or thrust, equip the appropriate weapon to be effective with it and change up what artes you have set it to to be effective with it.

Craymels also level up as you use the spells associated with them, and in addition, there's a Vitality meter, where when it's maxed, you can get spells off faster and have them do more damage (I think; I might need to double check), or you can blow through the Vitality to actually manifest the Craymel physically (essentially a predecessor of sorts to both the overlimit mechanic as well as the games where summons are treated as something on par with mystic artes).

Nope, the Manual Manual simply unlocks the option to do so; think once you have the item the option is located in the formation menu rather than the artes one where it's at least in the series.

But take all that back and forth after combos, multiply it by eight or so hours, and you have the default Tales of Phantasia combat experience up until you can get to Floor 10 on the Mines of Morlia. And then take another few hours to adjust to full manual control after it. So much better having the manual option early on it not from the start.

Strange, I wonder if I even should be playing this before Phantasia. I think it was probably you who told me about that Phantasia X and dungeon something combo that was being fan translated, but the last time I checked it wasn't finished. I wonder what the ETA on that is, because, regardless of order, it sounded like my best option to play Phantasia.

I played Phantasia PS1 after Eternia. I didn't find it hard to get into (my experience with the series being all over the place all out of release order), aside from the lack of manual control (which the Phantasian Productions translation patch remedies with the aforementioned hack). Never did beat it due to the amount of freezing issues I had (I think it was just an out-of-date patch issue that's likely been resolved by now, but I'm stuck having to use preconverted eboots), and when it froze a solid hour or so into the final fight I just opted to set it aside and wait for NDX.

As for NDX, Absolute Zero's still working on it, but Destiny DC is their priority since there's much more demand (Destiny PS1 not holding up quite as well as even Phantasia PS1), but they're still working on Tales of of Phantasia X as they see fit (and NDX is a game that their translator, Thoroughim, really likes a lot personally, hence him taking on the project). The big issue facing the PSP bundle is that it's actually two games they have the work on: Tales of Phantasia X (the most up to date version of Phantasia, featuring combat on a similar level of refinement as Eternia and thus holding up better), and Narikiri Dungeon X (a full remake of the old GBC costume-class based dungeon crawler spin-off, Narikiri Dungeon). And while with Tales of Phantasia X, it's going to be easier to work with since they have an existing translation for most of it barring new sections (they've stated they want to collaborate with Cless' PS1 script to make the best translation they can for the most refined version of the game), NDX needs a full ground up translation since no one's translated it before.

You can keep tabs on their progress on all three projects at their website. They've been trying to put out monthly progress reports as well, and given their record of finishing what they start (barring potential legal issues, such as with Hearts DS once Hearts R got announced for localization; they'd been helping Kajitani with it, but he cancelled the effort out of respect for the localization, though I think he might now regret that given how bad off Hearts R is out here), they'll get done with it eventually, and likely sooner than Phantasian Productions was with their Phantasia patch (compare about four/five months to twelve fucking years; at least Destiny DC is out of Cless' hands now).

To add onto that though, I recall them stating last year upon finishing the skit translations for Destiny DC that their new debugger tool for PCSX2 was really helping a lot with progress, but that the skits alone were roughly about 1/19th the entire script (or something like that; there's a lot of text) and even an estimated release of two years out was probably being really generous with it (as of now, I think they've got the skits and menu done). And with that and ToPX being the priorities right now, I'd wager it's going to be longer before they get the entire NDX bundle finished with; not sure if they're going to do separate releases either; unsure of if the bundle was a single UMD or two (the way a few PSP games like TitS: SC or Final Fantasy Type-0 were); in the case of the latter it would likely be easy to get ToPX out when that part's finished if it's all on its own UMD.

The vita has a PSP 1000 inside of it. Theres nothing it can't run, its the same as a pro cfw psp when using it.

Make sure you buy one that hasn't been updated so you can install CFW.

Why are people on this fucking board so out of touch? Pandora batteries are a thing of the past and you can get CFW on any firmware without even downgrading.

I hope the Oreimo fan translation is done sometime soon. I can't believe Haruhi Suzumiya and Bakemonogatari haven't had people working on them. Even if it is NISA I'm glad someone is taking a chance at localizing a VN based on an anime. (Psycho Pass)
NISA actually has some really good localization's on Vita too, but then some are the absolute shit they're known for. How is their record on PSP?

I'm gonna check on that from time to time. This is all pretty interesting.

That's insanity, but at least it was finished. people probably long gave up on that. It's release must have been a pleasant surprise to everyone (who still cared anyway).

Yeah, if they're bundled it makes me think I'll be waiting a long time to play Phantasia. I'm not even sure if I'm interested in NDX either. Is it sort of like Persona Q how it's just (bad) fanservice and dungeon crawling or does it actually expand upon the story in a meaningful way?

Haruhi had work done for it, but it didn't get far.

That just seems really strange to me given it's popularity. Toradora even has a fan translation. I'll just pretend the endless eight caused it.

Well, Cless did say that he wanted his patch to have a "localized" feel to it, as if the game had actually had a proper western release. As such, I assume he had to do a fuckton of proofreading, double checking terminology (Phantasia being a distant sequel to Symphonia), etc. Big issue being that from what I hear, he's a perfectionist. Meanwhile, Absolute Zero acknowledged that people just wanted to play the damn game and released a full translation patch of their own, and apart from a few issues here and there (the hint for a puzzle in Morlia Mines is really hard to decipher; I think a more recent update to the patch than I had fixed that) it was pretty solid even with the difference in time. That said, I think I've heard they might have worked together in the past on it, so maybe Absolute Zero just took some of the work already done and spent four or five months tweaking it. I'm really just going off the start-to-finish dates for new posts on their sites though. Absolute Zero lists them as having started their own patch on 8/20/07 and had it released on 12/25/07, almost like a Christms present for fans. Meanwhile if you go check Phantasian Productions' new posts and go back some pages, Cless had been working on it since 01/01/01, and released his first patch of it 12/31/12. Granted, I'm not complaining about his patch or anything, given that aside from possible donations, fan translators do this stuff for free in their spare time, but that is an obscene amount of time to delay something. And it makes me really worried since he's still got Destiny 2 as a project and his site hasn't had an update since 2013.

As far as I know of it, it takes place a century or so after Phantasia (to the point the only member of the original cast still alive is Arche, given how, while not immortal, her kind have really long lifespans), and while plenty of characters do reappear due to time travel again being a theme, I'm not sure if it's exactly just meant as fanservice. I also hear that it incorporates some loose ends or elaborates on stuff that never made it into the official version of Tales of Phantasia (the game being based on a three part script called "Tale Phantasia" from which a good bit was cut and was part of why WolfTeam got really pissed off at Namco.

Additionally, in an odd case of retrospective, from what I've heard of it, Narikiri Dungeon raises some neat possibilities between Symphonia (which would come out later down the line) and Phantasia, particularly in regards to the villain of each game. At least, that's my knowledge of it, and I suppose it's ultimately a non canon sequel. I still haven't played it since it's not in English yet.

The big thing with NDX though is that it's a full remake (complete with voicing) and as far as I've heard, the combat is really, really fun, with the costume based class system letting you customize Mel and Dio for how to round out your party best.

Also, this is from when Thoroughim announced the NDX bundle for translation:
That was from late 2013. As far as I know, they still pick away at it occasionally, but ToPX has more progress since it and Destiny DC have been given priority. And from an update in February 2015, he says that the NDX part has proven "deceptively huge," for a side game/spin off I suppose. Still, I figure he and Kingcom are going to stick with it even if it takes them a long time to finish all of their projects, since it's a game Thoroughim really likes and wants the western Tales fan to get to play in English sometime.

The wonder chef is all over in this game. He Just told me that to make a hamburger all you need is bread, lettuce, and bear meat. I can't believe I've never eaten a real hamburger before. I've been using ground beef like some plebeian peasant or something.

That's pretty awesome. I like it when there's surprises like that. After the flood of games way before Christmas it can be kind of boring gaming wise too. (I was happy Trails of Cold Steel actually released three days before Christmas last year.)

That actually sounds pretty interesting. I guess it will come down to if I like the gameplay. I really can't picture tales as a DRPG (if that is what it is), but the class system sounds awesome though.

If he's saying this and that ToPX is bigger than it seems then I wouldn't be surprised if NDX releases first. That kind of sucks for me, since I obviously can't play that one first, but whatever works. I'm just happy that they're trying to make it the best game possible. Missing out on stuff like this really sucks about about the west (and frightens me that it can all be taken away with shit like the TPP if things go wrong.)

Yeah, Wonder Chef gets around. Was a little saddened that he seems to show up with less frequency as of recent games (though looking at the Xillia games for example, you just buy your food there instead of cooking it, making recipes a moot point).

They did the same for Tempest's translation as an April Fools Joke, releasing it on 4/1/13. Of course, even they admit that that entry is absolute shit, hence it being used as a joke (though they have said that it did provide more good practice for them).

The Narikiri Dungeon games still have a variant of the real-time LMBS system Tales is known for, with them all being done in a 2D style. From example videos I've seen, it's pretty fast paced, and rather than TP or CC as the resource for actions, it seems like it uses an energy bar that fluctuates from 0% to 100%, building and falling as actions play out. So, as far as combat goes, they play similarly to the main series (albeit with the costume class system; NDX has 80 or so to unlock and level up, including cameo ones from other Namco series), though the dungeons themselves are randomly generated, or something.

While ND2 and 3 on the GBA were their own crossover thing between various entries in the series, ND1 (and thus NDX) was the first actual sequel to a Tales game in the series, being released before Tales of Destiny 2 for the PS2 (the Aselia timeline/universe as of now consists of five games; two treated as main series and three as escort titles). The only prior characters to return are strictly from Phantasia. As for the release frame for both ToPX and NDX in English, while they were initially farther along with NDX, ToPX has been seeing a lot more focus than NDX these days (judging by their progress reports), so I'd estimate Phantasia X will still come out before Narikiri Dungeon X is finished.

Yeah, not sure how much you know about Phantasia off the bat, but in the original script, there were three sections to it. The actual game only covers the last third (Cress and friends journey across time for revenge) and an abridging of the second part, with the first third (which would have essentially provided development for the villain and how he would go from a peaceful ambassador to a violent and driven antagonist as diplomacy between him and Midgard failed) being cut entirely, leading to a revelation only coming about towards the end that some feel was handled a bit too abruptly. Admittedly there's a legitimate issue about cartridge space and I suppose some of that might not have translated all that well to a game if handled in the original order (unless you had full genre shifts between sections, or something; the way the script is there would have been three separate parties of sorts and/or campaigns), but the way the dialogue (in the SFC version anyhow; not entirely sure how the PS1 or PSP scripts compare) is written apparently still acts as if the reader is aware in full of what happened in the prior two sections that were cut or pared down.

Aselia wiki covers it in more detail on their "Tale Phantasia" page. Might be better to play the game first before reading on it in full though, since it has some spoilers for things in explaining the differences between the original script and the game script.

I'm finally starting to get into Eternia and have the controls down, but there's still some things that bug me. I walked around that damn water cave for like an hour thinking there must be some puzzle I'm not figuring out, but all that was stopping me is a door blended in, so much with the wall, that I didn't realize it was there. Thankfully, that merchant outside sold holy bottles. (Figuring out how to push those boulders was annoying too, since undead things kept walking into me before I could figure out how it worked. They should have put the first one away from them just to teach you how it worked.)

Now, I haven't been seeing him as much. maybe I just saw him so much at first so that I had some recipes to get me started.

Oh, okay, I'll definitely play it then. Eternia's been my first 2D tales and while, so far I prefer it in 3D (it's nice not having to jump over everyone each battle to get at spellcasters and archers), but I'm still enjoying it.

I really don't know much at all. Go figure I'm trying to avoid spoilers and I'm pretty sure the quiz in this game is trying to spoil it on me. That quiz seemed long as shit anyway. I quit it early, so I guess, I'll be failing that class.

Might be wrong, but I think as far as Tales questions on the quizzes (yes there are multiple) go, any that were Phantasia relevant got culled since at the time Eternia came out here, Destiny was the only prior entry we'd gotten (the west wouldn't see Phantasia officially until the botched GBA port) and westerners at the time wouldn't be able to answer the questions correctly.

Granted, there's other cameos and call backs to Phantasia in the game, including a pair of bonus boss fights.

Yeah, there's a few times like that. Trying to use the rope in Sylph Cave was one that I found really annoying; I figure the Japanese version may have had a skit about it that was cut with the rest in the western release due to not having any on screen text to translate and Namco not wanting to pay the English voice actors more than they were already (Pretty sure all of them went uncredited too). That or they wanted people to call their paid tip line.

And at least Holy Bottles work just fine, even if it takes a bit of getting used to in that they just reduce the encounter rate rather than acting as a full repel. In the bonus dungeon in Phantasia PS1, hearing a shattering sound followed by a message that "All your Holy Bottles have broken" at the very start of it is the game's way of telling you to get fucked.

Interestingly enough, Eternia's encounter rate's pretty well balanced if you ask me. Not entirely certain on Destiny's encounter rate, but Phantasia SFC's is noted as being pretty high, and in trying to remedy that, the PS1 version of Phantasia's encounter rate felt like they'd made it too low (to the point at some points I'd actively have to wander around to try to get encounters). Of course, the more fluid combat in Eternia also helps keep the encounters pretty fast paced and enjoyable.

Oh, i'm not sure what they were trying to spoil for me then. Maybe Destiny? It was a bunch of questions asking about what the antagonist's (?) motivation was and all types of shit. I tried to skip them all and luckily forgot most of it.

Yeah, i've been using them like crazy now, since I'm pretty sure I'm over leveled. (I kind of do that in every Tales game regardless though. I figure, it saves time and adds challenge without having to put it on hard mode.)

It kind of bugs me on the map screen (or when I'm lost obviously), but I can definitely deal with it. Main thing I miss is the ability to see all the enemies and try to run from them.

Looking back at some of the questions, the names do seem familiar. But remember, they'd not "Tales of" quizzes, but rather more broad "Namco" ones covering a variety of their games, including Dragon Valor, Klonoa, Tekken, etc aimed at prior fans of Namco's games.

Yeah, I think Symphonia was the first to have onscreen encounters (unless Destiny 2 did; that one came out first, but the west never got it). Can't really fault Eternia for not having it when the series had never done so at that point (meanwhile with a few post-Symmphonia games like Legendia that can be considered a bit of a fault, since I think the on-screen encounters thing was pretty well received).

Maybe it was this one? Some were just Ms Pacman and stuff, but one had to be a JRPG or something. It just sounded way too much like one.
(Protip: Ms. Pacman has black eyes.)

Yeah, i really didn't expect this one too, but I wasn't even sure when that started either. I actually own Legendia and can finally play it on my CRT, but I've yet to even start it. They could probably stop making video games now and while that would be unfortunate, I would still have enough to play for the rest of my life. I'm constantly finding more and more games I want to play. I never even knew things like Cranage Heart EXA, ZHP, Growlanser:WoT or a lot of PSP games existed until I bought a Vita and just randomly came across them on the store through sales and stuff. It's a shame that GTA, MGS, God of War, Gran Turismo, and all that stuff got all the attention when it was popular (or seemed to to me). I mean it's great it had it, but I probably would've bought a PSP but I mainly just looked at those as something that I'd be better off playing on a console. Had I known it was a JRPG goldmine, I'm sure I would've bought one, but I really didn't follow everything as well back then. (At least the PS2 was amazing for JRPGs too, so I guess, I was still occupied anyway.)

Dragon Valor is the PS1 entry in the Dragon Buster series. Action RPG. Really don't hear much about it though since no one ever brings it up these days.

Legendia's a pretty odd entry, and with it using a guest team (Project MelFes) rather than the main ones who work on Tales, it comes off as being a bit backwards. Might help to go into it with a bit lower expectations than normal.

Can't say I'd want vidya to just "end" (though some changes in the industry in regards to shit like DLC, rushed releases, and botched localizations would help), but yeah, there's a ton of stuff already in existence to playthrough, and even with older systems, fan-translation occasionally increase the amount of games one can play in English (Shadow Brain for the Famicom just saw a fan translation released today). I think what I have right now would likely keep me occupied for years and years.

Both the DS and PSP saw a lot of JRPGs, likely since handheld development is probably a lot cheaper than doing so for consoles, especially at most recent budgets (and I'd wager the PS3's cell wasn't the easiest to work with either, leading to it being a tad lacking JRPG-wise compared with, say, the PS1 and PS2), though some companies like Vanillaware still pull of some good stuff on tiny budgets compared to what other games get.

Think my last post got eaten.

Fucking 502 errors, quit eating my posts.

Then why is it so fucking hard to crack the PSP mode?

I haven't heard anyone talk about Haruhi in ages. Guess since the series is in full
mode, most people either forgot, or tried to forget to avoid the pain. it's what I did

I bought two 3600mah batteries for like six bucks for both, and the first one has been going strong for almost three years now. I feel bad for you son

Same. I do wish it was finished since I'd love to play it. Maybe one day.

Does anyone have a recommendation on what battery to buy for a 3000? I went to check out my psp to see if it even still worked, and as soon as I picked it up the battery cover popped off because the battery had expanded.. Thank god it didn't burst.

Also any recommendations on duo to micro sd adapters?

I don't think I should buy that battery.

I don't think I've ever actually heard of these games. Maybe if I saw the boxart, but looking at too much might lead to me wanting to play it and I fear adding anymore games to my backlog. As much as I'm enjoying Eternia I kind of wish I didn't start it yet. A list of everything I'm playing right now might make you question my sanity. The day I dig myself out of this hole I'll be pretty happy. It just sucks, because when certain games come out I play them instantly, due to really wanting to play them, but also, because for things like Persona of Danganronpa you'll get spoiled like crazy waiting.

Me either, but I can't help but feel we're drifting further and further away from what I care about. At least VNs seen healthy, I guess.

That goes the same with 3DS and Vita though. I don't really want to live in a world without that niche and only big budget AAA studio JRPGs (and a Compile Heart game here and there). There's just tons of games, I don't think, would exist if it wasn't for handhelds.

I'd like to know this too. I'm in need of a card badly.

I got a cheap £2 one on Amazon that works completely fine. Loaded 2 64GBs in and still using it. If you get a adapter, try not to fuck around too much with it (e.g. pull it out the PSP a lot) since they're fairly fragile.

When you plug your PSP into the computer does it just show 128gb's or each 64gb card?

128gb.

Okay, thanks, I thought if that wasn't the case it way complicate things.
I take it, this would lead to a problem for me since I don't want to format my PSP though?

You insert the 64gbs in, format them, connect to a PC and format it there, and it's then ready or some shit. I forgot the main steps, but there's a vid on Youtube to tell how to.

It formats the memory card, not the PSP. it does jack shit to the PSP.

Oh, okay, maybe I will give them a try then. I just saw this and it seems pretty cheap too, since I don't actually have any extra micro sds and would have to buy those too. I would like to have 128gb, so I can put every PSP game I'll ever want on it, but does doing that make it load slower when choosing games and stuff? I'm also a little worried that a rando chinese adapter might have better odds of messing up my card slot as opposed to an OEM original card. Is that a legitimate concern or have you heard any reports of their being negative side effects to the adapter method?

Never heard any shit like that for an adapter. How could it? It's a fucking adapter, you'd have to force it in to do any damage to the slot.

Slower loading, yes. On the menu, it can take about 20 seconds to sort itself out before the XMB works perfectly again. It's really nothing special.

I don't know, I just figured I'd ask, since I haven't ever followed any of this stuff. It's probably just the extremely low price of $1.50 with free shipping that made me think about it. I guess, just being an adapter though, there's no reason it should be costly anyway.
(I have had adapters for other things stop working, but as long as it doesn't get trapped inside the PSP somehow or some weird shit I'll be okay. Never hurts to ask.)

Do you guys possibly know what class sd cards would be overkill for the speed of what the produo card adapters are?

Did God Eater 2 ever get a translation for PSP?

Just get any within your price point. It's going to take time to register memory regardless.

anyone know where i can buy a cheap PSVita?
i kinda like the idea of playing some PSO2 and skullgirls and some other weeb games while taking a shit

Probably because (and I could be wrong here) but Dragon Valor was the only one to come west, I think (there's a few Namco series they never really bothered bring west much; Legend of Valkyrie being another). Not certain if Dragon Buster I and II have been fan translated either (at the very least they still left the Dragon Buster minigame in the western release of Tales of the Abyss).

Best to take things one or two games at a time and make good progress across both, rather than playing a bit of everything but making no real progress. My own backlog's huge, but at least I finished something I was playing and showing a friend the other day. Now I'm not sure what to play next on the handheld end of things.

My own backlog's huge, and usually after beating something it's really hard to chose what to devote time to next (especially when there's no more games left in a given series I'd been working at to play)

Define "cheap." I know one local store around me that stocks used ones for maybe $110-130, but another one asks a whopping $300 or so for used ones. There's also the memory card pricing issue.

Weird, I don't remember that. Abyss is the game I put on pause due to my backlog and 3DS CFW stuff. I was planning on watching the anime up to where I was in the game and starting it again, but I even put that on hold again due to this other stuff. It's kind of nice to know I have a Tales game, I enjoy, waiting for me though, anyway, since the newer entries all look a little questionable.
(I'm actually more worried about Berseria than I even am Zesteria. I can't believe I still haven't even found Zesteria for under $30 yet either.)

That's what I'm gonna start doing. The way I have been doing things, does have it's advantages, but I'd rather just get fully absorbed in a game for a week or two. The way I'm doing things now is almost like watching one episode of an anime every week when I'd rather just marathon it.

I always go for games that seem easy to be spoiled on or that I'm really hyped for first. It's crazy how much enjoyment one wrong spoiler can take out of a game.

$160 brand new doesn't seem like a bad price. I don't even think you can get a "New" 3DS for that price.
amazon.com/Sony-PlayStation-Vita-WiFi/dp/B00PV515DU/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1462228403&sr=1-1&keywords=psvita

I think it's at an optional end-game location (Nam Cobanda Island, or something; requires the Albiore II to be fully upgraded to reach, if memory serves). But even back in the earliest days, Namco's been pretty cool about leaving references to other games intact; Not just Pacman either, even ones the west may not have seen prior. Tales of Destiny's bonus dungeon is a sixty floor recreation of the Tower of Druaga, and Eternia has Valkyrie (from The Legend of Valkyrie; the west has only ever officially seen a game in that series via Namco Museum Volume 5 for the PS1) as the boss in one of its bonus dungeons. Think Vesperia also has some scrolling shooter minigame as well; can't remember off the top of my head what other Namco game it was based on though.

Well, most of the games after Vesperia seem to be a bit love it or hate it with fans. I suppose maybe my tolerance for bullshit's rather high though, since I found Graces f and both Xillia games pretty enjoyable despite their flaws (X2 also has a mood to it that ranges from bittersweet to depressing, though it certainly fits the theme of the game).

Well, I haven't played Zestiria yet, but I do recall that people in the west were made aware of what the Japanese thought of that one a good while before it came west (namely the shitfit Japan through over the Alicia DLC and what they felt was false advertising; as one user once summarized it as, do not put a paywall between a man and his waifu). Which isn't to say that the game doesn't have other issues (as far as I'm aware, the combat has some problems as well), but it wouldn't surprise me if the former impacted western sales potential more (combined with the fact that, as far as the PS3 version's concerned, the PS3 is past gen now; some of the still recent PS3 localization like Trails of Cold Steel are also still somewhat pricy). For comparison, Xillia and Xillia 2 sold really well here and are some of the cheapest Tales games to get used copies of (aside from Legendia, which has a real lack of demand).

As for Berseria, the west sadly isn't getting the PS3 version since Namco's chosen (or perhaps been convinced by Sony) to only localize it for the PS4.

I suppose so, though it really depends on the game in question. With Ghost Trick for example, there's a particular spoiler some people love to be vocal about (because nothing is sacred on an imageboard, even shit anons really enjoy), but that game has so many other twists and turns that there's still plenty of reason to play even if you know it.

My issue is really just trying to sit down and put something in to play. There's a point where having access to a lot of worthwhile games leaves you without the ability to settle on any one thing in particular. As far as games of immediate interest on handhelds go, I've got Infinite Space, Radiant Historia, Trails in the Sky, and both PSP Star Oceans in my backlog. And that's not even counting numerous PS1 eboots to be played on my PSP, nor other games I have for the DS, PSP, or Vita.

Have to say it's been enjoyable talking with someone like this; makes me miss the old JRPG gen all the more, albeit not enough to go back to halfchan for it. Shame there's not really a good substitute for it here.

There, I just got all my shit together, now I'm just waiting for one of the duo to micro sd adapters to come in. In the mean time, is there some sort of pluggin or something that I can use to sort my shit out properly? It's a pain to scroll through all the cfw shit and a bunch of other games when I'm looking for one thing in particular out of a million.

I'm pretty sure there's various things you can download and put on it that will allow for games and emulators to be sorted how you like, rather than whatever method the PSP uses. Not sure which is the best though; I haven't used any at this point.

Reminds me, for some reason my friend's able to get shit on his PS3 better organized than mine, since apparently he can make folders for stuff like PS1 and PS2 classic, but try as I might, mine apparently can't (he's got an old 60 GB and I don't think it has CFW, while mines a 160 GB).

Can one of you guys start working on a fan translation for Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere Portable? I was about to start the anime and it would be nice to have the game to play afterwards. It even seems a lot like a JRPG, unlike most games based on anime.

Damn, I don't remember that either. Isn't Namco the one who holds the patent for games during loading though? It would be nice if they would just let other people do it too. Playing Galaga or whatever while your race loads is a hell of a lot better than watching a stupid icon spin or bar fill up. (They should've sued over being able to spin those dragon statues or whatever it was in Skyrim.)

That sounds awesome. I've been waiting to play those damn games forever. I own Xillia. i just don't own a PS3 and all this CFW stuff keeps stopping me from impulse buying one. I should probably just get one, since there's enough games I can play without CFW that will keep me busy for years to come. I just really like undubs and that expanded Vesperia seems so awesome.

Yeah, I found Legendia at a garage sale for like $8 and thought I probably found some amazing deal. While it still was a good deal, i just couldn't believe an older Tales game went as cheap as it does. It just seemed like the kind of game that would have a low print, since I never hear anyone talk about it like Abyss or anything.

Well, since Infinite Space is getting a reprint you might be able to play that later and actually have people to talk to about it as you make your way through it. (I'd love to buy it myself. I'm just pretty short on cash at the moment. Maybe I still will though.) Trails in the Sky is pretty fun, but most people play them for the later entries. Apparently SC is where it gets great. I've really wanted to play Radiant Historia. Some people really love it and I've heard it's touching enough that it's made people cry, so I'm pretty intrigued. The Star Ocean games is what I actually planned on playing myself though. The only thing that stopped me was the size of my PSP's memory card, so now I need to beat Eternia first and then I'll be starting them. (I think I'm finally almost done with Stella Glow, so when that's over I should start flying through some of these. I really hope someone decides to localize Luminous Arc Infinity for Vita.)

There's a number of PSP games that still need fan translation since they were never deemed worth bringing west (or the ease of piracy made various companies feel it to be a waste of time/money). Heard decent things in the past about some Nude Maker developed mech action RPG called Terror of the Stratus; don't think anyone's picked that one up for fan translation yet, or if they have, I've heard jack shit about it. And since the ones by more popular companies/in more popular series can still have a hard time getting them (Tales of Destiny 2 and Rebirth for the PSP don't have patches either for example, but then again, both of their PS2 versions are still in fan translation hell; and that's not even going into the escort titles of stuff like Radiant Mythology 2 and 3 or Twin Brave), I'm not sure how long it'll take for the lesser known, stand alone ones to see them. Still, the PSP's still a somewhat recent system, so hopefully in time it sees more action on the fan translation end of things.

The tone shift is slightly jarring since X1 tends to be rather upbeat, but again, the focus is a bit different, and the very premise of X2's plot is meant to attempt to break the will of the characters and test their resolve.

As far as the older Tales games go, the only one that sold really great out here was Symphonia, courtesy of being one of a handful of JRPGs for the Gamecube and NoA actually doing the marketing Namco had refused to give the series here prior (nor would they do much of afterward until Xillia). Destiny, Eternia, and Abyss didn't do that well, likely due to lack of marketing and having a lot of competition JRPG-wise on both the PS1 and PS2 (the first two also suffer from lack of name recognition that the series no longer suffers from here), though Abyss did see a reprint eventually, I think, hence it only being about $25-30. Legendia though is just an odd, somewhat backwards entry that is very much hit or miss with fans like Abyss is, though the reasons are different. I don't think it saw a low print run. It goes for so little since most series fans tend to ignore it (though I do recall seeing one user a few years back that had like 20 copies of the game, a bunch of artbooks, and some medallion for it).

While a part of me would certainly enjoy that (given that with so much of what I play there's pretty much no point in making threads on since the games are old and the series dead; last time I saw a thread specifically on Wild Arms, for example, I think it got maybe ten posts or so before 404ing, and most of them were my own trying to see if I could get some images someone asked about to go through) and a reprint can help drive the amount of people actively playing something up, I'm not sure if I'd want to risk the possibility of people that played it when it came out just posting spoilers all over the place. I mean, it is six years old at this point.

Wow, fuck this forest in Eternia so much. I think I'm finally almost done with it, but wandering around looking for those stupid zombie things, dodging grim reapers, and having constant battles with no TP isn't fun. I hope the other dungeons aren't this long and tedious.

I hope so, but the problem is there's only so many people working on this stuff and games come out faster than people can ever translate and patch them. At least the Vita not being hacked might help some of them stick with working on PSP games. (Despite some people saying it would save the Vita, I happen to believe that it would, actually, kill it, anyway.)

Damn, I wish you saved the pictures or something. That sounds insane. Why 20 copies? I understand wanting all the different versions or something, but there can't be nearly that many.

I hate the whole "the game is X old" bullshit. I mean for things like FFVII the spoiler are so widely know and parodied and stuff that it's pretty much part of the culture, but it's just common courtesy to mark spoilers.
I meant to talk about it in some other type of thread though. Like a DS/3DS general or something, (sort of how most people actually have decent discussions in the Vita general). I'd like to make a JRPG general myself, but I feel like I already know what the majority of posts will be and I'm just tired of it all. Maybe if I mask it in a way that will keep people who don't actually care about the games out or something, I dunno.

Forest of Temptation, or whatever it's called? Yeah, that one was a bitch, I think I was there for an hour or two with a friend the first time we played it, having to work out what the deal was with it to be able to leave it. I don't recall other ones in the game being anywhere near as annoying. Maybe Aifread's Cavern, though that's more luck based than intentionally annoying design. Had more annoyance with the dungeons in Phantasia. The ones with floors filled with miasma (and no, Abyss was not the first to use that element) were annoying, especially since they had a chance of the ridiculously powerful Hell Masters being random enemies, even in he ones you're meant to go through at low levels.

True, I expect that the ease of piracy was part of what killed off localization efforts with the PSP. Still, I do hope that the Vita eventually sees a fan translation scene.

I think the big thing with the PSP and DS is simply that it takes time for a system to build up a decent amount of fan translations (which some systems like the Famicom and SFC have had). That, and ease of working with the code as far as ripping the script and hacking in a translation without bugging the whole thing up.

The fucker really liked Legendia. I'll dig around and see if I have any pictures saved about it. No guarantees though.

DS threads used to be a good bit more common, especially when I first made the jump here from halfchan. Was nice because I could get a lot of input for revising the DS chart at that time. These days though, aside from Vita threads and 3DS piracy bunkers, I only really see Xbox and Dreamcast threads on a rather regular basis.

Yeah, there's an unfortunately vocal dislike towards them among various posters. It eventually got that way on half/v/ some years back as well (people like rugga spamming threads about "why does Holla Forums hate games with anime artstyles" with Atelier images likely didn't help matters there); a few classic JRPG series, as well as Tales, managed to escape from being shitpost magnets, but for discussion of much else aside from those I wound up just going to the the JRPG general on /vg/ (which had it's own issues with tripfags and the like, the way most generals eventually do, but the ability to discuss shit whenever, even lesser known games that wouldn't warrant having their own threads made, was great and the suggestions I noted down from there for stuff to look into playing has yet to disappoint me). The occasional JRPG thread here can turn out well provided it gets off to a good start, but in most of the cases I've seen for them, they don't. I still try to help out with providing ideas for stuff to play for anons looking to get into them more, but overall I just have to take discussion where I can get it for them, which usually means other non-specific JRPG threads (though I do at least try to makes sure it's relevant to the thread at hand; makes me wish Shadow Hearts had a Vita bundle though). Honestly just feels like there's not a real good place to discuss them around here; I mean, there was /jrpg/, but it's been dead for a long while, and I don't even think /vg/'s real active here either; checked for a JRPG general there occasionally and found none (most non-Holla Forums video game boards don't have that much activity in general though). Really though, it just seems like there's some games/genres Holla Forums isn't the best place for discussion of, and admittedly in some cases there's good reason for that.

Yeah, I hated that place.
I'm to where I just boarded a ship and Keele acts like an even bigger bitch than he's already been the whole game now. (I'm happy this isn't one of the types of JRPGs where you can just walk right up to the King to say hi. That always seemed strange to me in older games.) It's been pretty fun again and a relief after leaving that forest.

I'm pretty positive it did. It seemed like piracy was crazy with it. It's why it didn't surprise me when I bought one and despite looking new even had CFW on it. It sucks that Vita hasn't had the same type of AAA support, because it would be interesting to see how it would do without a trace of piracy. It sucks that something with such great hardware will never get to live up to it's full potential. Even after being out for over four years the thing feels pretty new.

I guess so. Maybe it was his first Tales and one of his first JRPG or something?

After Zesteria though I wouldn't be surprised if threads about new Tales won't be covered in shitposting. I suppose if Berseria turns out well I might be wrong though. Which I'd hope Namco is trying to make it great after Zesteria's reception.

I keep spelling Zestiria wrong on accident.

Any way to force an update without a battery?

My battery looks like pic related and won't even fit in my PSP, but I can still use the PSP itself as long as it's plugged in. I can't update to 6.60 in preparation for my battery to arrive since the update won't start since "battery level is too low".

Keele is an asshole. That much is certain, and if you're lucky enough to do so, wiping that smirk off his face playing WHIS feels good. Still, he at least grows some as a character and is a competent mage.

Blame really lies with SCEA on that end if you ask me, given that rather than embrace that they had a small but loyal customer base for the system that likes niche games, they kept trying to push for a more mainstream audience with stuff like Ass Creed, Uncharted, etc and didn't do enough to try to encourage various Japanese developers to allow for localization of the stuff the main Vita customer base here would like (and of course, the current localization trends have meant a fair amount of games aren't suitable to bring west even if the companies/devs at hand wanted to).

It might have been something like that; I can't quite recall. I will say that as backwards as it is in combat, Legendia does do some rather neat things with the setting, given the Legacy is a "moving island" belonging to no one country, and as such, various other characters from other parts of Shining Blue show up from time to time as ambassadors or representatives (or just to spy or try to lay claim to the place). While I kind of hate to make the comparison (given how much gets compared to the franchise these days), it's a bit like a Souls game in that regard: You never are able to actually explore beyond the area the game takes place in (the entire game being on The Legacy), but you do learn about the other kingdoms and their inhabitants through those that arrive there.

Damn, I'm glad mine came with some type of permanent CFW. I don't even know shit about how to apply it, but if people actually show up in this thread I'd think someone could help you.

Those were early on, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but once it got to the point where it was very clear what type of fanbase was buying vita games and they put their money towards shit like Borderlands 2, I lost all hope of them knowing what the fuck they were doing. That could've went towards damn near anything and been better off.
It still boggles my mind that there was never a Minecraft bundle either. They should even have that set up in stores and a LE green system. That fucking game has already sold like 800,000 physical copies in Japan and hasn't even been slowing down.
(Also fuck them for not convincing SE to release the Type-0 that everyone actually asked for even after announcing it and seeing the hype. Porting a PSP game is probably about the easiest thing you can port.)

I hope I enjoy the combat. I think I'm using too many holy bottles in Eternia. These monsters in the volcano area are a real bitch so far. I enjoy the battles but just not as much as Hearts R or something, so I only like fighting the minimum necessary (and I figure I'll finish the game quicker. I have a memory card on the way and too much stuff I've been waiting to play. At least I determined the PSP I bought doesn't seem to have any problems and the game is enjoyable.)

I'm honestly surprised that Borderlands 2 was the only official Vita bundle the west saw. Not sure if Japan saw more, but I'd have thought that maybe they might have tried pushing a Gravity Rush or Muramasa one.

With Type-0, I think Square-Enix just didn't give a shit about bringing it over initially, especially with it being a game that was so big it required two UMDs. They only got interested when they smelled blood in the water and saw that the translator was essentially doing their job of hyping it for them; thankfully they were a bit too slow on the C&D, meaning there's still an option to play it without motion blur and tumblr pronouns (or whatever else is noted as being wrong with the PS4 and Xbone versions).

Big issue inside the actual dungeon is that you're essentially on a timer about how long Undine can protect you from the heat (for once a JRPG ties convection in with the dungeon mechanics and that volcanic areas are not a good place to be, even just from the heat alone). If you run out you take some damage every second or so, so it's thankfully not an instant kill or anything.

The archers in the desert outside were the real problem for me if memory serves. Especially if you get attacked by them from both sides from six or so at once.

In my experience, Eternia's combat was better than Legendia's. I mean, it's certainly cool that Senel can throw downed enemies, dealing a nice chunk of damage to them, but overall combat seemed pretty slow compared to Eternia's being much faster paced, if still somewhat primitive by Tales standards. I suppose I can't blame them much. Legendia is all around a strange title, even in regards to the development of it, what with the team, Project Melfes, having Tekken and Soul Calibur devs on it, lacking series regular Motoi Sakuraba as composer (Go Shiina handling the OST entirely), and also not using Fujishima or Inomata for character designs (replacing both with Kazuto Nakazawa). No mystic artes or multiplayer either, for whatever reason. Again, I can't say I hate it, but it's certainly not a favorite of mine, and if anything the music is the best aspect of the game.

That isn't new.

There were other bundles, though. The ones for Asscreed and Cawadoody spring to mind.

Bordermemes 2 was the only PSV 2000 bundle that I remember in the West, though.

This is what you said.
It's been out for less than 2 years, so I was just going on off of what you said.

Like said there was more bundles. Besides what he said I know there was one for Madden, but the wast as a whole there's some really weird ass bundles in Europe I think.

Yeah, I'm really glad that guy pushed it out. Apparently, others on the team weren't happy with him, because it wasn't to where they wanted it, but if he would've waited we probably never would've got it at all.
As far as the motion blur they patched that months later, but them even thinking it was acceptable in the first place was ridiculous. It's just another thing that will take fucking around to get to work right once PSN is down too. I think I was happier before games could be patched.

Yeah, i spirnted the whole way through it so far and I'm at a reat point where I actually used another save space. (I've been saying fuck it as of late and only keeping one save for JRPGs. I figure if I can't beat Wiengraf or whoever then I should've done better. It's reckless, but it's yet to backfire. i just had a feeling with this game it might.)

My main problem is blocking doesn't seem to help very much against most enemies and dodging is much harder for me on one plane. i don't think I've ever gotten hit so much in 3D tales combat. (Those flying enemies can be a real bitch to hit depending or your weapon and stuff too.)

I see. The Borderlands 2 one was the only one I'd actually see myself for it.

Having a save slot or two can be useful in case you wind up missing something. I don't think Eternia has a lot in the way of missable sidequests, at least if memory serves (I can double check though), but Abyss is chock FULL of things with cutoffs for progression.

Eternia was before staggering (and thus anti-stagger as well) was much of a mechanic if memory serves, and Reid's shield tends to be much more useful for stopping projectiles than melee attacks if memory serves. The backstep mechanic is also a bit odd in that it's tied to an equip rather than being a built in mechanic.

Demon Hammer (Tiger Blade in later entries), Spiral Attack (Light Spear) and Tempest line of artes are useful for that with Reid, and Tempest also has the benefit of providing movement, which can also be used to avoid enemies by going over their heads. You could also opt to keep something like a spear on hand since I'm pretty sure you can swap out equipment mid battle if you need a longer reach.

Farah is also the earliest anti-air character in the series (to my knowledge anyhow), with a fair amount of artes that take her into the air and can be used to punish flying enemies. Pretty sure that Regal in Symphonia takes after her in a lot of ways, albeit focusing solely on kicks.

Damn, that Efreet guy was annoying. It took me three tries to beat him, because of his stupid fire that always pushes you left, sometimes trapping you in a burning state or in the corner where you can't do shit to get out of it. Now to get out of the dungeon without my water craymel having any HP left to protect me and barely any items.

The other ones were very early and it doesn't make much difference when you figure Borderlands, The Walking Dead, Madden, COD, and Assassins Creed all are for the same type of audience. That they never once even bundled it with a JRPG or Gravity Rush or something different seems really stupid, when most people that have been buying them is for P4G and Danganronpa and shit like that. If I were them I'd make a montage of the tons of japanese games and run that shit for things like when Adult Swim airs SAO andf Attack on Titan and stuff like that. (It's probably cheap as fuck to air commercials on Crunchy Roll too, since half of their commercial seem to be their own.) There's just so many ways they could've done better with the Vita (and still do better with it) that I'm not buying their excuses. (Of all my dumb ideas, I still wish giving PS4's Vita/PSTV functionality would've been something that happened. Even if it was taken out of later models it would've given PS4 owners a pretty huge catalog while they had (or maybe have) nothing to play.)

I need backstep! When do I get that? Do I already have it somehow?

I'm a total idiot. You can do that. I wish I didn't forget about that. it would've helped a lot for that damn wind fairy battle.

Yeah, Eternia's a game where, for once, those elemental resistance capes come in pretty handy, particularly for Reid and Farah since Keele and Meredy can hold hopefully keep their distance. Just be glad you at least have Undine already by that point, and if you need to, summon her in battle to heal the party.

Requires the Step Ring equipped, and the input is (oddly for people used to the later games in the series) Guard + Down (as opposed to Guard + Opposite Direction). The only one natively in the game itself is from winning the versions of the Chamballoon challenge on disc 3, I think. HOWEVER. I remembered I got one earlier than that, and in double checking, much like Phantasia and (later down the line) Symphonia, Eternia has Rune Bottles that let you transform various items. A Technical Ring (allows Meredy to autoguard while performing physical strikes with Quickie) or Combo Command (lets the player have full control of all of Reid or Farah's artes through fighting game type inputs) can be transformed into a Step Ring. The easiest one to get is the latter, and it requires you to find ten Lenses and bring them to that one girl collecting them.

You're that far now? Be careful with that wind elemental water-walking ability. While it certainly opens up the bulk of Inferia to exploration (which Eternia rewards with hidden grottos containing items, vendors, and occasionally a trainer that will teach you new ways to control the AI of your party), some of those islands have horrendously strong enemies that are more than happy to rip you a new asshole. Save often while doing so.

Also, I agree, and Adult Swim commercial for various niche games during Toonami or whatever might have helped. I mean, for all their horrendous faults these days, NoA's been willing to spring for those for various games, though I'm not sure how far niche they've gone with what they'll let be covered. Most niche I've seen myself has been an ad for Bravely Second.

Yeah, she comes in really handy, but getting Meredy that healing spell through the air and water craymels is what really saved my ass. She heals a lot at once and can pull it off without getting hit most of the time due to her distance, unlike Farah.

There's more Chamballoon? I beat the one in the desert and all I got was the title of champion (which I don't know if you can change or matters in this game) and 100g from that guy that said he'd give you something. 100. Fuck.

That might fuck me up once I get it too. No luck that they changed it for the PSP version huh?

I'm to the part where I need to find the rainbow road or whatever to get to Celestia. apparently it was that guy who went missing to blame for this and not Meredy's race of hairy, aharp clawed barbarians.

Do those show a dot on the map? I tried exploring for quite awhile, but like you said some of those enemies are crazy. After beating a hardass battle and not even leveling up I said fuck it and stopped exploring for the time being and found the desert.

I should really give those a try at some point since I have CFW now. I'm just not sure if there's an uncensored version of the second game in English yet. Plus I'd like an undub that restores everything for both games if possible.
Luckily, it's not really as much of a priority as other games I want to play, because I need a bigger memory card for my 3DS anyway.

Again, the run bottle thing is probably the easiest, but you'll need to find 10 lenses and take them to that NPC asking for them before you finish Disc 1.

I doubt it. It has the same function though; character backsteps away from the direction they're facing, it's just that you press down instead of the away direction. There was no Magic Guard function at that point (I think Symphonia toyed with it a bit with that barrier thing, but Abyss brought it in as a full mechanic the later games would keep) either, so it's not like it's taking up a command needlessly.

I can't remember if they do or not, but there's some areas (clearings, islands, nooks in between mountains, etc) on the overworld where I think you get a prompt to press X or O or whatever to enter them. They're a single screen, but have a bag of goodies or an NPC in them.

Oh, Mt Farlos? Have fun with the boss there. Still not as bad as some of the later ones, but it is deceptively tough, and struck me as on par with those "fight you're meant to lose on the first time through" bosses in the later games. Think you do have to win this one though.

My problem is I don't actually have that many lenses and I have no idea if I'm past the point, since for PSP it's only one disc, apparently. If that is the case I wonder what they cut to get the size down so low though.

I'm sure I can get used to it eventually. I just actually found myself trying to backstep early in the game out of habit.

I'll just have to explore a little more. I'm guessing they probably don't show up on the map, unless I'm just really bad at finding them.

Yep, that's the place. I haven't arrived yet, so I'll wait to read that spoiler, until I see what the boss is like. That doesn't inspire confidence though, since even the last boss was kind of hard.

The thing about direct PSP ports is that the UMD format is able to hold a lot more data than PS1 discs, if memory serves (hence Eternia only needing one disc for the PSP but three on the PS1). Additionally, eboots, both official PSN and pirate-made, use multidisc formats when needed instead of having all the data accessible at once. There's also the factors like FMVs that can eat up a good amount of space all on their own, voiced dialogue, data that needs to be kept the same between discs (characters, abilities, world maps/locations, etc) and other things. I suppose if anything got trimmed for the PSP version, it was stuff that would be redundant to have multiple files/components for on the same disc.

If you're not past Mt. Farlos, you're still on disc 1. If you've been exploring around, you should have found at least some Lenses at this point. I think most towns have one hidden around, sometimes up to three, and some dungeons do too, as do various other locations. There's a total of 60, and if you really want that ring as soon as you can get access to it, it's either get the lenses now while you're on the disc 1 content and rune bottle the reward when you get a chance to, or wait until disc 3. Taking a quick look at a list, Disc 1 has a total of 24 you can find.

Eternia likes to be a bit of a challenge, even on normal. Starts out kind of easy, but eventually ramps its way up, and some of the bosses on discs 2 and 3 are rather annoying (especially some of the optional ones; fuck Sekundes); not so much due to bad design or anything, but just being rather tough, or throwing something at the player they might not have expected. Feels good to beat them though.

Does anyone here have an E-1000? I'm just wondering if that's the best model besides it lacking wifi. That would've really bothered me back when it was released, but now it doesn't even seem like a big deal. (Although it would if I had anyone to play multiplayer with.) It just looks kind of slick and possibly more comfortable from the few pictures I've seen.

I just looked and apparently they hold 900mb or up to 1.8gb for dual layers. I had no idea they even went that high. It's probably because I'm used to those "pocket sized" cd-rw's that only hold 210mb. I'm not even sure why I have the things, but I just like different forms of media. I'm kind of disappointed I missed out on when UMDs were the new cool thing.
My copy of Eternia still only takes up like 800mb, I think, and don't PSP games have a slightly higher resolution than PS1? I'd just still expect it to be bigger. I suppose they might have compressed the audio and all sorts of things though too and even having multiplayer on the PS1 must take up some form of space. I dunno, I'd just be interested to know how they handled the porting process. I wish there was documentaries about this type of stuff.

I think I only have 5, maybe 6. I'll start trying to find more and go on a little trip flying (?) with my wind craymel skill. If I don't find them I'll just figure that it adds more challenge to the game not being able to backstep. It will kind of suck having an accessory slot permanently taken up anyway. I just found one that boosts your HP by 30%. Seems pretty high for that sort of thing. I guess accessories in this game are no joke.

It seems like even the regular enemies are harder than in the newer tales games I've played. A lot of the flying enemies seem to be able to teleport too and then the ones that are slower ground enemies hit pretty hard. I really do like that you actually use your shield though. I think in other Tales games I've only really concentrated on evading, since I don't even remember blocking.

Not certain about the resolution off the top of my head, but comparing filesizes for downloads of the PS1 eboot and PSP versions on emuparadise, it's 1.2 GB for the eboot version and 428 MB for the PSP one. Though that's the zipped sizes, probably at least a bit larger when decompressed. I'd wager that a fair amount of space in the PS1 version was indeed just dedicated to stuff that would have wound up redundant with having everything on a single UMD (considering you can cut out duplicate files of combat voicing, world maps, enemy data, etc). Not much point in having multiple instances of the same data on the disc.

Better to have backstepping tied to an equip than outright manual control being tied to one instead. Really glad they decided to make that something tied to a key item you can get early on in stuff like Eternia and Graces, though having it available from the start with no items required is definitely preferred.

And yeah, those gem accessories used to have a much higher boost in earlier games like Eternia than in the later ones like Xillia. Later games also do away with the second accessory slot as they've gone on, for whatever reason.

Yeah, in the 3D games (aside from Symphonia with its lack of free run), it's generally easy to evade attacks with movement. In the 2D ones, you just have forward and backward, and maybe jumping over your opponent with the right timing/artes.

As for shields, it's a bit funny. Tales has mostly done away with those. In the early games on the SFC and PS1, Cless, Stahn, and Reid (all being main characters in their respective games) were built around having one to help block attacks and boost defense (hell, in Cless' case, some of his attack animations actually include a shield bash, such as Beast and its combinations), but as the series has gone on, the protagonists have shied away from using them (apart from maybe Shing? Not sure if his Soma sheath directly counts as a buckler of sorts), instead opting to block with their weapons, and even with the other party members, it's become rather rare. After Eternia, I think only Kratos, Zelos, Flynn, and Estelle have been shield users, and even in Destiny's PS2 remake, Stahn's traded his shields out for gauntlets. I think Cless still uses shields in the PSP versions of Phantasia (most artwork of him just depicts him using a Grip Sword though), and since Eternia has never been remade, it's unknown whether they'd drop the shield aspect from Reid. Would certainly make some fights much tougher though.

Ugh, I guess I'm gonna wait until later for the backstep item. I tried going around looking for lenses and hidden areas and I did find a few things that should prove useful, but I only found one lens. I spent so much time doing it though that it just got really boring and some of those enemies are still way too strong for me. I didn't even know there would be an item that allowed me to do that without you telling me though, so I guess, it's just as well. Most players probably had to do without it anyway, so i should manage okay I hope.
(I wish there was a way to open the map. Half of the time i think I was pretty much going in circles. The hidden areas don't show up on the map though either.)

Damn, that's only like 1/4 of the size. Pretty crazy how little things can change so much. They might've only needed a couple hundred MBs of more space to fit it all on one disc for PS1. I'm not one of those people who care about changing discs anyway, but it is nicer to only have top worry about one disc and it's easier to replace a standard case if you're buying second hand.

Yeah, that's really strange. I'd think things like that they'd want everyone to be able to use easily since it's kind of one of the games features.

Maybe they've just found that people generally like the look of protagonists better that don't use one? I normally like the look of someone without one better, but I really do like when games actually have usable ones and not just some passive defense boost that might as well be an accessory. I really like how the different weapons all have their own advantages and disadvantages in this game. The spear really is a lifesaver for a lot of situations.

Admittedly I haven't given Destiny much of a go yet, but I don't recall Phantasia PS1 having a backstep. Might have been introduced in Eternia through the equip before being fully realized with the later games as a built in mechanic.

The PS1 version has a nice RPG Shrine if you feel desperate to get those lenses. There's a few spoilers in looking at the page for it, but if need be I can pull about 3-4 locations for you to check so you can avoid looking through it yourself. I don't think any of the lenses would have had their locations changed in the PSP version.

Try pressing start a few times on the overworld.

Again, FMVs used to eat up a LOT of room, and I think Eternia has 3-4 or so total (first disc has two including the opening, think the second disc has one, third disc has one as well if memory serves). Part of why some games like Koudelka have to be four discs despite being pretty short to actually play.

Well, usually the concept art for characters shows them without shields unless it's actually built into the design (such as with Estelle).

Yeah, it's cool. I mean, it's pretty neat to have characters that have their own unique weapon classes, but it certainly limits versatility compared to how Cless and Reid could equip a number of different classes of weapons. Think one of the few times that sort of thing's showed up again was Vesperia, where Yuri can use swords and axes (in addition to his fist subweapons), Estelle using swords and maces/rods, Karol using 2h Axes, 2h Swords, and 2h maces, etc. Also notable that in Yuri's case there were different pros and cons to using either and axe or sword, and until you reached a certain amount of usage with various artes, they wouldn't work nearly as well as with the weapon their were meant for (Destruction Field, for example).

Tales of Eternia Online?

It kind of seems like something that would be added on later. The whole premise and everything seems pretty ambitious for an older game. I wish I would've known to play it when it came out. The stories and gameplay and everything in the Tales games I've played so far is just always fun and addictive. With how well Eternia holds up today I know I would've loved it back then, especially with the added luster of it being new.

Thanks, I wish I would've said something sooner. I did so much backtracking already that I figured I'd just move on without it. As much as I'm enjoying the game I still want to get back to Koudelka and play my first Star Ocean game soon. (I never played Valkyria Chronicles either and now that I have a PSP to play the sequels I figured I'd pick up the PS4 version and play it on my Vita.)

I hope playing the undub isn't gonna cause me to not know what's going on from lack of subs during them or something. The version of Stella Glow I've been playing is like that, but thankfully it was mostly action and standard things that you would hear in anime enough times to pick up on what was being said.

It's been so long that I kind of forgot that she had that heart shaped shield. I loved that game so much I really need to get my hands on a PS3 with CFW sometime. As much as I want it it just seems dumb to get one right now, since I have plenty of things to play and the price should keep going down. I just even really liked the movie, so playing everything again with new characters and events sounds amazing. Especially, after all this time has past and I only beat the game once shortly after it came out.

I really should start changing characters more. It feels like I get so comfortable playing as the protagonist that I only play as other characters a really small amount of the game. I kind of like it when games split your party up, so you can't just get overly comfortable doing the same things. Picking who went where to save those people in Hearts just felt kind of awesome too. I even reloaded and played a short amount just to see the difference in what they said.

Whoops, that was Abyss. I don't remember if your party even gets split up in Hearts R at all.

Yeah, Tales of Eternia Online. Namco decided to make an MMO set in Eternia's binary planet system. It's dead now, but still an odd point to that game. I mean, Eternia's never been remade and doesn't seem like it was all that popular (if the difference in amount of fanart between it, Phantasia, Destiny, Destiny 2, and Symphonia is anything to go off of), yet it got an interlude anime that was 13 episodes (I think) and an MMO (pretty sure that's the only MMO the series ever saw as well).

Well, I'm not certain which ones you've gotten yet, but there's two lenses in Rasheans, two in Mintche, and three in Inferia City if that helps you any.

I don't think it will. Most of the FMVs are music and video only, and I think the few that did has voicing should have subtitles, but it's been quite a while since I played. I'd have to double check, but I don't think those are until disc 3.

I played the PS3 version prior to the patch coming out without knowing moon. It's certainly playable that way (using artes/skills translation guides, and there's a number of little things here and there that make it pretty foreigner friendly), but yeah, I would guess that playing it with the patch on a CFW PS3 would be ideal. I should look into getting one myself for future fan translations, but I'm not exactly rolling in spending money.

As far as Eternia goes, it really feels as if they decided to have four fully realized characters, but then added a few NPCs to the roster as an afterthought. They're certainly playable, but not all that fleshed out combat-wise. And with casters not being all that fun to actually play as until Abyss, It's pretty much just Reid and Farah that are really enjoyable, at least in my experiences with co-oping it (I played Reid, friend tried out the other characters as they came along, but mostly stuck to Farah).

What do you mean by interlude? It's not the whole story? I actually have it downloaded, but I never watched it obviously. I just had downloaded it, since you never know when seeders are gonna disappear.

Thanks, if I head back I'll have to check it out. I should have paid attention to what I got where, but when I first started finding them I was mixing them up with battle lenses or whatever, so I thought I was finding cheapass items instead of something important.

Oh, nice, I'll have to look in the options next time I play in case there's an on/off or something. I'm guessing they'd be hard subs if it does have them anyway, but it wouldn't hurt to look.

Some people have been doing that for Innocence R. My knowledge of Japanese is far too limited to really do that with either game and get the same sort of enjoyment out of it. I really just need to start learning the language again. I learned a bunch of it from Rosetta Stone, but the thing was total shit as far as written language and concentrated too much on more business/tourist type things. I wish I knew how much Hearts R sold, so I could be more pissed at Namco for not localizing Innocence R.

Farah's actually the only other character I tried so far. Even in Abyss it seems like it would be more fun being a caster playing multiplayer. That or micromanaging the other characters well enough that I feel they do a better job maybe. I just get sick of always changing everything. They sure do give you a shitload of options in things like Hearts though. i haven't really changed anything in Eternia besides battle positions and telling them not to use the craymel max skills though.

My God. I love this fucking system so much.

It takes place slightly before the journey to Mt Farlos if memory serves. I still need to give it a watch myself, but it's not an adaptation of the game or spoiler of it, but rather it's own stand alone story within a greater story, if that makes sense.

The lenses they mean here are a cameo of a type of item in Destiny, which serves as an energy source.

I've heard Innocence R is one of the less friendly Tales games to play without knowing Japanese; something about how the guilds work, I think.

Yeah, having an actual passively learnable/equippable skill system did a lot to make casters more fun.

So since I'm at Mt farlos for the first time I can watch it right now?! That would be awesome, since it would help me visualize their actions better as sprites and get more character development. I wanted to copy it to an external drive and rename it too, but I was worried there would be spoilers in the episode titles.

Oh okay, I never played that. I was wondering why such different items would be named so similar.

That sounds pretty awesome, but aren't most games easily downloadable without having to convert it yourself?

I remember having that on a demo disc and thinking it seemed crazy as a kid. I kind of want to play it, but for some reason I haven't really been able to get into regular platformers for awhile though. I bought Klonoa for $1 on my Vita and every time I start it I just end up wanting to play something else. Maybe I just need to play the right one.

Dunno. I couldn't get the PSX ISOs to just werk, so I tried this out.

It compresses shit, allows for custom icon shenanigans, turns them into EBOOT.PBP files, and can apparently turn multi-disk things into a single file for ease-of-use.

Gonna try doing Grandia next, if my nigh-on 3rd world Internet can just hold it together long enough to make this work.

I suppose you could. I'm just going off of what Aselia wiki says on it. Looking at episode titles, I'm not seeing anything as potential spoilers for the game. Still, maybe wait until after Mt Farlos, just in case.

Depends on the game. Some are basically just rips of the PSN versions which are already precoverted (though some people seem to like adding backgrounds and music to the splash screens; the download I have of Wild Arms 2 plays "You'll Never be Alone, No Matter Where You Are" when you hover on it), while others have to be done through PSX2PSP or some other conversion program (if there even is one). Additionally, if you want to play a game that requires a patch (such as Tales of Phantasia) the game file needs to be patched before you convert it to an eboot.

I've got one. Solid, thick build - about the same as the original fat. Nice matte plastic like they used on the PS4. Screen is decent but it's definitely a TN panel. If you get it cheap enough it ain't bad.

Worst things are the non-replaceable battery and mono speaker. It's an okay speaker, I just want two.

PSP Go is superior. The screen, I swear must be IPS and is even better than the one on my Vita slim. It's crazy vibrant and no blur, and the smaller dot pitch means it's so sharp.

I downloaded my first PS1 game from Emuparadise, but haven't had a chance to try it yet. I hope it works. If it doesn't I'll have to give what you're doing shot.

I wanted to sit at home today and play Eternia, but right after I started the game I had to leave and go help someone carry stuff. I ended up coming home with Zestiria though. It was $17 after some voucher shit I had at gamestop. I obviously want to beat Eternia before I would even think of starting it, but it will be nice to see how it compare to some of the older titles. I hope it remote plays well at least.

Yeah, thinking about how the anime for Abyss had some spoiler type stuff right in the opening I'm kind of wondering if I will be setting myself up for spoilers if I watch it. Maybe I'll skip the OPs and if I see anything that seems suspicious I'll just put it aside for now. I hope the show turned out okay. I'm not sure if it would've had the same budget as the Vesperia movie and Hearts anime and stuff.

Is there a lot of "download your roms from blahblah dot com" type stuff? I hope not, but that does sound kind of neat for Wild Arms if that is the theme or something. I still never played WA2, unfortunately. That's another series I'd like to go through. I wish Sony would do something with that instead of all the other garbage the like to pump out. I would think they'd see there's an interest from people buying copies on PSN and stuff.

Fuck, I didn't realize it had those problems. I can't believe they skimped on a speaker. It can't cost that much to throw two speakers in the damn thing. That matte finish does look really nice though. Tha's probably what made me take so much notice of it in the first place.

That's making me even more worried about my OLED Vita getting old. I just wish the Go could play UMDs. I hear so many good things about it, but I figured since I was buying a PSP when I
already had a Vita that it being able to play them was important to me. I'd still like to own one someday. (Most of the Go's I've seen tended to be banged up more though too. Maybe people were using them even more as an MP3 player or something or maybe I was just unlucky.)

I've watched the Eternia anime opening before, nothing in it that's a potential spoiler for the game, namely since the original characters that it has don't show up in the game.

Eternia's anime had Xebec (owned by the same company that owns Production IG) working on it. I can't say for certain how the animation quality of the actual show itself is, but the opening seems well enough off. Apparently it was set to have an actual English release but the rights expired, so like Abyss, the US never got it here (I think Phantasia's OVAs and First Strike are the only ones the West has gotten in English).

Occasionally, but it's more for whoever did the conversion than "download here." Usually just a short screen at the start of some eboots. Some patched games do have a "if you paid money for this you got scammed" screen as a heads up from the translators.

Yeah, that song is the lyrical opening theme. Unfortunately SCEA didn't feel like licensing it, but we did get a trumpet heavy instrumental version of both it and the disc 2 opening, "Resistance Line," and a fair amount of western fans say they prefer the instrumentals to the lyrical ones (either due to growing up with the former or not feeling like they're "weeb enough" for the latter).

It's been nearly a decade since Sony or Media.Vision have had much of anything to do with the series, aside from getting WA1, 2, and XF on the western PSN, and WA5 on the Japanese one. That said, this is the 20th anniversary of the series this year, and the main guy behind the series, Akifumi Kaneko, apparently has plans for doing something in celebration this year (the WA5/XF artist has apparently uploaded some new art and sketches he got commissioned to do, or something. Of course, given that Symphogear, another series Kaneko works on, is getting not just a fourth but also a fifth season, I don't know how much time he's got for Wild Arms, or if Symphogear will get put on hold for a while, since a 20 year anniversary is a bit of a big thing (for the 10th anniversary they made Wild Arms 5). Of course, I suppose it depends on if SCEJ is even willing to let them develop another game in the series (Sony owning the franchise rights while Media.Vision is the developer), given how a lot of franchises they seem to own the rights to get dropped after a few entries/generation or two. Bit surprising Wild Arms lasted as long as it did.

Those fucking falling rocks. The dungeons in this game really like to make you dodge shit. When I come out of a battle I'm not used to having to evade boulders right away. At least it doesn't take much damage.

Oh, sweet, then I'll probably start watching it tonight. I'm wasn't really familiar with Xebec, but apparently they worked on Tokyo ESP, which I watched recently and despite it looking a little low budget I really liked the animation. (The show turned out way better than I expected it to from the way it started too.) I still never watched Love Hina or To Love Ru, besides a few episodes, but they certainly seem to have their fans. It should be interesting to see how Eternia's turned out. (Seeing it animated I suppose I'll have to accept and finally get used to Reid's shirt.)

I understand why they do that, but it just sort of bugs me. It kind of depends on how normal they make stuff like that look though too, I've seen some anime openings that have stuff like that inserted, but blend so well that it almost looks like it's supposed to be there.

I always find it disappointing when they change the openings, but at least it's not as bad as Tales of Hearts R's opening. That sounded boring as fuck and really made me wish it had the original song when I wasn't even really a fan of it when I heard it.

I never would've expected those to have anything in common. That actually makes me want to watch it more. I've only seen one episode and it was just to much magical girl singing which I wasn't in the mood for. I'll have to get back to it later. I thought it only had two seasons for some reason.

I hope this turns out to be something good. Media.Vision still seems to be capable of some pretty impressive stuff. I'm really looking forward to seeing how that Valkyria game turns out. Sony could really use more JRPGs for PS4, so maybe they'll work something out. It seems Wild Arms anniversary will be after Media.Vision already released the Valkyria game, so maybe it's all lined up perfectly for a reason.

Yeah, Inomata seems to have a thing for visible midriff on both males and females. Think the anime design does give him some shoulderpads to compensate a bit, which makes it seem a little less strange.

I suppose it really depends on how professionally they can get it inserted. Plus, with anime and stuff, it's easy to just layer text on top of it for things like subtitles, and effects for title cards including the sub group can have their fonts and animation fudged a bit to match up reasonably well. With games though, things would likely have to be hardcoded/patched in, and it's likely a lot easier for someone to have a jpg with their information load up at the start than to manipulate the actual game code further.

If you want to compare the two versions of the first opening for Wild Arms 2, these should be of help; be aware though, while the opening doesn't have spoilers, I can't vouch for what's in the related content on the sidebar for youtube (final bosses and such should be outright barred from being related videos to game opening). It sounds pretty good either way, but if you read up on the lyrics and translations for both You'll Never Be Alone and Resistance Line, they fit the vibe of the game really well if memory serves.
Instrumental: youtube.com/watch?v=3JfCYgxrQ_M
Lyrical: youtube.com/watch?v=6zhWmDrF3Ew

I still need to give it a go myself, but yeah, Kaneko's worked on both it and Wild Arms, hence the amount of crossover fan art that exists between to two. Also worth noting that one of Witchcraft's PSP games, "Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny" has some similarities to Wild Arms from what I hear. Probably because Witchcraft was formed by Kaneko after leaving Media.Vision.

Here's the news I've seen about it thus far. It would be a bit interesting if it turned out to be a collaboration between Media.Vision and another company, in this case, Witchcraft (wouldn't be the first time it happened with the series; WA2 and 3 were co-developed by Media.Vision and Contrail, the guys responsible for Legend of Legaia). But yeah, they've certainly seemed to have interest in putting out a Wild Arms 6 for the PS4 and/or Vita. Most likely the PS4 if it happens at this point though. Or they do make it multiplat anyhow and the west gets fucked out of the Vita version (unless XSEED picks it up for localization, they don't seem to mind localizing for the Vita). I honestly don't mind the PS4, but I'd agree that it needs more of a library strictly made for it. Gets annoying seeing games that were multiplat in Japan (and that, thanks to the internet, the west is easily aware were multiplat) being treated as if they were exclusive to the PS4.

Also, might be of interest to you that Wild Arms wasn't even Media.Vision's first game about gunslingers, their prior one having been a run and gun called Gunner's Heaven, released in Europe as Rapid Reload (US never got it). Beyond Gunner's Heaven being the name of a bar in WA2 and the arena in WA3, various elements of the character designs for the two main characters may have been reused in WA1.
I suppose perhaps it might be stretching stuff a bit though, but it wouldn't surprise me. Also pretty sure Gunner's Heaven and WA1 have the same character designer anyhow.

That would make it look a hell of a lot more normal. It looks way too feminine for my tatses I the only time I even thought that in recent memory was looking at Magna Carta 1. Thankfully it's just the shirt I have a problem with though and not the entire design like the "guy" from Magna Carta.

Yeah, I suppose you do have a point there. I just hope the things I download look okay, because I'm autisctic enough about that shit that I would probably redownload things from another source if I don't like it. I do stupid shit like rename every episode of anime I download their correct episode name, after all.

Damn, I didn't even notice anything was wrong with the first one, because the instrumental is great alone, but with the singing it feels even more inspiring. I shouldn't of even watched that. it really makes me want to start playing the game. Without my nostalgia I might even like it more than the first games OP. Hard to say. I could almost see something like the instrumental being the opening, but it playing with the lyrics at the end of the game. (I'm not sure why I like stuff with people looking melancholic or foreboding or something so much, but it's probably why I usually prefer the endings to the openings for anime.)

That's annoying enough as it is when it happens to the PS3, but it really bugs me when it happens to the Vita. I just consider the portable and home versions separate enough that it feels like I'm really getting fucked. (People always use the damn remoteplay excuse, but I really don't feel like it's the same thing.) It seems like it happens to games where the PS4 version was actually a secondary concern a lot of times too. I'm happy Atlus announced the PS3 version of P5 so early. When people still release smaller games for PS3 and Vita, seeing bigger ones taken away just irks me. Especially, when digital games are a thing.

That's nuts. That looks exactly like an early version of Rudy. He's even making damn near the same pose. The third pic looks like a female version of Jack too. They must have the same designer or have been asked to take inspiration from it. Way too many similarities. (I'm kind of sad to know that's not an RPG or adventure game though. Something about the boxart almost reminds me of Policenauts or something too. I suppose I should be happy some weird Wild Arms Gunstar Heroes looking thing even exists.)

Still haven't figured out what the fuck fibril is, but I'm sure mine is amazing.

*Fibrill (I guess?)

Yeah, the messages behind both openings really fits well with the game. Unfortunately I'm not sure if anyone's done a "restoration" patch (depending on how ones views the opening song being replaced) to put the Japanese openings back into the English version of the game directly. Especially since the instrumentals are both so good anyhow. Also, while it certainly keeps up the series theme of hope in the face of adversity, Wild Arms 2 also has a rather somber feeling to it at times, especially in disc 2.

If you live in the US both games have native PSN versions (PAL areas don't have WA2; similar case to Xenogears where if it didn't come out there originally, they still don't get it on their PSN either) and occasionally get dropped into $1 flash sales. Though with a CFW PSP, that's a bit of a non-issue, since you can pirate eboots with ease and games that did see localization aren't exactly hard to find ones of. Unless you want the ability to play it on a Vita or PS3 as well, in which case dropping $2 or so in a sale for them is a good idea.

Closest thing I recall to lyrics in WA2's western release is the song that plays during the end-of-disc FMV for Disc 1 (Atomic Arms, which is a fucking glorious way to end a disc; had to watch it again just now). I speculate though it's because a song that has vocals but no lyrics (humming, "woahwoahwoah", etc) likely doesn't cost much extra, if anything at all, and there's no worry about having to translate it or "will the western audience understand this?"

Doesn't help when a particular game apparently doesn't play well via remoteplay anyhow. I've heard that mentioned about Salt and Sanctuary, hence people hoping they actually do manage to get a group to develop a native Vita port.

Both Jack and Elmina (more-so the ACF render of the character) seem to have some of their design aspects coming from Ruka's design. Granted, I haven't looked into Gunners Heaven much myself just yet, so I can't speak about things personality-wise for them. Also, apparently it did get compared to Gunstar Heroes, unfavorably I might add. While it seemed to do okay out in Japan (scoring 26s and 27s out of 40 points with a few magazines or whatever), going off Wikipedia (admittedly perhaps not the most accurate source) it got considered a poor Gunstar Heroes clone, and apparently the PAL conversion didn't help matters.

I can't remember how in depth the game goes in explaining it, but it's a sort of inner strength, or something. Going beyond that might spoil things for the time being.

The anime for Eternia seems pretty good. They actually use all the moves from the game. I think I was seeing a lot of skills I haven't unlocked yet. I'm kind of surprised at the amount of fanservice. Not that there's a lot, but the game seemed to have a way more innocent feel than other Tales games. Farah's been kind of a bitch. Maybe she's just mad Reid is running around with other girls that sit on his face and stuff, but that's what she gets for climbing that mountain with so and so, I guess.

I actually bought both of them for a dollar, but I got sidetracked during the first game and the last time I played it I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. I hate to have to restart it, but I wandered around for like an hour and even tried reading a walkthrough up to where I was and it's either that or just retrace a good chunk. I owned the game as a kid and never beat it either. I feel like I've done the opening and early parts a lot though.

I'd guess that they probably had the rights to use the vocals, but didn't want to introduce it that way to a western audience. Back then it seemed like way less people even new they were playing a Japanese game. Even playing Eternia right now I could see how that might appeal to people who can't get into the newer games. I don't even know when I first heard or read "anime games", but I certainly don't remember it from back then. Things like Pokemon were probably when a lot of people noticed their kids weren't just playing some western game, even though Nintendo being Japanese was widely known. I dunno, they might of had some weird contract, but normallythat would mean cutting the whole song and it just seemed like there was a push for things like Final Fantasy to be normal back then. (Which should make it less of a surprise that it seems to be getting more westernized than ever these days.)

Yeah, some devs are lazy as shit and don't even bother changing a button, so then you have things like Bioware's masterpiece Inquisition having the main attack button being on the back touchpad. Hopefully, Japanese games will implement it much better, since people care about the Vita there. (Apparently, Yoshida said that remoteplay was the feature he was most proud of in the PS4 version of Final Fantasy 14.)

I thought it would probably get compared to that. It still sounds like it might not have turned out the best, but it would probably be fun just to see what the game is like, since it looks so much like Wild Arms though.

I figured it was something like that. Meredy can be pretty funny in the game talking about it though. (She has scenes in the anime where she's pretty funny, dancing around like a retard and stuff too. Quickie looks way cuter than I pictured him too.)

Well, again, the game is missing the skits in the English version. I assume the anime is in-line with how the characters act on the whole in the Japanese version. But yeah, Eternia on the whole doesn't seem to have the same moments other Tales games after it have (or before it; Phantasia's got a bit of an infamous scene of Arche getting drunk and apparently mumbling in her sleep as she dreams of Cress fucking her, with some fan translators opting to not have it be subtle at all); even the times you go to a hotspring for a sidequest or two, the characters are pretty well behaved.

I think the only part that was really confusing to me was trying to open up Giant's Cradle or whatever it was called.

The west didn't even get Japanese lyrical songs in the games until XSEED's localizations of Wild Arms 5 and XF. WA3 and 4 have English renditions of songs, and while I find the English version of "I Look Up To The Sky Because You Are There" (WA4's opening) a bit meh, Squaresoft and Sony did right with WA3's English translation, hiring Samantha Newark to sing the English versions of "Advanced Wind," "Only the Night Sky Knows," and "Wings." Still annoys be a bit that Agetec couldn't spring for the Japanese combat voicing for ACF or even dub it, and the western version of "Windward Birds" (which plays during certain scenes) is instrumental only.

To be fair, I didn't have much in the way of access to video games back during the fifth gen or earlier, but I'm not sure about that. I mean, anime has certainly gotten more popular since then, and there were certainly instances of box and cover arts being changed for the western release to mask the anime stylings (Breath of Fire I and II come to mind). But then there was still stuff like Lufia (which had a clearly anime styled box art), and with the PS1 you had Tales, Suikoden II, Wild Arms, and both Lunar games being pretty clear about what art style they were going for (of course, Wild Arms was pretty western already barring the art style and some other elements). Also localized stuff like Dragon Ball Z and Inuyasha games that were outright licensed anime games (admittedly of the more popular stuff from the time).

Even it the games it makes it pretty clear she's not the most socially intelligent, though she has the excuse that she's never been to Inferia prior. And yeah, Quickie is definitely my favorite Tales mascot character behind Repede. Love all the little spriting and animations that went into the blue squirrel thing (I don't think they ever mention what his actual species is; I doubt he's one of a kind like Noishe), and even something as simple as watching him nibble at some food, or groom himself was pretty cute.

Show my last post, wheels.

Oh yeah, I guess if you played it in English the anime might not seem as appealing, but with the undub it's kind of neat hearing them yell off a move you use and seeing it animated. The same with a lot of the flashback scenes. I really do miss the skits though. Now that I think about it I think that most of the lewd stuff is always the skits. I remember some in Hearts R at an inn that were pretty intense and sounded like they were fucking only to say that they were talking about food or something. (I think part of it sounded like they were talking about Kohaku's vagina, but it was miso soup? haha)

Yeah, I made it past that part plus I did some of the secret bosses that were a pain in the ass. i really don't feel like doing all of that again. Maybe if i watch a walkthrough on youtube of later parts it would help. The one on gamefaqs didn't.

I can never get into english versions of songs. It always sounds like it doesn't even flow right. I mean I like them sometimes, but I'd rather have an instrumental 90% of the time.

Yeah, I was probably just ignorant of it due to the lack of the internet. I think the entire reason I bought Wild Arms was because of it getting high marks in Gamepro. I know that's why I bought Suikoden. I'm just not sure what order Wild Arms, Suikoden, and FFVII were in for me. I know those were my first JRPGs though and when I first started realizing that I liked Japanese games. JRPG seemed almost Iike a genre to me though too, I think. I know I had no clue shit like Street Fighter was Japanese and Mortal Kombat wasn't though. They just all seemed the same to me and I don't remember a single person pointing it out.

She's really cute about it in the anime at least. Her dancing was her immediately stopping and sort of, running in a circle when she heard the bard girl's music. It just seemed really random and more harmless than in the game where she was jumping on tables and stuff.

Love all the little spriting and animations that went into the blue squirrel thing (I don't think they ever mention what his actual species is; I doubt he's one of a kind like Noishe), and even something as simple as watching him nibble at some food, or groom himself was pretty cute.
Yeah, I actually just got to the point where he helps you by lowering the ropes. I'm starting to notice more personality inb him as the game moves along. at first it just seemed like he was gonna be a little fucker with all the "oh Quikie ran off again" stuff. That train game right after that was fucking hard though. I could probably get it a second time, but i had no clue what I was doing. I'm guessing that it's a copy of that train arcade game in Japan? That think looked awesome on Game Center CX.

With Advanced Wind, a fair amount of fans seem to actually feel the English version of it has more emotion to it than the Japanese one does. Of course, we don't have the full song in English; they only translated the part that was in the actual opening.

I generally prefer Japanese audio for openings/endings, but there's a few exceptions to be had. Tales of Vesperia's is also pretty good in English, and also has the benefit that the theme to the song itself wasn't changed like Graces' English opening was (going from a song of protecting what matters to a more generic sounding love song).

Yeah, that ones annoying. Eternia admittedly doesn't have the best controlling minigames (if memory serves, Craymelball is a bitch). At least it's a bit hard to fuck up something like WHIS, aside from the player winding up with rotten luck.

Growing up I pretty much just had Spyro and Pokemon until I was probably fifteen or sixteen, so even with classics I still need to get around to them sometime, and while I certainly enjoy JRPGs, there's still a lot of them I need to get around to, even the "must plays." Still need to give some time to stuff like FFVI and VII (or Final Fantasy as a series in general) for example.

He's no Mieu by a long shot, for better or worse (I don't exactly hate Mieu, but he was pretty annoying). I do wonder though if he got in on skits and such, the way Mieu, Noishe, Rollo, and Teepo do, even though none are directly playable. Maybe someday someone with the ability and interest two might find a way to patch the official translation onto the Japanese version, and then fan translate the skits (though they'd really need to be careful to keep the dialogue feeling like it fits the characters).

Is it just me, or do posts get more frequently eaten on Saturdays and Sundays?

Also, with Wild Arms, I know you're not exactly keen on just restarting, but the first game isn't all that long anyhow (maybe 30 hours or so if my memory of it serves), so if you really can't remember where you were, it might not be too bad a thing to do. Now, if it was WA2 or 3, that would be a different story.

Really though, with longer games like JRPGs, you've really just got to stick with them rather than trying to juggle a whole bunch at once.

Vesperia's OP in English is probably one of my favorite English covers I've heard. I can't even remember if there's something I liked better. It might be my favorite. It probably helped that I grew to know it from a game that I really loved, but even now I still think it sounds pretty natural and fits the animation well. WA3 certainly didn't seem bad, but I think it still sounds more like a dub. The girl in that Wild Arms opening seems pretty interesting though. I never even really looked at the characters for the third game before that. Sometimes things like that grow on me too after hearing it more. At least that happens a lot with anime anyway.

Oh yeah, that's what I was doing. At least Meredy was cute running the one letter that I actually got to it's recipient, even if she did give me shit for my driving.

There's tons of games that I need to play too. I think we all sort of have that, regardless of how many games we had as a kid. I do feel happy that I had FFVII immediately after release though. It's easy to see why people think the game is overrated and now it pretty much is, but back then and as young as I was the game blew me away. It's kind of sad that even if they delivered the best remake ever that pretty much everyone will go into it spoiled. It sucks that everything they've done in the later years with the characters and stuff I haven't liked either, so I'm even worried to play Crisis Core now that i actually have a PSP to do it. It just feels like the characters and everything I loved about it is gone now and being rewritten with whatever's popular at the time.

Yeah, I think he definitely earned some of those beatings. I'm only to where the man in the chair kidnaps the pilot so maybe he'll redeem himself in Japanese, but despite having his moments I don't think he even comes close to Repede and probably Quikie.

The more I think about it the more it bothers me. I'm sort of surprised no one has yet. Maybe it's harder than it sounds or something. It just feels like such a glaring omission. All those character interactions lost.

Yeah, I learned that the hard way. I've been trying to use my backlog as motivation to play what I'm playing rather than taking a "break" and starting something else the first day I'm not in the mood to play what I've been playing. That and just watching anime or something and actually taking a real break instead of accidentally switching games permanently.

The entire site has been down for me occasionally throughout the day. With all the stupid ass problems and offtopic pol shit, since Battlefield got announced it's been fun.

Well, with Vesperia, I think both the Japanese and English versions were sung by the same person (who also wrote the song as well), hence it sounding really natural. And yeah, Virginia's a pretty enjoyable protagonist.

I always try to keep in mind that "overrated" does not equate to "bad." I mean, Chrono Trigger's pretty overrated, but that certainly doesn't keep it from being a lovable game, and I'm glad I have it for the DS. I suppose the big thing for me was that, in doing a bit of research on stuff a few years back, I didn't want to fall into the trap of thinking that Final Fantasy, or Square's stuff in general, was the end all be all of JRPGs, especially since, in reading some old articles and stuff about other games, it didn't seem fair that everything was getting compared to stuff like FFVII, as if that was the pinnacle to play and aspire towards. Still, I'll get to them eventually; not that I have much of anything against (old) Square or whatnot

It's simple really. Eternia is just not real popular out here, and probably never has been. I suppose the same might be said of any of the pre Symphonia games as far as the west goes (what with us not even getting Phantasia SFC/PS1 or Destiny 2), and both the lack of PSN versions of Destiny and Eternia as well as the massive pricetags on physical copies of both likely keeps people that don't want to emulate from playing them. And even in Japan, where Phantasia and Destiny have remained popular and had ports and remakes, Eternia's still just PS1 and PSP, and among fan artists doesn't seem to be all that big compared to various other entries. Likely just a lack of demand for anyone to go through the skit scripts for Eternia's Japanese version, translate them, and then code up a patch using the English version's overall script. Not when there's other things to translate that have a lot more push for them to be in English.

That's a pretty cool PSP. Wonder where I can get the exact same one besides Ebay and cheap.
Banging my head on the wall for not considering PSP until it's too late. None of the retails in my country sell it and internet retailers ask 200+ for one.
Gotta admit it has some cool games
etc etc.

"Fibrill is…Fibrill. A broad definition would be power. There is no equivalent word in Inferia."
Gee, thanks Galenos.
I wonder if the skits went more into Keele being scared of girls. I've noticed it a little with Meredy, but nothing like the anime has shown me.

Damn, yeah, that's crazy. I just compared them and she sounds pretty good singing in English. They haven't done that with any other Tales games huh? I guess Namco's not gonna go looking for someone that sings in two languages every time they want a song, but it just seemed to work out well.

Yeah, actually I don't think I ever even got the good ending in that, but from the large amount I played it seems like you had to be there to think it was unarguably the best JRPG ever made. I had a lot of fun with it, but I'm glad i didn't go in expecting that.

I just got the impression that fan groups seemed to cooperate well and care a lot with everything you've told me about Phantasia.

I gave up on trying to find one new cheap. I just looked every time I went somewhere and eventually, I found one that I couldn't even tell was used, in the box and everything for $70. If it has to be new and you're only gonna pirate games you could look into getting a Vita and not upgrading the firmware. It gimps the Vita's usefulness, but the thing plays PSP games really nice, since it has actual analog sticks n stuff.

I'm not sure. Aselia wiki states that he covers up his insecurities by flaunting his intellect and smugness, but having spent the last four years just studying he's become antisocial and doesn't seem to get when he's being rude. It wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't know the best way to respond to women due to lack of much experience interacting with them the last few years, though I doubt he can match Guy in that department. And at the very least he gets along well enough with Farah and Meredy (though with the former, Reid, Farah, and Keele are old friends; also of note that they all share a naming theme as well).

I think they also did so with Tales of Graces f's opening "White Wishes" but again, they changed the theme of the song if I remember correctly. It might also be worth taking into account that Vesperia was intended for worldwide release from the get go, while Graces came west about three years after it initially debuted in Japan (or about a year and a half after the enhanced port was released in Japan).

They do; a number of attempts at collaboration have been at least attempted (hell, Kingcom's a coder for his own patches at Romhacking Aerie, but works with Thoroughim to code for Absolute Zero's patches as well these days). It's just a matter of demand, and a game that came west already tend to not have as much as one that didn't, unless said localizations were pretty bad (like both times Phantasia came west, though i suppose the bigger issue with the mobile version was how microtransaction hungry it was), or another version that didn't come west was far superior in content (Vesperia PS3).

Just fucking emulate freedom unite with an hd texture mod in 1080p 60fps using PPSSPP you fucking tool, there is literally zero reason to own the hardware at this point.

though the psp was the best handheld of that gen

transifex.com/god-eater-2-translation-project/god-eater-2-translation-project/

In-case any nigger's paying attention to it.

Was not aware of that. Thanks for the heads up.

Also reminded me to check up on a few others as well. Happy to see that Nora to Toki is seeing work again, though admittedly that's not a PSP game.

.hack//Link's also seen a progress report put out a few days ago as well.

I'm so glad to be out of the fucking mines of backtracking. I think that was the most pain in the ass dungeon yet. Between needing those items, Meredy's card game, and the stupid gnome that makes you constantly jump and get hit, I'm really glad to be out of there. that was the wrong place to run out of holy bottles.

Yeah, Guy is a little over the top. I thought he was gay at first or something.

Guy and Keele?

I always forget about Graces. I'm glad I wasn't following the series that closely back then, because three years is a long ass wait. That better not happen again with a mainline Tales. I know the Wii wasn't really the home for JRPGs, but the lack of them was pretty pathetic when you consider how many consoles they sold.

How'd you fair against the mimics in Gnome's Cave or whatever?

I'd thought so to, but as he states, he loves to look at attractive women, he just doesn't like to actually be touched by them. And when he finally realizes why exactly that is, everyone feels really bad for their tormenting of him.

No, I mean Reid, Farah, and Keele.
Keele's name's also funny with series fans given how easily he keels over in combat.

Given how the popularity of the series has grown, I doubt it will. Still, looking at mainseries entries, there was a gap from 2008 until 2012 between Vesperia and Graces coming west, during which time Japan got Hearts DS and Graces Wii (Innocence DS actually came out before Vesperia did).

Yeah, but as far as JRPGs went, it seemed like the handhelds started to see a lot of them during seventh gen. Even with the PS3, which you'd expect to be the place to find a lot of JRPGs, it didn't seem to get as much focus as the PS1 and PS2 had in terms of them.

I do wonder if Earth Seeker will ever get a fan translation.

This game is way harder than the other Tales I've played. Those I normally have trouble with bosses, especially when they go into overdrive and stuff, but in this game having enemies on both sides of you can lead to disaster. I just left this mountain and to buy stuff that prevents freeze. The enemies froze two of my characters and pummeled the shit out of me killing me within seconds. (I would've bought the things sooner, but I had no money due to buying overpriced equipment that I can't compare, so it was a giant waste too.) I like the game, but I can see why some other people wouldn't have the patience for some of this stuff. Right after the mines I thought I'd have a break and that daterape puzzle dungeon turned out to be long as fuck. (The fitting rooms before were pretty awesome "puzzle" at least. Some of the responses for fucking around were pretty funny.)

I must have missed them. If they were chests I did anyway. There was certain paths that I missed, because I was too lazy to backtrack, low on items, and kept getting lost and sent into battle after battle. Somehow I always seem to take the right path when I'm trying to explore.

I don't think I'm far enough to read that. Abyss I was gonna switch to an undub and all this shit, but I think I'll just finish my game before I forget what was going on. At least I played it recently and it's pretty hard to forget due to where I am and how much I like it. Older games it seems way easier to lose your way.

Yeah, he seems to die sometimes even when most things are going fine. If a boss targets him or there's a surprise battle he's just pretty much dead. I'm kind of surprised how many times it was just Reid and Meredy alive. She's pretty tough. (I did give her an item to raise her HP, but Keele's has defense boosting stuff too.)

It's kind of crazy to me that they skip stuff like that when I look at other JRPGs that get released. I'm sure Innocence R would sell a hell of a lot more than other games the Vita has, but they don't even seem to care. Even with Hearts R's crazy localization it seemed to do well. I wish they'd just let someone else do it if they don't want to. (Some of the games Aksys localizes I would really love to see the sales numbers for. How things like Aegis of Earth pay off to is beyond me. They always seem to give everything a retail release too.)

That's what worries me as far as everything that's been going on with handhelds.

Yeah, Mt. Celsius is a bit annoying; do yourself a favor and try to turn off any water spells you have on Keele or Meredy to raise the chances of them doing fire, or at least neutral, ones (or you can manually set a spell like eruption to whatever the mapping allows for when it comes to direct control of another character's artes). If you have Rising Phoenix yet for Reid, that might also be good.

Eternia's also the introduction of a recurring character in the series, and boy, is her introduction a doozy, considering how good their AI is. Though the fanbase, at least in Japan, really likes them, particularly the Eternia incarnation, to the point they're one of the few NPCs to be upgraded to fully playable for one or more of the Radiant Mythology games.

You can always try to tweak the strategy settings. Still, at least it's not like Phantasia, where, Cress aside (him being the only melee range character, unless you choose to recruit Suzu) they would all creep forward into melee range as the battles dragged on, and aside from a button input that would have to be done every fight to tell them to stay put, I couldn't find a passive setting for that. Maybe I was looking in the wrong place though.

You have to remember that even though they brought Hearts R west, they didn't actually want to do so to begin with, as it took SCEA actually doing something good for western Vita fans for once by asking them what games they'd like to see out here, and then pushing the companies that made/published them to bring them over.

Pretty sure they've said before that (Eternia PSP aside, as Ubisoft published that for PAL countries) Tales is always going to be published by Namco out here, and as far as localization goes, I think only Destiny and Eternia used an internal team. Symphonia might have been sixth gen NoA (if they didn't just handle marketing), and I'm not sure about Legendia and Phantasia GBA, but every game after that has been 8-4 (though admittedly Namco has in the past been able to get them to do a decent enough job, up through Hearts R).

Oh yeah, that is a good idea. I didn't even realize I had a water dagger equipped when I was fighting Udine the first time, until after she killed me. If she didn't tell me to unequip it I probably would've forgotten although I was wondering why she wasn't dead. I just found it funny that she gives tips in the anime the same way.

I didn't know that. It's probably good that I played this before going into other Tales titles. Now if I only could get the wonder chef to stick around long enough to meet him. I wouldn't be surprised if he's the most powerful character in the Tales universe, but his passion just happens to be cooking. (I wonder if I'll ever get to see him in any of the anime.)

Yeah, I just hoped that after they saw the demand and sales they would actually give a shit. I wish they would do something like that again. (I hoped that it would lead to Square Enix bringing Type-0 out too, since it had tons of votes, but we all know how that went.)

I could see why they'd do that, but being like "sorry, only we handle Tales, because it's important to us" and then skipping so much stuff just makes it seem like it really isn't that important. I wish we had sales data.
That damn Summon night game better get an English (physical) version for Vita and PS4. It looks extremely good on Vita and it just seems like the type of game where we'll get fucked out of the Vita version. Even though that one sold better and seemed to be the main focus in Japan.

Wonder Chef is most frequently found in Symphonia, but is also in some of the other games as well. Legendia has a a girl take his place, and apparently wields a giant baguette instead of a fork.

That damn Summon night game better get an English (physical) version for Vita and PS4. It looks extremely good on Vita and it just seems like the type of game where we'll get fucked out of the Vita version. Even though that one sold better and seemed to be the main focus in Japan.
They're much better about it these days, at least as far as console entries go (these days they've made an actual effort to get the ones on the PS3/PS4 all out in English, barring Vesperia PS3). Not nearly as bad as it was during sixth gen, where the west only saw half the console entries (we got Symphonia, Legendia, and Abyss, but missed Destiny 2, Rebirth, and both the remake and Director's Cut of Destiny). It's the handhelds Namco just doesn't seem to bother with out here that much, aside from Phantasia GBA, RM1, and the PAL/JP only port of Eternia. We've missed out on:

That's pretty funny. I can't wait to give Legendia a shot. I hope she licks each individual baguette. That's what a good chef should do.

I'm not sure I ever even heard of Tales of the World. It is kind of fucked up they skipped those DS games. It's not like countless other JRPGs weren't localized. It's almost like they just don't deem handheld titles important enough. Even with Abyss being Abyss, I'm almost still surprised they didn't skip the 3DS version.

Forgot to mention Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2 and 3 as well as Twin Brave. So yeah, lot of portable entries that were left in Japan.

She's not a member of the party (honestly surprises me that we haven't had Wonder Chef as even a joke party member at this point), but I do remember her trying "Bread Rain: Alpha" or "Tiger Bread" on Senel in a scene at one point.

Again though, bear in mind that Legendia is a pretty odd entry in a lot of ways, some of them localization induced. Great OST regardless of what one thinks of the rest of it though.

Bit of a classification for various subseries, usually of the crossover sort (hence Radiant Mythology and Narikiri Dungeon 2 and 3) falling under it. Reve Unitia is a 3DS crossover tactical game, or something, and is most likely a NEVER EVER for western fans (not sure how it was received in Japan though, so maybe it's for the best? Tales hasn't exactly dabbled much with tactical RPGs outside of NxC/PXZ, along with Venus and Braves PSP, and even then, Tales hasn't been the main focus of any of those).

Yeah, I'm not real clear on it either. I mean, I can understand why they wouldn't localize Tempest, but Innocence and Hearts DS seem like a missed opportunity to give the west more Tales. That said, that was back when they were a bit wishy washy about localizing, and prior portable Tales games they'd brought west didn't exactly go over that well. Still, it wasn't as if the DS didn't wind up as home to numerous JRPGs, be they original games, ports, or full remakes (though some never saw localization, like Square ignoring SaGa 2 and 3 as well as Blood of Bahamut, and Atlus not bothering with Nora to Toki). I'm sure Hearts DS at the very least would have gone over pretty well.

With Abyss it's easy to see why they brought the 3DS port over. The English script and voicing had already been done for the prior PS2 version, and it would be an easy opportunity to make money off of Europe and PAL fans since Namco never gave them the PS2 version. Meanwhile with, say, Destiny 2 or Rebirth on the PSP, they'd have had to translate those from scratch.

There are some VNs that interest me on the PSP, but some of them (originally dual UMDs) ask me to swap discs after installation of the data (with the first disc). Quitting and launching disc 2 iso doesnt do anything because it will ask me to switch back for the first disc.

Do anyone know how to resolve that issue with a CFW PSP?

How's Retroarch on PSP? Worth fucking with?

best NES emulation I found, no savestates tho

Also forgot to add, any way to get the music for DOOM to fucking work on PSP?

Might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure there's a way to combine the data on both UMDs into a single ISO. I know with Final Fantasy Type-0's fan translation that was the case. Can't remember directly off the top of my head how it's done though, and I'm not sure if Sky's still got that information up (considering even though they were too late to stop the patch from being released, Square still hit him with a takedown notice or something, thus if memory serves he no longer hosts the patch itself; not sure if patching information would also fall under that).

I swear some of the bosses in this game have the cheapest moves. I'm not sure how you're supposed to avoid those ice needles the one spams off. She took me two tries, but at least I'm done worrying about being frozen and stunned for awhile (I hope).

Weird, I thought that the Tales they just announced not long ago was the first mobile mash up game. I wonder what the reasoning is for all the characters being in the same place. I'm guessing it's just something stupid anyway, but if the games have stories they might be kind of interesting. Not sure how you'd play Tales without buttons though for any with normal battles. The new one looked like it had normal battles at least. Maybe it doesn't.

I figured as much, but hopefully she's still a little less mysterious than the wonder chef. I don't know shit about that guy.

Aren't those supposed to be way more difficult than stuff like final fantasy? I've yet to play one and Square making that one they just announced for localization mobile only leads me to believe they don't want me to.

Yeah, Celcius is notably a pain. But she seems prone to being that way in the games she does show up in. At least she doesn't have her pet wolf with her in her fight in Eternia though.

Well, from what I know of it, Reve Unitia is a 3DS port of a prior, now defunct, mobile game.

As for why they're all there, it's nothing new for Tales of the World. The Radiant Mythology subseries are non-canon (outside of their own games, I suppose; each RM is separate from each other as well, to my knowledge) crossover games aimed at fans that want to see how different characters from across the series interact with each other. And ND2 and 3 apparently feature various characters summoned from their respective worlds/timelines to protect the worlds both those games take place in (ND1/X only being a sequel to Phantasia only has the Phantasia party and original characters, but has the easy excuse of time travel for it, since Phantasia already showed you could travel backwards and forwards and take people with you under the right conditions). Unfortunately the only one in full English as of now is RM1, which to my knowledge isn't as good as RM2 or 3.

The prototype for Wonder Chef debuted in Phantasia, though they never went by that name, and have since been in Eternia, Symphonia, and Vesperia as a recurring character. Also, double checking, the Legendia one is a bit different, being Mimi the Wonder Baker. I don't think any of them get all that much characterization, though the Symphonia incarnation does wind up being involved in the God of the Kitchen sidequest, and in Vesperia the game pokes fun at him, with him also being involved in a sidequest in the PS3 version.

ND2 and 3 have Wonder Chef costumes and classes, and in ToS2, his role is simultaneously downgraded in style but upgraded in importance, as the only stuff he teaches is essentially dog food for your monsters.

I'm not sure they're all that difficult to play, but more difficult to get in to. And Square hasn't bothered with localizing any (until that mobile port of RS2, because the western branch fucking hates the Vita, apparently) since the PS2 remake of Romancing SaGa, opting to ignore putting SaGa Frontier 1 and 2 on the western PSN while they're their in Japan, along with ignoring localizing those DS remakes as well.

I highly doubt they'll bother with localizing Scarlet Grace either, between them not liking to bother with the series here and it being a Vita game.

I'm not sure why I explore in Eternia. I just always seem to waste a bunch of time and never find anything. I feel like I was driving that boat around forever and at first I couldn't even figure out how to park the damn thing. The wind shoes or whatever are way more convenient, since you kind of just glide from sea to land.

I didn't even know she was in other games. I really like her sprite and she was pretty cute getting scared like that, so I'm kind of looking forward and dreading seeing her at the same time.

Oh, damn, figures it would get a handheld version, but I'd never even hear of it. Hopefully, someday it gets a fan translation if the game is actually decent. I actually really like tactical jrpgs. I'm not sure why I couldn't get into Disgaea, but I want to try Jeanne D'Arc and some other ones for PSP too.

Fuck, I really that CFW PS3. Still never played Symphonia either. At least I already own Legendia. That Mimi girl looks pretty cute.

I always wondered how that game was. Awhile back I saw it pretty cheap. I wish Sony would make one more handheld that could play PS2 games.

Yeah, I'm done hoping for anything from SE. I really wouldn't be surprised if they just cancelled the Vita version of World of Final Fantasy for the west too. Things like Chaos Rings III actually looked pretty awesome. I think that was the start of when I noticed they hated the Vita here. (Yet they'll give us F2P games and some weird Hitman mobile spinoff.)

I don't even play PSP games on mine, i just use it as a handheld PSX/SNES machine. I mean fuck, there are so freaking many PSX games that never left Japan it's crazy. I'm not exaggerating when i say that this is the best handheld ever made.

Sort of related question, I just installed Rebug on my PS3 but where the hell are you supposed to get RAP files from? It seems most .pkg files are useless on their own, at least fetched from PSN.

Maybe I just suck but documentation for PS3 CFW seems a lot sparser than for 3DS.

There's things at certain coordinates in both Inferia and Celestia (I think an item you can find will cause coordinates to be displayed). I think the RPG shrine for the game has a list of what can be found. I will say though that while Symphonia also rewards exploration, the fact that it keeps stuff like chests on the overworld without having their own screens means you can more readily see something's there. Provided you're not riding Noishe, anyhow (doing so increase movement speed, but removes chest visibility).

As far as I know, it's pretty good if you can get into it, though of course, the SFC version's also been fan translated. Not sure if the PS2 one is at least on par with, if not better than it.

As far as SaGa goes, Unlimited Saga seems to be the one that fans really despise, though I can't comment directly on its quality; still need to give SaGa a go myself.

The PSP have a number of them to choose from beyond Disgaea 1 and 2.
Probably more beyond that as well. Does strike me as a bit odd that Disgaea 1 and 2, La Pucelle, Phantom Brave, and Makai Kingdom all saw PSP ports (even if some were Japan only), yet Soul Nomad is still PS2 only both here and in Japan (though it does have a PSN classic version there).

With Symphonia, you've got a few options. Gamecube version has higher combat framerate and better shadowing (and can be emulated), while the PS3 version has additional content from the PS2 port (as well as the PS2 ports faults with framerate and shadows). It's also on Steam now as well, but if memory serves that version was shittily handled; not sure if it's fixed now or what. Might be best to stick with the GC or PS3 ones.

I swear, it's like some companies make a cursory effort with stuff, and then bury their heads in the sand about it for the future, as if to say, "well, we did at least TRY, but it didn't do good enough." Honestly expecting that to be the deal with RS2 for phones, because I doubt any of the usual mobile audience is going to be all that willing to drop $15-20 (or whatever they're asking) on it, especially when SaGa (especially the Romancing SaGa games) are considered a bit hard to get into.

I'd use mine for SNES/SFC games more often if some of them didn't seem to have issues running. I mean, a good amount do handle alright, but in some cases, like the retranslated Breath of Fire II, I can't get them to play (I speculate that has more to do with the intro animation Watercrown added to it).

I just finally noticed that the PSP doesn't have two of those wrist strap hole things like the Vita does. I always thought it had two for some reason, despite having to charge it there a bunch of times already.

They sure like "testing your abilities" in this game. They should save it for the real battle. What if someone got injured? Sheesh.
I like how Reid acts more manly than most JRPG characters (even with his girly shirt). I forgot to save before wandering around Meredy's ruined hometown I'm glad that guy didn't kill me. Reid was the only one alive for a second. This whole segment was kind of tropey, but felt like it was done better than most my hometown was destroyed parts of games.

I always just try to look for anything not on the map, but the map is incredibly tiny and when you open it in the items it doesn't show you're position. Unfortunately, select or start or whatever it is only makes the map disappear and not enlarge it.

I should read what it is people like about the games so much. With everyone saying their hard to get into I just wonder how much the normal Square fans would enjoy them.

I didn't know this was one. I actually bought it on my vita during some sale, but i haven't played it yet due to time restraints. I watched part of the opening dialogue once though and the game seemed pretty interesting story wise.
I always forget what Phantom Brave even is too.

I'm probably gonna go with this version, unless I stmble across a nice copy for Gamecube I wanna buy. The last one I saw was cheap, but missing the instruction booklet and the case was beat up and gross looking. I hope the PS3 version doesn't get rare before I can buy it. I never even see it anywhere.

I love how SE acted all surprised that people wanted the Vita version of Adventures of Mana. They said something like they'd look into it, but so far they haven't said anything about it and are obviously skipping the SaGa game too now. It's just so stupid. It seems like the obliviousness is sort of an act. I just don't see how they don't see these things would lead to money, especially since they're already translated.

QUESTION: I've seen a fair few psp 3000s with custom firmware and tons of games going dirt cheap on ebay.

Any downside to purchasing one of these?

Yeah, initially Reid's a bit of a bitch about being dragged around by Farah (given how lazy the guy is), but he does grow into the role of being the protagonist when he sees what's at stake.

Neither the Gamecube version nor the PS3 one are hard to find, at least where I live.

With CFW and a decent sized memory stick (I use a 32 GB, but there's higher ones to by bought or made through microSD adaptors that can hold multiple microSD cards) there's little reason to buy the actual games as UMDs. Especially since having them on the card digitally reduces loading and battery usage, at least as far as I know.

But yeah, if you don't have a good way to emulate PS1 or PSP games, a CFW PSP is pretty nice, since you can just download PSP ISOs and PS1 eboots to put on it (plus, for the most part there's very few issues in trying to get PS1 games working with it, since the PSP has built in PS1 capabilities). There's also various emulators for other older systems tweaked to run on the PSP as well, though I suppose the quality varies depending on the system and games you're trying to get it to handle. Also avoids the issue in regards to the PSN versions of PS1 games, namely that don't have nearly enough available that way; custom made eboots can be made from PS1 ISOs using a program.

Slightly related note since you mentioned being interest in Wild Arms earlier, but do all PS2 classics on the PS4 have Vita remote play? If so, it might be of interest that Wild Arms 3 is indeed coming to the western PS4 PSN (making a total of four entries in the series in the west that have made it up on the PSN in some format).

Granted, I still have my own copy (got a lot of bang from the $10 or so I spent on it), but hopefully this sparks more interest in the series from anons here. Or kills discussion, on the off chance SJWs and feminists latch onto it over WA3 having a female lead.

Farah is a little overboard with her whole "we need to help them" stuff, but at least in the anime she sort of has a wake up call and was questioning things after the mountain in the game. I wouldn't be surprised if more happens in that regard though.

Yeah, they actually were using remoteplay as one of the reasons why everyone should have to pay again, despite it just being a function that doesn't even take any extra work, besides changing the control scheme and some developers don't even do that.

That's pretty awesome. I suppose being published by Sony that that one was probably bound to happen, but I hope that helps motivate Xseed and whoever published the remake to get the other ones on there.
I like owning things physically, but I'd definitely like the chance to buy them digitally too. (Most older games always seem to have good enough sales that buying it twice for a good price in each format isn't really a problem.)

With everything that's been happening here, I was thinking about how I still need some of your charts. My internet was too slow before to even download them. That's the kind of shit I was dealing with. At least I did get the Wild Arms ones though.

Thankfully, no one seems to care about older games. If Eternia came out now I'm sure people would talk about Meredy. Is there just more people with dark skin on Celestia?

Graces is admittedly one of the less common ones I see, though still not rare (I'd say it's a bit more common to see in stores than Abyss, but less common than Symphonia Chronicles or Xillia 1 or 2). Also been a bit more expensive than the other PS3 games in my experiences, at $32-40 or so used. Then again, we've got a lot of game stores here. Mostly gamestops, but also the occasional smaller independant stores of varying quality.

Well, the series as a whole is owned by Sony itself even though Media.Vision develops for it, so I could see them having sway to get the whole series up eventually, XSEED or not. And as far as I know, XSEED has tried in the past, but trying to get them working with the PS3 proved to be too much of a hassle and they had to move on, or something. As for ACF, that would be Agetec that published and localized it here in the US (PAL fans got screwed out of it like they did WA2, so if it ever does come out on the PSN I wouldn't be shocked if they got screwed out of it again).

If you need them, give the next chart/infographic thread you see a look. I generally try to make sure people are posting up to date ones, though I know some people have been getting annoyed that they're even being posted.

I suppose there's a bit of a safety net in that (though in the comments on youtube I've seen some people claim muhsoggykness against the Wild Arms Music the Best: Rocking Heart album since the cover art only has male characters, conveniently ignoring that its counterpart album, Feeling Wind, has only girls on its cover, with the exception of a few rodents), but there's some games I can only imagine the media shitstorm a rerelease would create if they go against what's being pushed as "acceptable" these days. Like Shadow Hearts. Though that would imply their reviewers would even go back and play older stuff even when it comes out digitally on the VC or PSN, which I assume would eat into the time they're being paid for to spend time on current releases. On that note, have any of the PS1/PS2 classics on the PSN ever been given official "retrospective reviews" by big name sites after being rereleased, or is it looked at as not really mattering at this point since they've been out so long and they have newer games to focus on? I mean, I know some of the smaller scale sites do at times (I remember RPGfan did), but still.

Celestia on the whole is dark and dreary (on account of the types of craymels the planet has being Earth, Ice, Electricity, and Darkness), and the inhabitants are all supposed to have dark skin as well (though it's more of an "islander brown" sort than outright black); can't remember how reliably the game shows that though (all three playable Celestians have dark skin anyhow). Most natives to Inferia in contrast are supposed to have light skin, and their world is brighter and warmer (having Water, Fire, Wind, and Light elements). Gets a bit odd when you look at the logistics though; craymel distribution aside, both planets are binary planets (orbiting around a central point between each other as both orbit their star) and thus should be getting equal light/heat from their star overall (while it might be looked at as ignoring planet rotation in the game design, judging by that telescope you can look through either you're looking through it at the same time of day, or both planets are also tidally locked to each other), though I suppose Celestia having so much cloud cover blocks a fair bit of sunlight out, but somehow avoids a greenhouse effect.

Argh, I still haven't gotten my damn memory card in the mail. I can't start playing anything else yet anyway, but I'd like to at least start putting stuff on there.

That actually sort of makes me more worried though. I'm just not sure Sony will bother if they have to talk to someone else. If they do plan on making more games I could see them doing it, but I never put it past them to put in the least amount of effort necessary. Unless Xseed can still do it alone too. I just have more faith in things getting done if it doesn't take the cooperation of both companies. I have no idea what Sony owning the IP and Xseed publishing it would mean for a digital release with trophies added and everything though.I could just be overly concerned.

What ones that aren't completely finished? I don't see why anyone would care, but, I guess, I shouldn't put it past some people.

I don't believe they generally do. I've seen it a lot with older games that are ported to another console or remade, but even then it seemed to only be when there was significant changes or back before it was as common (things like Resident Evil's new remakes or Beyond Good & Evil HD) even the PS4 version of Final Fantasy VII didn't get any and while that was just an enhanced port of the PC game (I think. I haven't actually played it personally) and not the full "remake", it's still a pretty big game. As far as Wild Arms 3 or any of the other emulated PS2 games on PS4 getting any, I'd say it's extremely doubtful. I'm pretty sure places like IGN and Gamespot will link a review to the news if they actually covered the game during it's original release though.

I had, sort of, forgotten how dark Meredy was supposed to be, until I started the anime. I remember they always said she had dark skin and the opening video shows it, but in the game her sprite didn't look all that different (it was easy to forget about the lightbulb on her head too).

I dunno I'd guess most of it was for convenience sake. I'm not sure what it would entail, but I know they said Celestia has no wind or not much wind either or something. I had totally forgotten about it until my damn wind boots, flying, skill thing wouldn't work.

Well, Sony hasn't seemed to mind the IP in the past. Wild Arms has stuck around longer than most Sony franchises did (covering a solid three generations, or at least two and a fraction, since XF was the only 7th gen entry), and they keep putting WA1 and 2 in occasional flash sales. Again, I think XSEED tried on their own to get some of them (at he very least, 4 and 5) working with the PS3 PSN and it simply proved too much of a hassle, and I think it took until just last year for Japan to even get Wild Arms 5 up on their PS3 PSN. XSEED might potentially have better luck with the PS4's PSN if it was technical issues preventing it before.

More that I even bother with working on them, particularly for systems I'm not real experienced with. I try to make them a group collaboration sort of thing, where for the most part I just work with the covers, text, and layout themselves while other people that have had experience with the systems can contribute the games they'd want to see on there and other information, but I know one user's gotten really mad about them to the point anytime he sees someone post one of mine.

Official art has her as a rather light brown. I think the anime might have exaggerated things a bit.

I wouldn't say it outright lacks wind, but likely doesn't have nearly as much compared to Inferia (where Sylph is native to), thus the ships there are mechanical and use engines to traverse the seas rather than using sails and wind power.

Speaking of ships, Namco sure seems to like the Van Eltia, which since debuting in Eternia, has also featured in Radiant Mythology 2 and 3 as well.

Argh, fuck these status effects. I think I need to leave the ruins and go back to town and buy things to protect against stun. Even regular enemies can affect every party member if I don't use items like crazy and I don't even want to think about what would happen if the boss does it. (Max is sure something else though. Apparently, Farah doesn't feel like ruling the world either. That part was pretty funny.)

Is there stuff in the games that would cause that? I wonder if anyone with CFW has tried emulating them. That just seems really strange to me. It seems like Xseed isn't blind to digital sales like other publisher can be, so being them I would expect things to make it more than normal when possible.

I dunno, she doesn't look too dark to me, but she doesn't look as red either. I think in different lighting she might look different. Reid wears these things on his arms instead of using a shield too.

That's the name of the boat I have? I know the captain told me, but I didn't even remember. That's kind of cool if I'll see more of this stuff in other games though.

Yeah, translated from Celestian word (because Melnics can actually be deciphered into Japanese and English) BANERUTIA, it means "wealth". Fitting for a pirate ship.

And yeah, Max is hilarious, somehow too dumb to live, but too strong to die.

Sounds like you'd want to find a Krona Symbol, since those guard against all statuses. Too bad you need 50 Lens to get it.

For those asking about Visual Novels earlier in the thread, Sora no Woto: Otome no Gojuusou (Sound of the Sky: Quintet of Maidens) is now fan translated.

Oh, wow, I wonder how many Melnics speakers there are in the world. There's gotta at least be one crazy person out there,

At least I know Farah has no intrest in world domination now. Apparently, max is going conquer the world.

Fug, I have 11.

I didn't really see that one coming. I should look if VNDB has a decent list for PSP VNs in English. I think there was even stuff like Saya no Uta that was made as homebrew for it.

For an ingame language, it's been somewhat popular. Namco repurposed it as the Long-Dau tongue in the Xillia games (one character's spoken language reverts to his native tongue when he boosts himself, and apparently doesn't seem to notice the change or doesn't care; pretty much no one can actually understand him like that, even his own teammates, save perhaps Gaius, but he's subtitled for the player's benefit), and cancelled RTS based mainly on Xevious called New Space Order would have used it as the language for the Shinsei Shuukyougoku faction.

As far as the language itself goes, Aselia wiki has this to say on how to make sense of it, and the way it handles lends itself to being foreign to both English and Japanese speakers is a different way:

Also, taking a quick look at RHDN for their list of completed PSP fan translations, the following VNs are translated to the point of being playable:

Thoroughim says they're finally done with the Euclid section of ToPX and is now moving on to Lone Valley. Apparently part of the issue is that they're doing a new translation from scratch and will be double checking with the old PS1 patches during editing to see what works best for reuse if possible (not sure if the actual script's seen a lot of changes aside from interaction with Rondoline). Also makes me think they're working on all script/events for an area in the game in one go, rather than on an as-traveled basis, considering they'd been working on Euclid since February (in which case, it would be understandable for it to take so long, as it's a town in both past, present, and future in the game).

I'm gonna have to look at this. The last time I played I beat the electric craymel and had to do this really stupid game where you stop a Melnic letter or word or something on the matching line. It took me a bunch of tries, as the damn thing doesn't even stop right away when you push the button. Thankfully, once you match them they stay and you can complete the rest though. If I had to get three in a row I'd probably never beat it.

I'm gonna have to find Little Busters and Planetarian. I still never read either of them and I just finished my last routes in Steins;Gate the other day. VNs work so damn good on handhelds. It's a shame we don't get more of them. I wish I could just remote play them from my PC or something. It's just so much more comfortable than using a whole computer.

It's good to hear they're making progress. I wonder if we'll ever get another 2D tales game. Now that handhelds can even handle battles in 3D it just seems really unlikely.
(If they do I could do without bosses that float the entire time though.)

Sounds like a combination of the lottery in Shadow Hearts (in that the indicator doesn't immediately stop) and the Lucky Chests minigame in SH:C. The last one you have to match eight sets of items, sixteen chests total, with only four chances. Not quite "in-a-row", but definitely frustrating if you don't have access to save states (I didn't).

Yeah, it's a bit doubtful at this point. The last main series 2D sprited Tales game was Hearts on the DS (not counting the mobile version of Phantasia).
Sprited games in general seem to be getting fewer and farther between; while the DS and PSP had a good number of them (and 3D on the former has some issues looking all that good due to the DS' screen quality), with the 3DS and Vita's capabilities it's seemed like there's been much more of a push for 3D. And with modern consoles, the resolution and TV sizes games would have to be made at likely mean it's both expensive and time consuming to do good quality pixel graphics for.

Fuck, I doubt I will have save states either when I play it. I hope it's not after a hard boss or something. Things like that I definitely don't miss about about older games. I remember playing 8 and 16 bit games where I'd just hit a brickwall due to one stupid section. I hate how I worry less about a game's boss than some archaic minigame.

It really sucks. Things like Eternia look so good and now it feels like some lost art. I'm really sick of how indie devs try to copy it and even cheating they tend to make it look like shit too. I wish more of them went the Pier Solar route or we would get some from regular companies again. I would love to see what the the people who made Eternia would be capable of today. (I wonder what ever happened to Pier Solar getting a Vita version too.)

I've had this psp for ~6 years now, and the battery still works just fine.

But yeah, UMD is a fucking awful medium, and the only reason it's there is because they REALLY wanted to make the PSP into a portable dvd player.

Can't you buy OEM batteries?

Nah, it's a minigame that some guy sets up shop with in a dungeon you clear out early in Covenant. Issue is that he's a bit of a pricy fucker (I have to wonder if "Jimote" is a name of jewish origin; guy even whines that you're going to put him out of business when you win), and there's at least a save point at the start of the dungeon you can load back to if you feel he's screwing you out of your money. Still liable to take a good while to win at. Gives a nice reward from it though (the third go around, anyhow; if not for the fact that you can exchange it for an outfit for Gepetto's puppet, the first round reward, a stud card, would be pretty much the opposite of a prize).

It kind of is getting to that point if you ask me. What a lot of these indie fucks (admittedly not all, but a lot) don't seem to get about pixel art and spriting is that while it was indeed a stylistic choice (at least once proper 3D started to present itself; prior to that it was more or less what there was to work with) the devs/artists still had to make everything look good as far as what the system/engine could handle, and that takes time and resources. Especially if you want to make sure it animates well; take a look at some sprite sheets for various games to see how many pieces have to go into one sprite (or even one action) to make sure it can animate the way it does sometime. I think most indies just see it as a stylistic choice, and rather than invest the time and resources to make sure it looks good as well for their choice of system, opt to fudge it instead or outright go the minimalist route.

And with bigger name developers, as far as I know these days it's a lot easier to just take models and animate them than have to create sprites and motion frame by frame, piece by piece. Also likely a lot cheaper and less time consuming. And even back in sixth gen, when you could still find some sprite oriented games on the PS2 (Gust's stuff comes to mind, as does NIS' games), some of those were the "2D sprites on 3D backgrounds" sort instead of being full/nearly full sprited.

DJMax 3 has this too. Try launching the game, putting your PSP to sleep, and then waking it back up.

Oh, and if you want to see what a more recent sprite based (at least as far as characters go) Tales game looks like, there's probably gameplay videos to be found of Destiny 2, Rebirth, Destiny DC, and Hearts DS (going back to spriting after Innocence DS being 3D was probably a smart move, given the DS' screen limitations). But you'd likely need to be wary of possible spoilers.

Hearts DS in particular had a number of sprites and animations made just for the Cameo Support system, featuring numerous Tales characters, as well as ones from other Namco franchises (Klonoa, Heihachi, KOS-MOS, etc). I'd link a video of them since it's pretty cool to see all of the characters as DS quality 2D sprites, but it might be better for you to wait until after Eternia, since Reid's a support summon and the arte he performs is possibly a spoiler for you (he also has it in Abyss and Radiant Mythology 3).

There's a team working on it. They were able to complete the translation extremely quickly because they were working on GE1 before it got an official localization, so they could just use the tools they developed for GE1. It's almost done, should be out in a couple of weeks actually.
gbatemp.net/threads/god-eater-2-translation-looking-for-translators.386192/

Today was a good day. I found a used good PSP for 59 euros and on top of that, one of my childhood games has been ported to it. Can't wait to play this again!

What's with these fuckers trying to capitalize on disasters? In Eternia you'd think this asshole would let you rest for free seeing as you just did all that shit for them and are trying to save the world and all, but this fuckhole wants over 7,000 bucks just to stay in his shitty ass tent. Fucker.

It seemed like a lot of SRPGs used stuff like that. That reminds too, I would've liked to see more games with pre-rendered backgrounds, particularly on handhelds it would be nice since they have limited resources. Nowadays they can make the models look so good that it doesn't clash like Final Fantasy VII, Resident Evil, or stuff like that. Playing Final Fantasy X on my Vita just reminded me how nice they can look. I wonder how much work those take. I'm sure it probably depends on the quality and how much moving non per-rendered stuff is there, but I never really saw anything about the creation process.

I'm guessing I probably didn't see what is yet since it's everyone else that has the big summon skills. I just finally met Balir. That was charming. I think after she uses her big move his head falls off. I had to look at a walkthrough to see if that fight was winnable. I figured it wasn't, but since my characters all had 1hp after her move I didn't know if I was supposed to heal or not. I hate that type of stuff. Go figure the walkthrough said something about Ras, so I expected he was gonna save me too. Not sure why people always feel like putting spoilers in for stuff like that.

Nice, get some CFW on that thing, as well as a PS3 controller cable if you need one to load it up with downloaded games.

It's really nothing new in vidya, or even reality I suppose. Desperation gets people willing to pay more (Abyss in particular likes doing this with its economy at points, and even at normal times, items seem more expensive than usual, hence why the hidden discounts you get from side quests are nice). Honestly, at that point in Covenant there's nothing really threatening the world just yet; the main character's just pissed off and trying to hunt down the assholes that fucked him over (with one of them being in that dungeon), and there's honestly not much reason to go back to that dungeon after you beat it, Wolf Battles and Lucky Chests aside. The annoying thing with Lucky Chests is that it's randomized as far as I'm aware, and when you have sixteen chests and only four chances, it's pretty easy to screw up, even if you don't suffer from poor memory (it's really just a matching game).

And yeah, that fight is unwinnable, though thankfully not as bullshit as, say, Graces' first battle with Hubert. That one was fucking atrocious (even if you whittle him down to 0 health, it just changes to ??? and you have to be beaten), all because the writers apparently couldn't think of an alternate win scene that has the same ultimate result, even though Destiny, Symphonia, Abyss, and Xillia all have alternate scenes for stuff times like that where the game expects you to lose, but you can still win.

On that note, I figure I might give you a heads up since you've seemed interested in Vesperia: while there's nothing in the main story that could be an out-and-out spoiler for the prior games (if memory serves), the cameo battles are against series villains for once (one even being an outright bonus boss in one of the post game dungeons), with them all being under generic (if spoiler-y) names representing them. This includes a character from Eternia as well as another from Symphonia (and in the latter case, is a big spoiler), so you might want to hold off on playing it until you finish Eternia and Symphonia at the very least.

There's this used one for 50 bucks that i found someone is selling near me but it's a Model 1000 which i've heard has a worse screen than the 3000 series and to a lesser extent the 2000 series.
Should i go for it or keep looking for a 3000?.

Also, as with the spriting thing, I expect it's generally just easier these days for companies to outright model stuff like that than to have prerendered backgrounds. Particularly if they have various moving elements to them (though admittedly I'm not sure if something like, say, a spinning windmill is an object placed on a prerendered background, or if you'd essentially need to make multiple frames of the background if you wanted to have motion to them).

Apparently Absolute Zero's done with Lone Valley now (though if memory serves there's not a lot of text to be had there, being a dungeon and a small cottage at the start). They're working on Venezzia next; going to be interesting to see how long that takes (being a full town) compared to Euclid.

Also what the fuck, the last few posts I made seem to have vanished as of this one. Maybe bumping will help.

1000 has lots of problems, I'd say you're better off getting a 2000 or preferably 3000

Does anyone have any recommendations for PSP games that are niche or maybe fan translations or things that require an undub? I'm just thinking that I might as well grab everything rare that I can, and just save it for now, in case things do disappear or get harder to find later. So far I know I'm grabbing some of these and Valkyria Chronicles 3.

Ugh, that would piss me off. I can't remember what it was, but maybe like a year ago I remember fighting some boss for probably damn near an hour, until i realized he couldn'tr be beaten. I think it actually might have been the PSP version of Lunar or something. I know the game acted like I was actually doing damage and I was pretty pissed when I found out I wasted all that time and effort for nothing.

Damn, that sounds pretty cool. I should probably try to beat every Tales game before I start ones I already sort of experienced anyway, but I'm actually looking forward to playing that way more than I am Berseria. I'm kind of worried about that one. I hope it turns out okay.

Hubert is more than capable of wiping you in a few combos at the very least (if he doesn't just overkill you with Broadside Waltz as soon as he possibly can), so it's not some long and drawn out realization. It's just that storywise it's dumb as hell. I mean, Tales doesn't usually have great writing (though it's usually at least acceptable for moving the game on), but the fact that you HAVE to lose to him, and that he doesn't have the excuse of being anywhere near final boss/main villain tier like some, just screams that the writer(s) couldn't think of a possible win scene that still results in banishment. Also doesn't seem right that he is that fucking strong for that fight, but I suppose the idea is that he trained his ass off the last seven years to beat Asbel (Hubert being the stuck up sort, and his English voice actor puts just the right amount of "snooty faggot" into the dub for him; also one of those rare male tsunderes). I will give the game credit though in that there's an optional rematch you can win against him in. There's also other tough one on one matches against various party members, but the rest are all winnable from the first attempt.

Yeah, the cameos are bosses from Phantasia, Eternia, Destiny 2, and Symphonia. It's pretty much no spoiler who the Phantasia one is (between the game being so old now and him being in the very first scene of Phantasia fighting Edward's group), and if you don't know English, Destiny 2 still has no patch (there is a script translation on gamefaqs though), so "it can't be helped" if the cameo there is a spoiler (Barbatos Goetia is a really popular Tales villain in Japan, likely due to being voiced by Norio Wakamoto, and to the point even western fans are rather familiar with him), but the other two are spoilers for western players if you haven't played Eternia or Symphonia. Also the first time in the series a character that debuted in a 3D Tales got into the cameo battle; think the next time that happened was Guy in Hearts DS.

I hope it turns out well too, for whenever I do wind up getting a PS4 anyhow. Someone at Namco already said they would not be censoring the main character's outfit, as the design was made to fit well with the story in mind, or something, but then again, they've been confirmed to be censoring the new God Eater out here if memory serves, so who knows if they'll be sticking with that. Tales has usually gotten through localization with lewdness intact just fine though, 8-4 handling it or not.

Been working on a revision for the PSP chart now that the system is barely getting any new localizations and fan translation has gotten to be more of a thing for it, but it's been hard to get people to provided descriptions for what's been missing (as well as elaborate more on ones that are rather lacking; using a standard font size means there's a lot more room for things to be said). This is just the sample version thus far, but it might be of use to you in general. Just bear in mind that right now it's reusing the games from the old image, with a few new ones I've managed to get people to do a write up for, and things are subject to change with it (such as possibly removing 3rd Birthday; I've seen a good amount of anons mention how bad that one is compared to it's predecessors on the PS1).

Not sure what all has undub patches (aside from both Star Oceans, Hexyz Force and Tales of Eternia) but as far as fan translations go, the following games have complete/playable ones to my knowledge (probably a few more as well; also not listing the VNs since I already mentioned them earlier):

The following also have ones in progress if you want to grab the ISOs for when/if they come out.

Not sure if the translation team for 7th Dragon 2020 is also going to jump into working on 2020-II. Wouldn't surprise me though, since they've fan translated two games in the series thus far and once the 3DS one comes out, three of the four entries will all be in English.

Also bear in mind that for Valkyria Chronicles III, you need the ISO for Extra Edition, as the patch doesn't work with the basic Unrecorded Chronicles version.

STEP YOUR GAME UP

The unwinnable fights always seemed less common in Tales games to me. Maybe I'm just not remembering things clearly, but in Hearts R and Abyss, for example, I don't even remember any.

That seems like a lot. It figures that they'd pick the ones I never played. I'm kind of looking forward to seeing what they're like if they have better villains though. The Tales games I played so far kinda seemed to be lacking as far as memorable villains. I think, I liked those twins from Vesperia, but it's been so long that I don't really remember them. The "witch" from Hearts R I kind of felt bad for too. She might even be my favorite, so far, for her loyalty and all.

Is he in Hearts R then? I didn't know who he was at the time, but I don't even remember seeing him.

Yeah, actually, I forget a lot of these. I'm gonna keep this on hand.

Thanks, I didn't even know about some of these. I was wondering what the hell was up with Persona 2:Eternal punishment too. As popular as Persona has gotten, it just seems really strange it's not even done yet. I played Innocent Sin on my Vita and I'm a little worried that by the time EP is playable on PSP I'll have forgotten it. I'd rather play that version though. I'm not sure if I could take a higher encounter rate or anything. Some aspects didn't seem to age so well. Not sure what Extra Edition is for VCIII, but hopefully I can find it already patched. Usually it works. Not sure if I should play 7th Dragon 2020 without playing the earlier titles either. (I actually don't even know how many 7th Dragon games there are.)

What an arrogant little shit. Although, it might be fitting depending on when they came out with that commercial, I suppose.

Tales tends to have seemingly unwinnable ones (and usually on a first playthrough they might as well be) that if you really know what you're doing or are playing with NG+ perks can beat for alternate scenes.

To be honest, from the games in the series I've played, the ones with villains that seemed the most memorable were in Symphonia and Abyss (Abyss also has the benefit that the God-Generals get half decent characterization as well). And with Phantasia, Dhaos is a classic JRPG villain and an early attempt at a sympathetic one, though again, the game doesn't do the best job of actually making why he does what he does clear until the end, as opposed to having the other two parts of the script to build up with (since those were cut for cartridge space; the first part apparently saw a novelization or something as Tales of Phantasia: Katararezaru Rekishi, though I doubt anyone's fan translated it).

Nah, he got replaced with Hubert and Pascal cosplaying as those black and white cat mascots Sony has in Japan. Embed is the Hearts DS fight.

I'd wager it's a combination of it having a big script and the PS1 version already having been localized.

There's four games: 7th Dragon (DS), 7th Dragon 2020 (PSP), 7th Dragon 2020-II (PSP), and now 7th Dragon VFD (3DS). To my knowledge the 2020 games are their own continuity or something.

Wait can I do artes in the air?! He only seems to be doing one in that video, but I've onl;y been slashing when I jump in Eternia. I do skills that take me airborne too, but if I'm missing something then no wonder I the floating lightning craymel was a pain.

Yeah, actually I don't know what I'm talking about. they definitely are memorable. for some reason I was trying to think of villians I liked. I'll probably never forget that asshole with the chair though.

Bah, that's stupid. I like Toro, but they could've still kept him too. (Toro's Friend Finder for Vita was actually kind of fun and actually where I got most of my PSN friends from. Kind of sad, I guess, really.)

Yeah, I'd just think that someone would've copied the PS1 script. I guess the thing probably does need work anyway, but I just hate that that version never got localized. the first game must have sold like shit or something.

Oh, alright, I might as well try to find it and sort out the details later. I don't really know shit about that series.

I'd figure sales have something to do with why we never got Eternal Punishment PSP (did Innocent Sin come west after the PSP got notorious as the piracy station?), either that or there wasn't enough changed content between the PS1 original and PSP version (which was likely what kept Tales of Eternia PSP and Breath of Fire III PSP from coming over; something about SCEA opting to refuse straight up ports of PS1 games after a while, or something). Also not sure how different the script between both of them are.

Might be wrong, but I think the original on the DS has a general fantasy setting, with the 2020 games being a near future world under attack by dragons. VFD has time travel or something.

Depends on the game/character/artes. I can't remember exactly what Eternia allows, beyond Farah being anti-air due to things like Swallow Dance and Eagle Dive being able to be comboed well.

Man, I really have to pick up my pace and learn Japanese faster thanks to AtlusUSA's incompetence.

You seem to know a thing or two about 7th dragon; can you tell me how things are looking in the difficulty department? I'm going to make the safe assumption that they've been getting progressively easier and easier since the first game, and I'd be willing to place money on the table saying that the 3DS entry will allow players to change the difficulty at will mid-game with a click of a button, and be easily beatable by someone who's never played a turn-based game in their life, or perhaps doesn't even know how to read, with challenge equal to Pokemon. Am I in the ball park, is that the path the game's taken? Should I even bother transfering 7th Dragon 2020 to my memory card if I value challenging gameplay?

There was going to be an elder scrolls oblivion PSP game, but it was cancelled, although it had made some noteworthy progress.

I honestly wouldn't say I know much about it (I still need a flash cart or something before I can give the DS one a go; figure it's probably better to play in order if they further refine things with subsequent entries). The most I can say is that, from what I remembering hearing about the DS one when the fan translation for it came out, it's apparently pretty difficult, is produced by Rieko Kodama (the women behind Phantasy Star I, II, and IV, as well as Skies of Arcadia and working on other various Sega games), music by Yuzu Koshiro (Etrian Odyssey, Streets of Rage), is apparently a bit of a sister series (if that's the right term; they're not by the same people) to Etrian Odyssey, and from what I've heard various tweaks 7th Dragon DS made wound up also being used to help further refine Etrian Odyssey II and III. I could be wrong, or misremembering though, so take it with a grain of salt.

I really don't see much discussion of the series, probably since most of it has never left Japan for whatever reason (games that require fan translations are a bit harder to find people that have played them; more-so if they just came out recently, as was the case with 2020); if you want a potential place for better input on it, maybe try asking in one of the "learn Japanese" threads that are up every so often? Just strikes me as the sort of place you might find people that are more apt to have played them, since those that can already speak moon and might be there to help out others wouldn't have had to wait for a fan translation (or localization, in the case of VFD).

Everyone knew about piracy about a year after the PSP came out, so it's pretty fucking likely

Nobody fucking bought psp games, the UMD was just a piss poor attempt at turning the psp into a dvd player and magic battery/memory card and or the game exploits meant you'd never have to actually buy a psp game if you didn't want to, so nobody did.

Holy shit they move fast, every fucking video the guy had made is pulled now. You gonna release a PSP game in 2016 zenimax? Really?

nothing of value was lost

Considering some vidya news places started mentioning it, that might be how it got removed that fast. Though admittedly I'm not real sure when today articles like the one on Techraptor about it first appeared.

Well, it only seemed to get worse as time went on, so I doubt it helped anything. I even knew normalfags that ended up pirating stuff. (At least one said he bricked it though. Not that I want that to happen, but piracy needs to have some hurdles.)

Well, I sure didn't expect to see Hatsune Miku. I might have to try it though. I kind of like real world seetings better, since pretty much every other one has general fantasy settings.

I'm gonna try it, I just haven't had a chance to play it today. I keep alternating between a couple of other games, so I don't leave any behind again too.

Yeah, it's pretty pathetic. Meanwhile, Volition actually puts their cancelled Saints Row PSP game online themselves for fans. Everything I've read about Bethesda and Zenimax makes them sound sleazy as hell though, so I'm really not surprised.

I know in some of the later games with the right skills set and knowing what artes flow well together (though that's more of the case with earlier Tales games), you can do some pretty neat aerial combos with artes (and in Vesperia, with the Levitate skill set, Rita can even cast spells while relatively safe in the air). Big thing though is that aerial enabled physical damage characters aren't the easiest to get used to, at least as far as trying to keep in the air while juggling the enemy (the AI party members doing their own things can also mess stuff up.

Have a Judith combo video. On a related note, looking back, it's pretty neat that she got Reid's Quasi Seal as her wind Burst Arte. That one rarely shows up in the series.

Yeah, there's pros and cons to a system being easy to pirate for. On one hand, free games and likely an earlier start for people to work out how to hack the games themselves to allow for things like bug fixes and fan translation. On the other, people not buying games doesn't encourage companies to bring stuff west, forcing fan translations or learning moon if people in the west want to play them.

Series is owned by Sega and she's a popular character in Japan. They also use her to sing the opening for 2020-II, and I think I've heard she's also an NPC in both the 2020 games.

Could have sworn I'd embedded the link to the Vesperia video. This one should work.

Holy shit, she can really fuck things up. I never can seem to do combos that long. I always end up running out of CP if if even try. Her sweeping move is kind of neat too. I don't even remember her sweeping floors or anything. (Can't say I remember her sounding like that though. Hopefully she sounds cuter in Japanese, since I'm aiming to play it on PS3 anyway.)

Yeah, it kind of sucks that fan translations and homebrew go hand in hand with piracy. I wish those were just always something that could always be done from day one without altering your system. It's really the main thing I care about. After systems are dead I'll normally pirate things instead of paying, but I mainly play niche stuff, so if I were to just pirate everything I wouldn't really feel right. It seems like every sale counts for most of what I buy these days. (If Vita had PSP's easy access to piracy there probably wouldn't even be any games left to buy at this point.)

Weird, I wonder how she acts. I like some other vocaloid stuff and a couple of her songs, but I'm not a really big fan of Miku. I guess, now that I have a PSP, I could try the series and see if I start enjoying it more, and if I do pick up a copy on Vita.

*TP, I always get them mixed up now thanks to Trails of Cold Steel.

Vesperia's the sort of game where if you know what you're doing and have the right build, you can do some really impressive stuff as far as combos go (also, all the 1s per hit in those videos are due to a skill the reduces all outgoing damage to 1, letting the player fuck around to their hearts content with combos; Vesperia also having the Fatal Strike component meaning it doesn't completely fuck you over to do so). If memory serves Xillia 2's also got some neat combo potential, especially with Ludger (given he has different art sets for his dual handguns, dual blades, and sledgehammer, complete with not only mid-combo weapon switching and the game borrowing the Artes Sphere from Vesperia PS3 and allowing for 16 artes to be set at once per player).

Her English voice isn't bad (I might be wrong, but I think she also voiced Grune in Legendia), and it works well with her flirty, teasing attitude (Yuri plays along but doesn't take the bait, considering both him and Judith seem to be on such similar wavelengths, but Raven takes the bait hard). In general, as far as dubs go, Vesperia's is (or at least used to be) regarded as one of the really good ones in terms of JRPGs. Raven's English voice in particular is really good, and the casual speaking style works with him being so laid back. Not sure if he's done much else in vidya, but if not, he needs to.

Also, those sweeping artes are joke artes, requiring that Deck Brush be equipped as the weapon.

I noticed that. I didn't even know you could do that, or if I ever saw it in that game I definitely forgot about it.

I still haven't played either Xillia game yet. I own the first one, but despite buying games for years now, I don't even have a PS3. It's kind of fucked up that I'm all excited about CFW and that's the main reason I don't have one yet. I might just buy the next really cheap one that might be able to have it and just get another later that if the firmware is too high or something.

I think I liked it at the time, but for some reason I don't remember her sounding like that. It's might just be because it's battle voices. A lot of times they sound weird in english to me.

I've seen joke items before, but I never knew they had their own artes. That's pretty awesome. I'm gonna have to mess around more. I think some guy hidden back in an alley in Abyss sell really weird shit. I wonder if he has any of them.

I was playing some GBC games with the thing charging, and it just shut off randomly. Lost hours of progress.

Has anyone had any success with these things? I'm pretty sure the problem on my end has something to do with pins making contact. Also, the battery doesn't quite sit flush in the handheld.

It is her battle voice; her normal one for cutscenes and skits has a more calm tone to it. In most cases with the series the combat voices have a fair bit of aggression to them, which is understandable (though with Graces, in Pascal's case, her combat voice is still her usual playful chipper one).

Also, as far as the Japanese voices go, Estelle's has a rather melodic quality to it (her seiyuu also voiced Nagisa in Clannad if memory serves), while her English voice plays up her enthusiasm at seeing the world a bit more.

It's been a thing since Vesperia. Unfortunately with the later games, Fatal Strikes didn't become a standard for the series, so if you actually want to kill something while you have 1 Damage on, you either need to have the AI party members set to not do anything, or it's going to take a good while to even kill regular enemies. Vesperia also has the benefit that building up Fatal Chains on enemies increases drop chances, giving further reason to use the 1 damage skill.

I'd like to get a CFW PS3 myself, particularly for Tales of Vesperia and whatever future fan translations (or in cases where only the PS4 version of a game came west, script insertions) come out for it. Unfortunately they're a bit expensive, I already have a working 160 GB (that sadly had too high of factory firmware for CFW) model, and I don't exactly have a huge amount of spending money (hence why I love finding cheap deals on games at local stores, as well as PSP CFW allowing for "try it before you buy it" at the very least).

OP here. The PSP in the OP image arrived yesterday. I'm a little disappointed, it's cheaper than it looks in all the promo pics. They make it look like it's got a real big shine on the gold parts and everything–whatever. Whatever. I got it for only a hundred bucks, including the box and everything. The battery lasts ten fucking hours! I got it hooked up with a bunch of games already and I'm psyched. Thanks to everyone who spoonfed me with info. It came in handy. I expected this thread to get only twenty replies.

Anyway. I have just one question. UMD movies! They're fucking region locked. I tried playing my movies on it and I can't since they're region 1 and this is a Japanese PSP.
There's only a couple results about how to get around this and both of them are from fucking all the way back in 2005 and 2007 respectively and I'm not sure if they'd work on the PSP-3000. Any suggestions? I want to start collecting UMD movies…

Also, I tried playing Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast, and it wouldn't allow me to save. It says I don't have enough space, even though I have a 32 gigabyte card. Is that going to be a thing that happens often with these pirated games? It's super annoying.

I just got a battery from a local pawnshop that was selling them new in blister packages, seems to work pretty well.

Not real sure why'd you'd want to play movies off of UMDs themselves. I assume there's a way to toss the movie files themselves onto a CFWed PSP and cut out the UMD middleman, but I'm not entirely sure; never done so with mine. Also strikes me that there might not be nearly as much demand for people to have burned the data from UMD movies compared to the games themselves, considering most of those movies or tv shows are likely out there in other formats already.

What's your how much of your memory card is still free? Also, are you sure you have it formatted right?

I still never even read that. Being all ages I just keep waiting and waiting for a handheld version or something. I thought it would happen for Vita, but since that's obviously not gonna happen, I should look if anyone ever got it working in English for PSP.

Yeah, that makes it sort of hard to justify the cost. Hopefully, at some point in the future they'll just get CFW working with later firmware. I don't really know much about it though, so I'm not sure how likely that is.

I don't know. I kind of doubt most people cared about that, since you can just put the files on there anyway. UMDs might not be the best thing to collect, since tons of stuff isn't available and it's lower quality than DVDs. I guess, they are super cheap now though, so if you like what they offer it's your money.

Why is everyone on Holla Forums stuck in the 90's refusing to use anything but dumb phones and mp3 players?

Really, I just can't fucking understand it.

Well, it's a cool ass piece of hardware and if he doesn't want it later he might even be able to make some money on it. Smartphones people are never satisfied and always want a new one. That's why people literally throw their old ones in the trash. The PSP will just always be more timeless than model HK-30064 smartphone. It shouldn't be that hard to see why someone would want one.

Spice and Wolf DS translation never ever.

Being a fan of S&W is suffering.

Its also 12 years fucking old and can't do anything even 4 year old smart phones can.

I dont know where your constantly upgrade justification comes from, its not like the emulators for the current hardware available are going to run worse just because you don't upgrade.

Quad core phones from 2012 can run ppsspp just fine, and the newer 8 core phones can actually fullspeed gamecube games.

I can fucking play smash melee in my fucking pocket with my current cellphone, your psp struggles just to fullspeed zelda.

And please for the love of god, don't spout the "muh touchscreen" meme either, it just makes you look really inept.

at least the 12 year old handheld doesn't spy on you for the government.

also the 12 year old handheld lets you watch Good Times: The Complete Season 1 on UMD, does your overpriced NSA monitoring device do that? didn't think so, check and mate turbosperg

I was just trying to provide you with reasoning to why people on the videogame board buy videogame stuff. Most people probably already have a smartphone. If they don't most people will just give you one when their contract is up. There's a lot of reasons I could see someone not wanting to buy one.

nice meme response. Your complete fucking ignorance is actually triggering me

Stop

Only retards believe that, an n64 or ps1 holds no value over modern hardware that can play the same games with additional features.

Old tech is old tech, and I sold all my fucking old consoles including my psp for chump change just because of how little value they hold.

I will always grab my bluetoothed ds3 and boot up a game on my phone or pc before I'd touch original hardware.

Technology isn't special, at all. Never was, never will be.

...

Hes probably from reddit,

because he

types like this

what a faggot

At the core (kernel) only as it using GPL V2. The stuff that most people call Android, the userland is usually non-free. The device drivers also usually nonfree as well. Also the base band is almost always not free and has master level read control over the entire device. There is a libre userland and device drivers being developed but it unfortunately only supports a few phones.
You can`t really do much without rooting as the /system directory is read only by default. Also you need to flash a custom bootloader in order to use a third party ROM. It isn`t hard just requires you to RFTM and go slowly, also doubble/tripple check input`s before execution.
Techncially it is using GNU/Linux`s Unix implementation and not "proper" Unix certified.

I'm a normalfag for not being perpetually stuck in the 90's Good job at making yourself look like an idiot. I owned a psp as my primary multimedia device back in the day when it was at its prime, smart phones hadn't quite taken off back then and it was so easy to pirate games. The fact that I could also use it as a web browser and mp3 player just made it icing on the cake. However, this isn't fucking 2004 anymore.

I've been on chan's since 2006 and I've been on this board since the first exodus, try again.

I buy nexus devices that come with stock rom and unlocked bootloader out of the box. None of that locked down bullshit. I find completely bullshit when these service providers try to lock down hardware on an inherently personal OS.

I can see where you're coming from though.

You do not belong here, crawl back from the hole you came from.

Actually a few other small compontets are also libre. Some manafacture`s half decently comply with the GPL2v2`s clause to provide source code to modification/addition (device drivers mainly) of/to the kernel.

It's you who doesn't. Belong. go back to fucking listening to vaporware and watching mr meaty. Perhaps you should fuck off back to cuckchan /vr/ where the rest of the nostalgia driven man children like you belong while you're at it.

Translation:

Its not about using smartphones for gaming, its about not using extremely inefficient outdated hardware for gaming, since we both know psp was previously known as the emulation king.

There are a multitude of android based emulation stations out there if you absolutely have to have your controls physically attached to the case.

I honestly don't get why that is, beyond the screens in there being the kind that aren't supposed to last a long time. I mean, if it does what it's supposed to already (phone and internet mainly, if you ask me) and does it well enough, there's not much since in dropping whatever is being asked on a new one unless your old one outright breaks.

Both the PSP and DS have at least been seeing some amount of fan translations, but yeah, there's some where there's either not enough interest or the people that have worked on them gave up, for whatever reason. Like Endless Frontier EXCEED, which only has a menu patch (which is a shame; the first Endless Frontier ends on a cliffhanger).

According to wikipedia, it's been on all the following systems:
I don't think any of them have ever been localized, but I'd wager the PC one's likely been fan translated.

It's all about physical design. Smart phones are pure shit in ergonomics for anything other than phone calls, and still have a long way to go until that changes.
For emulation and versatility, nothing beats the PC. But the PSP is as comfy as a handheld can be.

...

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories alone sold almost 3 million copies in the US.

The Vita is more comfortable to use. So is the Game boy Advance.

I'd put the GBA on the same tier, it's similar enough.
I haven't tried the Vita yet, though.

I don't know either. I know plenty of people who use them instead of PCs now, but next time I think about it I'll try asking one of my sisters or someone. I think it mainly boils down to the marketing. My one sister is always buying some new android and the other one gets the newest iphone whenever it comes out. They always get all happy when they get a new one, but they don't ever even seem to do shit besides facebook or snapchat and all that shit anyway. It just seems like a giant waste to me. Her one friend that I started hanging out with had some samsung galaxy whatever with insurance, broke the screen when she dropped it, and had to pay 200 some dollars for a new one. They told her $200 was a deal with insurance, because the phone would cost her $650 otherwise. She just gives the old ones away too. I could've had it, but I really don't care about the things so I let my other sister have it, since she wants to spend all her time looking at a phone. Even when I had a new one games still sucked. The lack of controls and horrible battery life and everything just sucked any enjoy out of it I might have had. The fucking thing just broke without even doing anything to it too. I really don't see the things lasting as long as a PSP or Vita if even the fucking Samsung Nexus that Google co-developed and talked me into is that much of a piece of shit. Handhelds still probably have way higher R&D budgets or something.

I think Sekai Project put it on Steam, but gave some excuse as to why they didn't release the Vita version. I'd hope that someone threw the translation onto the PSP version by now though.

My dad's the sort of person to go out and buy every new iphone when they come out. I really don't get it. I mean, I do at least get occasional handmedown phones from him for free due to that, but I'm content to use those for years without a desire to replace them as long as they still work; meanwhile he'll immediately drive to the store whenever a new one comes out, which just strikes me as a waste of money when his old one still works just fine. Oh, and he's also the kind of person to push "why bother buying or playing games on an actual system? Just sell all that stuff and buy games on phones instead. Every developer worth their salt will be moving to mobile soon anyhow." He was especially smug about Nintendo opting to start working on mobile games.

To be fair, Grand Theft Auto is a really popular series in the west, and I expect that fans of the series that weren't keen on turning their PSPs into Pirate Station Portables would have happily dropped the money. Odd as it sounds, some people just aren't into modifying or hacking their systems, even if it's a system where it's not complicated to do so. Been trying to talk a friend of mine into modding his Wii (especially since I'm pretty sure it's a really old model like mine is, and thus has a good chance that bootmii could be installed as boot2 for bricking reversion) for all the games he's missed out on, particularly ones that never came west or are too fucking expensive, but he's content with it unhacked and just buys what's on the VC when it comes to older games.

Good lord, I never want to do that fucking roulette game again for as long as I live. It took me hours due to the fucking move back spaces and the bogus surprise formation the one part gives you. I had a harder time with that than I have with any boss in the game. I hated it so much. after getting move back 6 spaces for the 20th time I felt like throwing my PSP out the window.

That's insanity, I could see that if you only play puzzle games or VNs or something, but when you look at the games they're making for Vita there's really no phone equivalent to most of that stuff. I'd be curious to see what he would recommend if you said you wanted a game like Trails of Cold Steel or Freedom Wars or something though (or shit pretty much any of them). The fact that they took away Bioshock and other games that people payed for is pretty disturbing though too, so even if I could play a new Danganronpa game or something that would work good on my phone, I'd be worried about giving them $40 for it, since it might be incompatible after the next update. (I hope he at least uses a grip that adds buttons. Sony made one for remoteplay on Xperias that hooks to a DS4 if that would make a good present for him or something.)

Yeah that dungeon's probably the worst, simply because of the element of chance. Think when I co-oped it we got hit with 'back to start" or whatever it was twice before getting through it. Probably a lot easier with save states and emulation.

Pretty sure if it's a reverse formation you can just do an input combo and automatically reverse the formation.

Well, he doesn't really care for vidya any more than he can resell them for. The sort of person that picks up some .hack//G.U. games for $1 each at a yard sale and brags to me how he's going to be a good $100 richer instead of asking if I have an interest in them before opting to sell them (I mean, I suppose it's his call since he found them, but still). The only games he really liked were old Atari games like Centipede, and he always hated hearing the audio of whatever game I was playing growing up, finding it grating. If I asked him for recommendations he'd probably just recommend I resell my shit on Amazon. He used to go on about how much space my games waste (at the time it was just one small shelving unit; now I've got about four times the shelf space using a second unit) and how much money i could make buying shit low (like I normally do anyhow) and then selling it at scalper prices.

Planned obsolescence, most likely. That, and batteries that will eventually fail on you, and the most popular phones among the douchebag crowd having those batteries that are sealed inside the case or some shit.

I'm not sure if your dad is a hipster or a retard, but one thing's for sure: he's a fucking douchefag.

I take it this can't be translated into a real address huh? I only have one more episode of the Eternia anime left. The show is pretty damn good. It's a shame the game isn't popular enough to get more people interested in it.

Oh yeah, "you fell" or whatever the fuck. I couldn't believe that shit. I only go it once, but combined with the insanity of how many times I got go back 3 or 6 spaces I couldn't believe it. I wish I knew every damn treasure chest was just a mimic too. I thought they would at least give me something, since that area drains your items like crazy.

It's funny actually I'm always buying games for kids, because compared to most toys they barely take up any space. When I buy kids toys otherwise I always try to go for smaller ones, since I don't know if their parents want big ass dollhouses or something laying around.
Even for adults I don't think they take up much room compared to a lot of hobbies. At least your not into model trains or something. Personally, I like looking at my games anyway. sometimes I pull something off of a shelf just to look at it. I love the artwork on some of them. It can be disappointing looking at Akihiko Yoshida's amazing drawings and then starting a game only for the characters to look like chibified shit. At least it doesn't sound like he ever threw them away on you or did anything shitty like that when you were a kid. I had a friend that wasn't even allowed to play videogames. (He was barely allowed to watch TV/movies either. He would watch entire movies sometimes at a department store on their display models.)

Forgot my psp game picture.

holy shit that voice acting in mega man: powered up
i'm genuinely repulsed right now

Here's the thing. He doesn't even play games. He just doesn't like to see me "wasting" my money on cheap stuff for actual systems when I got be profiteering from it (hence him complaining about me "wasting space" with vidya when I could be moving it out to idiots that happily pay full price for old stuff; I have to appreciate that mom called him out on his own shelves of shit he was trying to move out the door that he couldn't find buyers for, saying "at least user keeps his stuff nice and tidy). He also likes to see apple do well, hence trying to encourage me to just switch over to phone gaming (I suppose he also feels it would be "more acceptable" or whatever to play in public on a phone than a DS or PSP or whatever; not like I got much of anywhere though).

Actually, yes, it translates to some .jp web address, though I doubt anything's there (of if there was, it's most likely gone). Probably similar to how movies and games use fake "555" phone numbers.

Probably why (to my knowledge anyhow), they've never done a dungeon like that again.

Yeah, he at least never did anything like that, though he's never been real big on me playing games ("waste of our money and your time" sort of logic). He did seem happy to hear that with the PSP being easy to mod I didn't need to drop much money on it beyond the system and a memory stick.

To be fair, I've never given it a go, but I HIGHLY doubt it can sound worse in English than Chaos Wars of Arc Rise Phantasia. Not that that's an excuse for a company to aim for terrible voicing.

Wow, I thought there was a chance. I might have to look that up when I'm bored. I really like little stupid things like that. There was something really old like that I found still working a couple years back, but i can't remember what the thing was. Maybe if I didn't always call every phone number I see in old videogame magazines and stuff.

It's a neat idea, but I just would've implemented it differently. It would be kind of neat if you went back too many times or triggered enough battles or something Farah would say you suck at it and do it herself getting you past that spot or something.

You can pretty much use that logic on anything though. It just depends on personal preferences really. When it comes to videogames I think a lot of people don't even consider the time and money involved in making a good game though either. I sort of feel bad for people playing cheapass games, that never get to experience things like an amazing soundtrack or things that just elevate the entire thing. While some people would think I'm wasting money, when I think about what I'm getting, I feel like many times even a new game can be a crazy good deal.
(This one mobile game my sister had had probably the worst voice acting or announcer voice I've ever heard my life. One day she was actually playing a game where you look at advertising logos and match them up with the company too. It was kind of fucked up.)

yeah but you don't understand man. mega man powered up included an updated 3D port of mega man 1. they ruined their own classic game with horrid unnecessary voice acting. he does a gay anime screech every time he jumps now.

Abyss does something that in one particular section.

That's not a game. That's training kids to know brand recognition.

And yeah, I certainly don't tend to feel I'm wasting money since I tend to do research on games I buy beforehand and then lurk for possibly good deals on them before picking them up. At least mom's never really cared much about what I play as long as it was bought with my own money (though she is not a fan of LoZ; she claimed Ocarina of Time looked bad, Windwaker was too little kiddish, and Twilight Princess too violent, back when I was 16 or so), and she's actually a bit impressed at what sort of music composers have done for stuff I've played (SH:C's "Town of Twilight" in particular being a song she really enjoyed). Dad couldn't care less about vidya aside from profit, which he feels I'm missing out on. Video game music drives him nuts, especially music from handhelds.

I suppose putting voicing into a game that didn't have it in the prior version can be a bit jarring (I know some people have that as a complaint for FFIV DS). Especially when it's for a repetitive action you'll be doing a lot of.

I really liked how you could choose who went where during the one split up part. I wish more games would do stuff like that and have different dialogue and everything. I'd love a JRPG with tons of branching choices. Most of the western games that have them I don't really care about.

Yeah, it was really fucked up. I don't generally even say anything, but I told her something similar and told her they should at least be paying her to do that. I find it kind of sad how my niece remembers every fucking commercial on TV and wants every single thing they tell her to want too. It just doesn't feel right to me. I tried telling my sister that if she's gonna have her watch all that shit at least download it or use netflix or something, rather than having a four year old watch insane amounts of commercials, but she doesn't listen.

My mom would actually grind rupees for me in the 2D Zelda games. She seemed to enjoy fucking around doing that, but never had any intrest in seriously playing the games.

Despite being well done, I didn't still like a lot of the changes about War of the Lions. It just wasn't how I pictured alot of stuff. FFVII is where they turned everything I loved upside down though. i found the blocks more charming than their stupid realistic looking models. I wish they'd keep it a little more anime-like or fantasy-like or something.
(After bumping into this PS1 promotional video yesterday I was trying to think of ways to fix the problem where videogames don't leave anything to the imagination anymore and how while trying to make games more realistic. It just feels like everyone's priorities got really messed up somewhere along the way. It kind of feels like the technical limitations of handhelds are almost a good thing at this point.)

Yeah. Does seem to depend entirely on if the game treats the entire party as being present or not. Chrono Trigger has separate dialogue for characters able to be present during various scenes, since anyone outright not in the party is waiting at the End of Time, and with Tales of the Abyss, even though there's only four party members in battle at a given time, the game has an excuse for that and still generally treats everyone as being present (while still having specific in-battle dialogue between party members and bosses).

Most people probably don't care or consider it harmless. I mean, people seem all to happy to be walking billboards with branded shirts and such.

It's more that nothing about vidya really interests mine that much besides the music (and only at times; pretty sure CD quality audio is all she'd really put up with).

You mean the difference between the FMVs and ingame graphics?

Admittedly I haven't had a huge amount of experience with Final Fantasy, but have they ever really gone the "anime" route as far as style goes? From the art and stuff I've seen, they seem like they've always had more preference towards either Amano's old style (at least for conceptual character art), or trying for CG realism, rather than, say, Tales or Wild Arms outright cel shaded anime style.

Yeah, there definitely seems to have been a push for more and more realism as things have progressed. I mean, it's nice to have game systems capable of higher resolutions, but that should have had to mean more and more realism. Even looking at Tales, while it's never lost its anime styling, there is a BIG difference between Vesperia's vibrance and the Xillia games using more drab colors (I won't say it's "brown and bloom" but it's a lot less vibrant in the color palette).

Been playing Legacy of Ys lately, and the mix of 2D sprites on low poly 3D environments has a real charm to it, having a decent amount of detail (especially in the stills) but not going overboard on things, to the point you get a good idea of what things look like, but still leaves things up to the imagination.

I never know what the hell I'm supposed to pick as far as titles and stuff in Tales games. I think someone said you need certain ones equipped at certain times for some skits to trigger, but I normally just use the newest one or ones I like. I should probably try reading about them, because there's probably something to it that I'm missing. I have no idea what they might do in the western version of Eternia too, since there is no skits, but they're there so I'd think they'd at least do something.

My nephew has been doing the most retarded thing where he would only wear Adidas sportswear and now he switched to Nike, so he won't wear Adidas. It makes no fucking sense to me and makes buying him gifts a pain in the ass sometimes. If clothes look nice and are well made I don't really give a shit what stupid logo is on the tag. It kind of reminds me of the blind fanboy stuff regarding videogames.

That's still cool though. My mom remembers some old songs from games when she hears them. I think she's nostalgic for Bubble Bobble and Contra and all that stuff. We'd play a lot of things multiplayer. Remembering this stuff though, I think I might get her a handheld. She use to play puzzle games like crazy. I wonder if they ever made a new version of Wario's Woods or if she'd like Lumines or something.

More just how I never pictured some of the characters the way they're presenting them now. I guess Cloud doesn't look all that bad in the Remake's trailer, but I think I've just gotten more used to it. When I was playing i just didn't get the moody faggot impression they've seem to be so hung up on.

Not really, I guess, but while I don't even love the way he's drawn in the original game, I just don't really like the new CG model's sad boy model look. I just wish there was more in between ground or something.

Has Beseria and Zesteria tried adding more again? I don't know what the fuck happened to colors these last generations. I think some devs are trying to fix it now at least, but things just started looking so much more depressing.

What titles do depends entirely on the game in many cases, they're just a minor thing if you're wanting to 100% the file, but there's a few times that's not the case:

Yeah, I usually just wear what's comfy, and in pretty much every case there's no logo on the outside.

If you do get her a DS or something, get Ghost Trick as well. Really enjoyable puzzle/adventure game.

Granted, I haven't played much of FFVII yet (which I suppose is ridiculous given that I enjoy JRPGs), but he never struck me as being real moody or depressed at least up through the point I got to, being a mix of confident but aloof.

I'm not real sure. I don't have a PS4 and with the PS3 version not coming west I haven't been paying too much attention. The Xillia games do have a bit of an excuse though due to the Clime system, where regions have outright static weather as part of where they are, and there's a particular area that's a lot of grays and browns between having a modern city style (with apartments and offices and the like) and that area becoming close to inhospitable due to the spirits having long since died off, leaving it maybe a year or two from being unable to support life at all.

I wonder why they'd do that. I wouldn't be surprised if in japan a bunch of games have stuff in the instruction manuals they don't tell us about here. It just seems strange when devs add stuff like that only to not even tell anyone.

I still haven't even played that myself, but I noticed people seem to love it. I need to play 999 and VLR though first before the third game comes out. I've just been putting them off forever because some asshole spoiled them for me. Not gonna let it happen for the next one.

at this point you might be better off waiting to see how the remake turns out. If it doesn't turn out to be shit you'd have a game that felt new that way, since I'm sure not everything aged like wine in the original game. I'd still give that version a shot at some point, since it's referenced and influenced so much stuff though.

Can you get things like Zesteria or any of the west PS4 only games in English with CFW? That would definitely be an added benefit if there's people working on all the games that seem to be getting skipped these days. I'm just not sure what kind of work that would take and if it's even something reasonable to hope for or not.

I'm not sure. It's usually rather minor stuff, though some have a more notable effect. For example, some of Tears titles have the effect of restoring some party TP per second while standing on a save point. Really not sure how some people figured them out though, since you'd have to go out of your way or really look at the actual code or something. Either that or there's a toggle I missed in the Status screen that lists off title effects (the way, say, holding triangle in a Wild Arms game brings up a box with a description). Might pop Abyss in sometime in the future and double check it. I just don't remember the game mentioning the effects.

I don't mind remakes, but most of what I've heard makes this one sound like it's not going to be doing right by series fans. I'll just stick to the PS1 original when I get around to it. Not sure if I want to use the official translation or the fan retranslation, since I've heard the official one has some notable issues ("this guy are sick" and the like), though I suppose it's far from the worst localization effort Final Fantasy's seen.

I would expect that it's possible to do a script rip and insertion, but I'm not sure how easy it is to do such a thing, especially if there's not much demand for it on what is now a non-current console.

I don't remember it saying anything. I didn't even know they had a use before today, so I would hope I'd remember if they told me, but there's a chance I forgot, I guess.

I didn't even know it was considered bad until I heard about the retranslation. When people were talking about it it sounded like there was some weird changes in that though too, so I don't even know which one would be better. It sucks that Square didn't put the recent PC port on Vita when they did it for PS4 though. I suppose PS4 can't play PS1 games so it had more reason, but I prob ably would've bought the thing if it were crossbuy.

I guess there probably is more important things people can do in their time. The getting less versions just always sucks though, so it's always cool to see people take matters into their own hands. I wonder how many more years PS3 will even get games. PSP and PS2 had some crazy runs.

Yeah, the PS2 still kept getting localizations for a year or two, maybe three after the PS3 was already out (I know Sakura Wars V was in 2010), and kept on getting sports and licensed shovelware for it as well. I would guess in Japan they're going to keep making stuff for the PS3, but Sony seems to want to push for only the PS4 versions of various games to be localized.