JB0

But the characters are what was being sold. That's why Transformers repaints rapidly replaced the original japanese toys.

Most of the pilots on the battlefield weren't even allowed faces, much less voices. Except that one guy screaming into his helmet while they sucked his spiritia out, and he was a metric buttload of pilots' face. I doubt Gamlin was calling in just to be a whiny crybaby. It's safe to assume Basara WAS a nuisance. I never got the impression he actually LIKED Basara's music, though. He just ceased to hate Basara with the burning heat of a thousand suns and acknowledged that Basara DID have talent, even if he didn't care for the music. And that still doesn't change the fact that they used Basara as an instrument of torture. ... Random thought: given that the usual view of rock music is "louder = better", it's highly possible Chiba had things turned up way too loud for Gamlin and was causing him physical pain. I'm just saying that adults typically acknowledge that the world isn't an ideal place, and that idealism often has to be set aside for reality(like Hikaru setting his "war = bad" idealism aside for the defense of the Macross, and ultimately humanity itself). Rampant idealism is typically a sign of a kiddie show. Basara never questions the idea that there's a non-violent solution to everything. What's more, he never questions that the solution is people listening to his song. He either blames everyone around him when his singing fails or assumes he just isn't good enough. But the focus was on Basara, not Gamlin and Mylene's adaption to him. Those story angles were sacrificed several times for the sake of more Basara. Yes, it does. He's a static and unchanging fixture in the show. I'm just saying that Basara's character could've been developed through backstory without altering his character signifigantly. A single flashback of him trying to move a mountain with his song isn't my idea of character development, or even establishment. Fair enough. Personally, I don't think Mac7's version would fit in the setting of SDF Macross. Maybe I'm mistaken. It seemed a more complex show, though.

The graphics are nice for what they are. They're working within the constraints of the GBA, so nothing as flashy as you'd see on the PS2 games. But the sprites are large and adequately animated. Unlike the SNES versions, swords and guns aren't pasted onto a constant, static sprite. There IS animation of the mechs. But it's not exactly the most dynamic ever. Big gripe is that the menus get a tad cramped in some places. The GBA screen isn't high-enough resolution to comfortably fit all the data that needs to be shown sometimes. Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation is out now. Should've landed on shelves wedensday. SRT:OG2 is slated for an October release. Both are GameBoy Advance titles, and compatible with the DS. Personal wishlist is that Atlus follows this with the upcoming Japanese Original Generations, which remakes OG1 and OG2 for the PS2, bringing the AV up to the levels of recent SRW games like Alpha 2 and 3.

Focusing on Mylene and/or Gamlin would be a better way to further the "characters reacting to Basara" angle. Also! What the heck is up with the danged flower girl?!?!

The game shipped tuesday. I got it yesterday. It needed another run of proof-reading. There's some rather glaring errors and badly-placed paragraph breaks. Impressively, it comes with a comprehensive 67-page manual. I haven't seen a manual that was genuinely useful since the SNES days. And it hasn't been COMMON since the NES.

Actually, Phantasy Star did come out on the Mega Drive (Japanese Genesis)! It was a remake of the original Master System Phantasy Star, but the sprites were redone to take advantage of the Mega Drive hardware. Alas, Sega nor Backbone Entertainment can be bothered to translate so many pages of text for so old a game. 424215[/snapback] What I've heard is that it's actually the SMS game, on a SMS->Megadrive adapter board(the Genny was backwards-compatible YEARS before the PS2). Also why there's no ROM image, as the Genesis can't run it in Genesis mode. 424243[/snapback] That doesn't sound unreasonable, but I've actually held the Phantasy Star Mega Drive drive game in my hand. When I flipped through the booklet I was expecting a straight port of the SMS game in all it's 8-bit glory, but all the screenshots were definitely 16-bit. I asked the guy selling it what was up since I had never heard of it and he said that the game was a limited release in Japan. Nearly every cart has been dumped by the ROM scene from obscure games to betas, but it's not impossible that a title or two such as Phantasy Star have slipped through the cracks. 424278[/snapback] Interesting... Makes me wish I had a copy to muck with. I suppose it's possible the game could be 8-bit and still make use of the Genny's "advanced" video features. Write to the proper registers and you should be able to change the video mode. I've heard the game's been dumped before, but the resulting ROM image was unusable on emus as well as copiers/flashcarts . That'd probably be enough to keep it out of mainstream distribution. I do know the emu scene doesn't always get everything. And the obsession with carrying complete "GoodXXXX" sets and nothing else doesn't help. Used to be a bit more diversity in the sites, but now it's all "FULL GOOD-WTF-EVER SET!1111" and very little else. Which is even worse since A. they didn't deal with NES headers until very recently(headers on NES images are required for proper functionality), and B. they're one of the worst purveyors of misinformation around(Last I checked, they were still spreading the myth that Nintendo Power magazine gave away games in Japan). I hate Cowering's tools.

Macross VO is thge big one. And has a dedicated uberthread at the top of the games forum. There were a few other vintage releases, but most of them weren't for the standard IBM PC(MSX had a shooter, PC9801 had several sim games). Win9x had another pair of sim games in addition to VO. http://macross.anime.net/production/software/index.html

Except the leg missiles. And got in their way. On the other hand, he DID use himeslf as a shield for civilian targets a few times. What, you never saw "Rape-inator: Robotic Tentacles of Doom"? I generally assume every possible porn concept has been explored at least once. The AFOS had also been "stored" with much less care. While the protodeviln were encased in ice, the AFOS was sitting exposed on the sea floor. Chiba used Basara's song for psychological torture on Gamlin. It's idealistic. Particularly the manner in which it's attained. It's called a flat character. One of my major gripes with Macross 7 is that Basara has no character growth, either in "real-time" or backstory. Were he a secondary character, this would be acceptable. But he's not interesting enough to be the lead, and he steals camera time from far more compelling characters. Gamlin and Mylene would've both made far better main characters. Macross 7 also only pursued one major point. SDF Macross had many concurrent major threads. Some were fully realized, others were truncated or abandoned. And I'd argue that the music angle WAS developed quite adequately in the original series, for the setting it was in. Indeed, that's a quite impressive accomplishment. And SDF isn't exactly free of footage recycling itself. Mac7 at least keeps the recycling to appropriate locations so you don't have explosions in space splashing off the non-existant ground, and never falls to the low quality levels that plagued SDF at several points. And the "corruption" of said infiltrators by the "good guys." Sivil and Gigile were both influenced by Basara far earlier than their companions were. I'd still debate that the shows are from the same mold, though.

Pfft. They'd be hanging out with computer nerds, and you know it. Probably be uploading viruses into their neural nets to get high, too. I'm telling you, the autobots were all stoner hippies. And the decepticons weren't any better.

Actually, Phantasy Star did come out on the Mega Drive (Japanese Genesis)! It was a remake of the original Master System Phantasy Star, but the sprites were redone to take advantage of the Mega Drive hardware. Alas, Sega nor Backbone Entertainment can be bothered to translate so many pages of text for so old a game. 424215[/snapback] What I've heard is that it's actually the SMS game, on a SMS->Megadrive adapter board(the Genny was backwards-compatible YEARS before the PS2). Also why there's no ROM image, as the Genesis can't run it in Genesis mode. Besides, Sega already did the Sega Ages Phantasy Star. It's had it's PS2 showing, and even a remake. I find it interesting that everyone's immediatly griping that Sega isn't including games they don't own(Thunder Force, Road Rash). Personally, I think it's more worth griping that we're getting watered-down Genesis versions of some really signifigant arcade games. Genny Golden Axe is less of a slap to the face than Nintendo's obsession with NES Donkey Kong(Virtua Fighter 2, though, is probably more of one), but it's still damned annoying. ... WTF? "Three unlockable games will also be available in the PS2 version only: Zaxxon, Tac/Scan, and Zektor." A. All 3 are arcade games with no Genesis counterparts. B. Zektor! WE GOT VECTORS!

I still read it as less shock that it can exist and more shock that it's still moving after he emptied his gun into it. To me, a BULLETPROOF* giant alien is infinitely more scary than a giant alien that goes down easy. *Yes, I know he wasn't really, but that's not what it looked like.

The Saturn version had issues of it's own, though. It was a pretty bad port, even if they DID go in and add some things(including dash boots so Alucard can run in human form). At least with it running off a hard drive most of the load times should be gone... Besides, the 360 pad matches the PS layout. The control changes for the Saturn version would've made it play very odd. My bet is compression, and they decompress the disk image at run time. They COULD use synthesis(they have enough sample RAM that they could meet, or even exceed, the sound quality of the original music that way), but they'd have to rescore the game. Becomes a lot more work than it's worth. Especially given SotN has a pretty good soundtrack and people probably won't take kindly to a new one unless it matches the original so closely they can't tell the diffrence.

The old DOS shooter Tyrian had one too. One of the "secret ships" had a special weapon called the "SDF Main Gun." It was, predictably, an obscenely powerful beam(I think it was the strongest weapon in the game, actually).

Speaking of Yamato... Anyone remember the Toys R Us exclusive cannon fodder? That ceased being exclusive as soon as sales slacked off? I see no reason Starscream can't follow the same route. Sell all the "less desirable, but adequate" options that you can. Combined with a few "YEAH! THIS IS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE DONE!" at a premium. Once sales of both slip, release the "Y!TITWISBD!" version as a mass-market product. Everyone's STILL pissed, and justifiably so(it's a major fan screwjob). But at least it becomes widely available... eventually.

But if it was a giant carbon molecule, it wouldn't be steel. It IS possible that it's an iron alloy with nanotube cables, mesh, or even a 3D web running through it. I'm not sure what sort of alloy you'd get from that, though(or anything, having no real metallurgical knowledge beyond what I've already said). Of course, there's so many possible alloys that it isn't hard to conceive overtech would supply new ones that outperform existing ones, even without elaborate molecular chains laced through them.

It could be detected if it wasn't focused enough. Sort of like a flashlight as opposed to a laser. I used waveform cancellation because there's actually a current theory for how it could work. It requires a much smaller leap in technology than a damping field does. It's still walking on it's exhaust nozzles, though. And hypercarbon steel could be a number of things, some of which are close to real-world materials. Real-world high-carbon steel's big problem is it's brittle. I imagine the big advantage of "hypercarbon" steel would be that it flexes like softer steels while retaining the durability of a harder steel. For the record, the Compendium entry about the similarly-aged VF-0 says "Space metal materials are used for the composition of the fuselage's frame, but titanium/carbon composite is used for the outer skin." Of course, several conditions could lead to diverging construction. The VF-0 wasn't intended for combat, so an "armored" skin might not have been desirable. Or in the other direction the space metal could've been considered too much of an unknown, so the VF-1 was constructed entirely with conventional alloys and only the testbed VF-0 got the new materials. Besides, you can never have too much durability. And the SWAG armor isn't conceptually similar to the barrier systems. Even in Macross Zero there's a lack of visible manifestation of it. It's either skintight and transparent(which the barrier wasn't) or a strengthening of existing material instead of a new layer.

No reason to keep space weapons a secret, they were quite open about those being to repel an alien invasion. From the Compendium's chronology: 2000 June The existence of aliens officially announced (except for their size and other details which are kept top secret). Following this, framing plan for Earth U.N. Government officially announced. 423404[/snapback] Ah. That makes things a lot simpler. Though one wonders why the size was classified in the first place. Guess because "HOLY CRAP GIANT ALIENS WANT TO KILL US!" might make for worse publicity than "HOLY CRAP ALIENS WANT TO KILL US!" Classifying "other details" at least lets you pretend you've developed equivalent weaponry. And given all we got was the Macross itself, which was pretty light on guns, we could even say it with a straight face. "Yeah, they have some huge slow guns, but not much else..." Magic's a bit unfair. If it's waveform cancellation, we know how to do it with modern technology. Just not how to do it practically. Big problems are that you have to calculate everything fast enough to send a properly-timed inverse wave back out, and you need a lot of power to get signifigant results(total RADAR invisibility, of course, requires power equal to whatever portion you're reflecting back at the source). And then you need antennae in the right places to broadcast your inverse wave at the origin antenna. Overtechnology would easily solve problem 2, and very likely 1 as well. Problem 3 might have just been ignored, but it's potentially conceivable that overtech could enable them to use a lot of microantennae imbedded in the plane's skin. Or even actually use portions the skin itself as antennae(they can make it stronger with the flick of a switch, why NOT make it radio-emissive too?). And as a side benefit, you probably get better radar-absorbant materials, which reduces the broadcast requirements. The exposed jet turbines are still an ugly design issue, though. Even if they're made out of some sort of extremely durable RAM, and have large dedicated anti-RADAR antennae around the intakes, it's still a waste of power.

Yeah... I successfully resisted the Alternators for ages. Wasn't until I saw Shockwave on the shelves that I even cared. Once I had him, I started to realize exactly how awesome they were. Most of the ones I'd really like aren't in production anymore. Only one I've added to my collection so far is Jazz. He has addead appeal, what with Shockwave being his "evil twin" in the Alternators. And the stores in my area aren't big on Transformers to start with, much less Alternators. Makes picking one up a bit of effort. Still haven't seen Mirage, for the record.

Maybe. But I think it would send the people into a panic by letting them know you are up against giants. Hikaru was frightened like a little school girl at the sight of one. I bet people would start to ask questions like why did we spend all this money on such a stupid design when we have destroids! 20 times cheaper! In Hikaru's defense, he was frightened at the sight of a 30-foot tall man walking towards him with muderous intent after he'd just emptied an entire clip into the guy. This was, of course, on top of the initial attack, getting shot down in a dog fight, and crashing through a city block or 2 of buildings. He had every right to crap his pants and pass out right then and there. Also... That combination of comments(revealing battroid freaking people out, why buy VFs when we already have destroids) raises a major question. Were the destroids ever made public? Any conclusion you can reach from the battroid can also be reached from the Spartan. If they wanted to hide that they were building giant infantry, at least the Spartan should've been top-secret. They could make cases for the less humanoid mechs(Monster, Tomahawk, Defender), but once you get to the Spartan and VF battroid, questions arise. The existence of functional arms implies you consider melee a possibility, which is a joke for vehicular combat(the number of times a tank commander issued orders for ramming speed in actual combat can probably be counted on one hand). There's only 2 obvious conclusions: either the military's gone insane or you expect to see some really big infantry. Details of the space forces were likely kept secret for similar reasons. No reason to have guns in space unless someone else brings 'em up there. And Mars Base was an observation outpost. It wouldn't take a lot of effort to connect the dots from there. The existence of an extraterrestrial observation base implies you believe there's an extraterrestrial threat. Was probably all pitched as exploratory scientific endeavours until the Anti-UN stole an Oberth and attacked the Mars Base crew coming back to Earth. Then they can "retrofit" weapons onto the existing vehicles as "protection against the Anti-UN," who they probably claimed added weapons to the stolen Oberth in the first place. Even Roy didn't know what they were actually like, though. There's a line in that scene to the effect of "Even I didn't know they looked like us." All he knew was that they were big. But regardless of how secret it was, once Hikaru got up first priority was saving his bacon. So it makes sense to take a no-nonsense, do this and that approach. Explanations can come once he's tucked away safely in a shelter. They REALLY didn't want people thinking "Crap, there's giant aliens out there that want to kill us." But the relevant part was obvious once the fecal matter hit the air-circulation device. Everyone could guess it was an alien attack if they saw the mechs. No one knew it was a giant humanoid attack. I figure that once Hikaru was safe, it might've come out anyways. He'd already seen what was going on, so he could make a good guess.

I'm pretty sure only the plane mode was what the airshow was for. In episode 1: why is everyone (civilians) so surprised that the plane transforms into a robot? Thier reaction being like it is something new or unheard of? Hikaru didn't even know he was inside one until he got out and asked what it was he was standing on. But the launching ceremony was interrupted pretty badly when the zentradi defolded. It's possible that GERWALK and battroid were being saved to cap off the day's festivities. So Hikaru's flying a planet-destroying super weapon, and doesn't even know it? I guess that answers the Megaroad 1 question...

Ah, I see what you mean now. That makes sense. And I think the transformation capability was intended to be kept secret. Not sure, though. *nods* I was just thinking that if you want to keep it a secret, talking about your new bestest plane ever isn't the way to do it. But if they just wanted to keep the interesting parts secret after the launch ceremony, it works. Possibly incredibly well, given the plane doesn't even LOOK that futuristic. Who'd suspect it of being a robot in disguise?

There's nothing about CG that prevents vanishing parts. The robot and vehicle would be distinctly diffrent models, not manipulations of the same model. The transformation sequence can still bring the full might of anime magic to bear.

You know, I really SHOULD have a Saturn around here somewhere... I need to fix that omission from my collection. *laughs* I bought Gradius V because A. it was in the bargin-bin, and B. I was assured it was a lot less cheap than prior entries in the series. The people feeding me line B lied. Future World... ah, start of the Gallop line. That whole series was fun(So's the Gallop game, coincidentally). I usually mucked with the colors, so the default palletes meant little to me. Let's see... Ragnarok 1 left me cackling maniacally. I LOVED the hyper cannon in RType 3, and removing the overheat effect makes it more fun than should be legal, even if it's a tad lacking against bosses. And the Eclipse got flight time just for the effect where the ship reconfigured with your selected speed. I really liked the look of the OF series that came off of that one, too(the above-mentioned Image Fight planes). Speaking of Delta, I liked the Cerberus too. Yes. Of course, it was a while back now.

But they were also making a big production out of how awesome the new Valkyrie fighters were at the Macross' launch ceremony. That'd seem to torpedo that theory. I always just figured the boxy airframe(which is definitely a major step backwards even in-continuity, given the Unification Wars flashbacks in Rainy Night) was a necessary sacrifice to accomodate the transformation mechanisms and robot parts. More modern VFs benefit from a better understanding of overtechnology, allowing more elaborate transformations. Hence they resemble later generations of fightercraft. And once you strip the need for a transformation away, you get something that looks more like it belongs in the setting it flies in. ... Except for the enhanced F-14s in Macross Zero.

It is a possibility that his VF-1 was placed in some sort of war museum back on Earth, thus not available for purchase. 423022[/snapback] Wouldn't Millia's be more historically signifigant, as she was the first alien in UN Spacy? And she was a civilian, to boot. I figure if she got to keep her's(and keep it ARMED, no less), Max definitely kept his. Policy for Space War veterans seems to be that your mech is one of the perks of the job. I don't even want to THINK about why they continue to supply ammo, though. He could've sold it to pay for his girls' college tuition or something, but I'd think a book/movie deal would probably be easier. Sure everyone and their uncle had Space War memoirs, but Max and Millia had by far the most interesting ones("Chapter 4: Arcades, Death Duels, and Marriage Proposals").