JB0

I didn't know Big West had a cohesive canon. I thought it was more along the lines of Star Trek, in the sense that they did whatever looked cool and to heck with continuity. It DOES make me more interested in the plot of the older games if they actually tie together cohesively. I didn't say you did. Didn't mean to imply it either. I was just confirming that 2036 wasn't a part of the Studio Nue timeline, which is usually what non-canon means. I wasn't sure about VF-X1, honestly. I gave it the benefit of the doubt.

All the season 1 and 2 TF's were diaclone toys orignally (supposedly). It wasn't until that nifty commerical TF:TM that hasbro start getting original (Hot Rod, Rodimus Prime). 425104[/snapback] well omega, the deluxes, jetfire, were taken from other lines, but yeah, the toys of series 1 and 2 were compleatly of japanese origin. 425106[/snapback] And Shockwave. Weren't the minis(Bumblebee and company) non-diaclone too?

Sheesh... there's people that don't know who the WWN is? GO BATBOY!

Same here... although if Touma and Zengar are in it I might reconsider 424985[/snapback] Yes to Zengar, yes to SRX. I can't place Touma. But between my typically poor name recollection and being only partway through my first playthrough,he isn't guaranteed missing. Could be only on the SRX plot, appear later in the ATX plot, or already appeared and I forgot.

So, in other words, it's considered non-canon. 425141[/snapback] Bingo. Game-wise, everything before VF-X is non-canon. That was where Kawamori was getting involved again. And cleaning up the continuity mess left behind when Big West was trying to exploit the license between DYRL and Plus/7 was part of that involvement. And I think only the console games after VF-X are canon, not portable or PC games. Not sure on this one, though.

Mylene is the main character. She is the outsider who has to have everything introduced to her, therefore the one you can relate to. She is the one who the love triangle centers on (she has two boys to pick from, just like Hikaru had two girls to pick from), she is the one who goes through a harsh learning curve, she is the one directly related to characters from the original Macross, she is the one piloting the VF-1J in the Macross homage... The only reason people don't recognize her as the main character, IMO, is that she is a girl. She's the one who develops as a character. 425052[/snapback] Gamlin goes through a similar, though less pronounced, process. Even gets time in the 1J(and blows it up... stupid Gamlin...). Admittedly, he also gets 50% less romantic interests. But while Mylene is the most interesting character(Sorry, Gamlin fans), Basara is the one the "camera" focuses on. Mylene's presence is sacrificed if it threatens to take too much time from Basara, which places restrictions on how much character development they can do. It really felt like they aborted and abreviated a few plot threads because of it. Basara's the star, regardless of whether or not he's up to the task.

GO HORMONES! I thought forcing people to listen to music was an accepted psych warfare tactic. A HIGHLY eccentric one. And was he established as a medical doctor? Because once the character is established, he rapidly falls into boring. Like I said, it makes him boring. Unfortunately, the refusal to allow the audience to experience the birth of the state of existence that is Basara-ness places him in the same category as a Gundam Wing pilot. He exists not as a character, but as a plot device. They were also incredibly naive and gullible. They had no concept of fiction, and ASSUMED they were watching a historical documentary. It actually reminds me of the movie Galaxy Quest. I've heard that before too. It's definitely interesting, as is the question "how much did it change between original conception and realization." Sort of like Star Wars prequels(but far less craptacular), it seems that what happened wasn't the concept as originally envisioned. *chuckles* LISTEN TO MY PISS!!!!!

Because they were originally released in Japan back in 02, and the DS didn't yet exist. SRWDS hasn't materialized, though Bandai was allegedly working on one.

Maybe he's selling George Foreman grills?

or maybe it's just because Hasbro/Marvel/Sunbow had the money to pony for an animated series and comics...while Takara could only manage a few blurbs in their toy catalogues about the Diaclone / Waruder war (which I think would have made a much better series). As far as I know, there weren't any really well-established characters in the Diaclone line. Just some names. Either way, my point was that if it was the toy and not the character that was being sold, they wouldn't have wasted the cash to convert the japanese toys over to the Transformers paint scheme and packaging style.

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.