It is the same one as the NA localised version, so you won’t need it if you’ve already bought “Phoenix Wright”. I own the Japanese limited edition of it, and I’m pretty sure the English translation included is exactly what North Americans got in their version.
I think if Microsoft charged $700 or whatever was the average price that people who ended up with the systems cost would cost them a lot of good will, and for what? A little more cash? MS has lots of cash. The XBox is their attempt to burn cash to force their way into a new market. They need people to buy and love the XBox.
Then they should have given the system away for $100 and had every Microsoft-published game ever available on Xbox Live Arcade for $1.
In fact, the only really smart thing I think Sega has done recently is make sure that the Sonic series stays close to Nintendo machines.
Picking up the publishing of the Football Manager/Eastside Hockey games for Sports Interactive seems a pretty smart move to me. Even the most inept company can’t fail to make something from that cash cow.
Sega really screwed up there with me. I didn’t buy Sonic Gems Collection until Play-Asia was practically giving it away for $9.99.
In fact, it’s amazing how little of my gaming dollar a company like Sega gets. As a former Sega fan, they missed me entirely this generation, because like a lot of old Sega fans I went to the Gamecube, while they blew their wad on the X-Box. Don’t get me wrong, I bought a used X-Box and most of the Sega games worth owning in mint condition off Ebay (PD0, Otogi 1/2, JSRF), and subsequently they didn’t get a dime of money from me.
It’s sad that Sega doesn’t rate higher than that.
I was an old school sega fan as well. Still have a genesis saturn and dreamcast around here. I think that personally , the dreamcast was the last good decision sega has made imo. Since the dreamcast the only new sega game I bought(not preowned) was sonic collection plus ( Comix Zone was the draw for me). I tried sonic heroes out, and couldn’t stand 5 minutes of playing it.
What really pisses me off about Sega is how they don’t know their sonic fans.
I like most fans, waited all this time for Sonic Cd to be put on a console. ( I own the pc version awhile back) It took them this long and a 2nd sonic collection to put it on. Also with 2 collections, they missed Knuckles Chaotix which I think is even harder to find now. There are so many sega classic games I would love to see full blown sequels to not graphic updates. Yet they’re making Sonic Riders.
To be fair, the English-dub trailer that was released is only placeholder VO. So, one might ask, why release it at all? That’s Sega!
-After a very successful selling Shinobi revival on the PS2, becoming one of their first big selling games as a third party, they removed the Shinobi branding from the sequel and called it Nightshade, only to see it become one of their biggest bombs, giving consumers no way of knowing its part of a popular series. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.
That’s an awful lot of vitriol on your part for something that only happened in America…
However, I remember being at TGS 2003 and the SoA rep telling me that was the name they decided on for the US version. I asked why they would want to do that, and were they at least going to call it “Shinobi: Nightshade” or “Nightshade: A Tale of Shinobi” or something. He just kind of looked at me blankly.
-Despite being most popular as an SRPG, will not develop a new Shining Force game as an SRPG unless its for the cellphone.
There was the GBA remake, at least. I’ve learned to content myself with Fire Emblem.
-Alienated one of their most famously loyal third parties that stuck by them no matter what even in the most desperate days enough to make them forever swear off making games for the company by simply treating them so badly on one E3 to let it happen.
Gonna have to call bullshit on this one, mainly due to the fact that WD wasn’t all that valuable to them. Vocal fanbase, but not all that large.
I’ll add a couple of my own:
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Released a compilation of Genesis games on the Dreamcast using a broken emulator. It did not use the same sound bank as the original games, thus all the sound was either different or played at the wrong speed. You ended up with anemic audio imposters instead of the games we grew up playing. Utterly inexcusable.
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Allowed Visual Concepts to develop and release Floigan Brothers, which is arguably the worst game I have ever played.
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Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg. I pinpoint this game as the exact moment Yuji Naka lost his goddamn mind.
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Two words: Blast Processing. It’s worth noting that Sega is in large part responsible for the system war fanboy bullshit that defines the hobby now.
I love(d) Sega. I grew up playing their arcade games, loved the Master System and Genesis, played my Saturn more than my PSone, and consider the Dreamcast one of the greatest systems ever made. These days, though, Sega mostly just makes me sad and confused.
When ripping on Sega it is important to note that these days the company has split into various smaller companies, and while Sonic Team may have gone down the shitter in recent years, Amusment Vision (formerly AM4) gave us Super Monkey Ball 1/2/Deluxe and F-Zero GX which rank among my favorite games of the previous console generation.
Has there ever been a case when crappy “placeholder” work in a trailer or demo was actually replaced with something good in the final version?
Sega’s attitude towards localization can be seen in Shen Mue, where they didn’t even bother to do the English dub in a decent recording studio.
Super monkey ball is great, I forgot that F zero gx was from sega. I didn’t play Shadow the hedgehog but from what I’ve heard ,it was horrible. Quick question, the development house behind Comix Zone, did they go any further or was that the last game they made?( The ooze came from them but don’t remember what year)
These things may only have to do with the American market, but they affect me. How? If the games tanks elsewhere, there’s less of a chance we’ll get sequels in Japan. It’s the exact opposite with Castlevania and Advance Wars, their success in America helped us get sequels in Japan. Therefore, it affects me. You see?
Whatever happened to Shinobi 2 with the so-called motorcycle scene and such they were saving for the sequel? Probably doesn’t all hinge on Kunoichi, but at least in part if it had done as well as Shinobi had I think you might have seen the company pull out another game quicker, like they have with the Monkey Ball games.
Then again, its Sega. If something works and is a good idea, they’re almost honor bound not to do it.
I should qualify that I still like Sega’s games. In fact, I feel much the same about their games as I always have and I LIKE the new Sonic games, ESPECIALLY Sonic Heroes, so eat it, Sonic Haters! :P A lot of their games sucked monkey balls in the old ages as well, they’ve been pretty consistent with their wild flops to good games, ratio. And Billy Hatcher is a fine platformer, there’s nothing too wrong with it, its quite solid, except for the rather unappealing main character design.
-Kitsune
The modern sonic games are decent in and of themselves - but Sonic Adventure is to Sonic the Hedgehog as Doom 3 is to Doom: a linear scripted slowed down parody that is an insult to the intelleigence of anyone who understands the artistic definition of “remake.” Sonic adventure 2 was a good game, but it had very little to do with what made Sonic 3 one of the best games of all time. It was basically a Japanese style RPG without any numbers… which is basically an adventure game (items, story sequences etc.).
I’m confused.
What does Sonic Adventure have to do with remakes? I think the development team’s intent was to make a sequel to the 2D games, not remake one of the earlier Genesis titles.
And what is the artistic definition of remake? Are you saying it didn’t improve anything from the earlier games?
And how in the world does Sonic Adventure 2 share any characteristics in common with RPGs? Unless you’re thinking of the Chao Garden which is less RPG and more pet sim? But that was in Sonic Adventure as well.
Regardless I like the 3D Sonics (haven’t played Riders or Shadow) and here is why:
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The great rush you get by running through the levels like a rollercoaster is kept in all the sonic type levels and in Sonic Heroes, all the characters do so, though at different paces. Tails and Shadow are basically different versions of Sonic levels. In the past Sonic only appeared in at most about 14-18 or so different levels in one game. If we ignore the other characters, you get about the same amount in the Sonic Adventure games and Sonic Heroes.
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The appeal of mastering the level by exploring the most lucrative paths, practicing your skill at keeping the momentum going at lightning speeds, defeating enemies and such is perfectly preserved in all the Sonic-type levels.
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I don’t know what to say, except for in boss fights the camera never bothered me. I just can’t relate to complaints about camera control or control in general. shrugs
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The level designs included all sorts of crazy little Sonic-type environmental platform gimmicks just like the earlier 2D games. The joy of interacting with these a lot of fun, especially because the 3D game all tends to use that enhanced homing beacon attack and introducing grinding, so you have these crazy chains of enemies that keep you up in the air (more than in the 2D games) then you run into some sort of neato movement dynamic, and then you grind down some rails and then its up a loop, collect some rings. The same exhilaration has been preserved for me.
Yes, the other characters generally can’t manage to keep up with the brilliance of the Sonic levels and it can be especially annoying to search everywhere for a Chaos emerald in the Adventure games where you have a more Mario 64 like dynamic going on, but they never put me off so much. They weren’t so bad that I didn’t enjoy them on some level, especially the levels with the robot where you’d be locking on to enemies WHILE you rolled through the level really quickly. I thought that was a great extension of the fast Sonic style.
And in any case, the Advance games gave me the old 2D Sonic style anyway. It always makes me laugh when someone mentions, “B-b-but…they’re nothing like the old games, they have spikes and instant death traps that appear out of nowhere!” Are you kidding me? Have you played the Mega Drive Sonic games? Do you remember how many spikes would just pop out of nowhere and kill your momentum if you didn’t react lightning quick? It was just as frequent as it is in the GBA games. Sonic Advance 3 has some awesome ideas for how to expand the gameplay what with the partner system and the Kirby’s Adventure style mini-worlds.
In any case, long live Sonic, I’ll never agree that the franchise has gone downhill, especially after Sonic Rush last year.
-Kitsune
This is about month-old news now, but Phoenix Wright is going to be rereleased again in August
http://www.ncsxshop.com/cgi-bin/shop/NTR-P-AGYE.html
Which is good, because I just decided to buy a DS, and I wanted this game without paying $50 on ebay.