Preview Bioware Blogs on Mass Effect 2

[Rosh]

"ME takes 10 hours to finish if you skip the identical buildings on procedurally generated planets and the random satellite crashes in the middle of nowhere."

BG and BG2 cna be beat in an hour. FO1 can be done in 10 minutes. *yawn*

Given the setting of all three, only one is worth digging around for extra atmosphere. The others are simply propped up on RNG development and LOLZROMANCE!

 

[MetalCraze]

I imagine if Mass Effect didn't force you to sit in the cover most of the time waiting when enemy's head will pop-up because thanks to a gamepad you can't just run around killing them normally - and then force you to sit through a pointless dialogue "cutscenes" that only lead to more sitting in the cover - it would be completed even in less time. And would be much less boring.

 

[Kingston]

Don't forget the unskippable cutscenes! Every time you start the game you have to spend 10 minutes watching cutscenes before you actually do anything significant.

 

[Lesifoere]

Don't forget the unskippable cutscenes! Every time you start the game you have to spend 10 minutes watching cutscenes before you actually do anything significant.

Yes, I really love me some unskippable cutscenes. One of the worst deterrents to me for replaying a game, not that ME is worth replaying to start with. Why do devs not realize that unskippable shit is as dated as save points in a fucking PC game?

 

[Shannow]

Don't forget the unskippable cutscenes! Every time you start the game you have to spend 10 minutes watching cutscenes before you actually do anything significant.

Yes, I really love me some unskippable cutscenes. Why do game devs not realize that unskippable shit is as dated as save points in a fucking PC game?

But you wouldn't want to miss any of the EPIC story, would you? It is better if the devs descide what is important for you. They are the elite and know what's best for you. You'd probably just makes some mistake and rue your decision later...

 

[Rosh]

Yes, I really love me some unskippable cutscenes. One of the worst deterrents to me for replaying a game, not that ME is worth replaying to start with. Why do devs not realize that unskippable shit is as dated as save points in a fucking PC game?

It is shit like this which made the Final Fantasy games (VII and on) completely without replay value for all but the newest children in the audience. As if there was any reason to replay them, they are certainly nowhere near the same depth as Chrono Trigger or Chrono Cross, which both have a surprising amount of C&C occasionally along the way. I like those two because their C&C decisions aren't forced down the throat of the player, but instead seem to happen in logical points of the storyline. Which is mostly linear as line, though it gives resolution to player decisions - kind of like Deus Ex's decision forks being not totally obvious.

 

[MetalCraze]

Too bad Chrono Trigger is full of a childish inane writing. A typical japanese game.

 

[Rosh]

Too bad Chrono Trigger is full of a childish inane writing. A typical japanese game.

Blame Square US/EU for that one, as well as their Secret of Evermore. Actually, no. Blame those in the US who turn into nervous wrecks at the sight of a nipple, which every child has likely already seen at some point in their infancy.

Square originals, and Japanese games in general, were/are still censored to shit because of the stigma of the US audience being too fragile for such concepts, and Boobies Are Bad still seems to reign in the US because of the hypocritical puritan arguments against it. That's why EA/BioWare/Etc. get a rep for being "edgy" when it's really just the US catching up, albeit slowly with the rest of the world.

Do you REALLY think they could have gotten away with a bike with Lesbo Scissoring Action™ in the mid-90's? Hardly, that couldn't have been censored out easily, or they would have replaced it with something equally stupid but make it "kiddy clean" for the US audience. Tales of Phantasia and others couldn't have lines such as "I bet Arche fucks like a tiger." There was other issues facing that game not related to this issue that prevented the initial translation over to other markets.

But yeah, playing the game with a US translation and then playing the original untranslated versions, it can be a world of difference.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Tales of Phantasia and others couldn't have lines such as "I bet Arche fucks like a tiger." There was other issues facing that game not related to this issue that prevented the initial translation over to other markets.

That line was added by the fan translator at Dejap, because the original lines were banal "how's the weather" conversation and it was an opportunity to make a joke. Arche's erotic dream about Cless moments before was also exaggerated or even changed (I think in the original she was dreaming about food or something like that).

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Woolseyism

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FanTranslation

Too bad Chrono Trigger is full of a childish inane writing. A typical japanese game.

CT deals with time travel in a very reasonable way (plot holes are inevitable with time travel, but meh). Also interesting is that at the start of the game we have basic Back from the Future stuff (killing your mom in the past makes you disappear in the present) and as the game goes on it turns into less cringeworthy stuff (Time bastard).

http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Principles_of_Time_and_Dimensional_Travel.html

CT translation was done by Ted Woolsey, who liked to mess around with translation that were uninteresting / useless / retarded to americans at the time. Doesn't really matter since most of them turn not so interesting serious moments into funny jokes. He also added the "thou art" Baldur's Gate speak for Frog.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Woolseyism

 

[Rosh]

That line was added by the fan translator at Dejap

Ah, good point. I hadn't really researched it to that depth. That was one title I hadn't played in Japanese. Dialog like that still exists in several untranslated titles and the untranslated versions of "translated for American audiences" titles.

CT translation was done by Ted Woolsey, who liked to mess around with translation that were uninteresting / useless / retarded to americans at the time. Doesn't really matter since most of them turn not so interesting serious moments into funny jokes. He also added the "thou art" Baldur's Gate speak for Frog.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Woolseyism

Yeah, that guy... Gotta love it when you can change "serious" dialog that might supposedly go over the heads of children into yet another stupid joke. Many of his additions weren't really that funny, nor really suited much of the style of the game, turning it into a parody of itself.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Despite being gramatically correct, this line made the whole "my daughter died and it's your fault" thing really lulzy all of a sudden. Good for some, bad for others.

This and many other things (including the loved by many "l-i-t-t-l-e m-o-n-e-y" thing at the prologue. I even thought that was intentional) were changed in the PSP port. They gave everyone BG speak.

 

[Rosh]

Despite being gramatically correct, this line made the whole "my daughter died and it's your fault" thing really lulzy all of a sudden. Good for some, bad for others.

Probably the same crowd that grew up watching the version of Dragonball that was censored with a fire axe and still think it's the best thing ever. Holy shit was that dumbed down.

This and many other things (including the loved by many "l-i-t-t-l-e m-o-n-e-y" thing at the prologue. I even thought that was intentional) were changed in the PSP port. They gave everyone BG speak.

Because everyone knows that it is fantasy, and all fantasy characters all speak like that, of course! This is one of the influences from Ultima Online that we really could have done without.

IMG

Not that bad compared to a lot of the cheese-fest from the 90s imports, really.