Felipepepe's Videogame History Articles Thread

[Jrpgfan]

I should be ashamed of liking an eroge game but Sengoku Rance was surprisingly good. The unit troops reminded of the Langrisser series which are some of my favorite games so I had to play it, and I regret nothing.

 

[adrix89]

Eiyuu Senki is also a good tactical game similar to Sengoku Rance although far more simpler strategically and with a lot of events instead.

 

[Viata]

I should be ashamed of liking an eroge game

The fuck is wrong with you?

 

[Grauken]

I should be ashamed of liking an eroge game...

Only if you played the SJW route

 

[felipepepe]

There's also the brother game to Sengoku Rance, Daibanchou:

 

[pippin]

Moo! Person is the SJW version of a Fat Fuck?

 

[abnaxus]

 

[Lhynn]

Dynasty warriors 8 waifu edition is great.

 

[felipepepe]

I thought pretty hard about picking Dynasty Warriors 4 instead (no weapon switching, harder generals, cool 4th weapon quests & extremely cheesy dubs), but DW8 is really, really good.

 

[abnaxus]

DW8: Empires is great.

 

[Grauken]

Most of these 7FaveGames tweets make me want to answer with, "Why do you have such shitty taste?"

 

[Archibald]

But Pepe's is okay, all things ( :ehue: ) considered.

 

[abnaxus]

 

[TOUGH GUY]

Kingdom Come confirmed to come out in "seven", read "fourteen" months.

 

[abnaxus]

felipepepe link to post 1991 list? I wonder how some PC98 games are ranked.

 

[felipepepe]

Codex will love this one: a clickbait Gamasutra article on the birth of the JRPG genre! http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/Feli...Birth_of_Japanese_RPGs_retold_in_15_Games.php

felipepepe link to post 1991 list? I wonder how some PC98 games are ranked.

They aren't ranked, just talked about. It's a Japanese book on the most influential JRPGs, going in chronological order.

These are their 1991 games:

ファイナルファンタジーIV (Final Fantasy IV)
メガルマックス (Metal Max)
シャイニング&ザ・ダクネス (Shining in the Darkness)
天地を喰らうII 諸葛孔明伝　（Destiny of an Emperor II)
ラグランジュポイント (Lagrange Point)
時空の覇者 Sa・Ga3 (SaGa 3 / Final Fantasy Legend III)
聖剣伝説 〜ファイナルファンタジー外伝〜 (Final Fantasy Adventure)
ウィザードリィ 外伝I 女王の受難 (Wizardry Gaiden I: Suffering of The Queen)
ジャングルウォーズ (Jungle Wars)
天使の詩　（Angel Poems)
シャドウブレイン (Shadow Brain)
惑星ウッドストック ファンキーホラーバンド　(Planet Woodstock: Funky Horror Band)

 

[pippin]

In Japan is way, way worst.

Few care about ancient Japanese PC games, emulation is difficult, the language barrier is overwhelming, trusty sources rare and companies have little interest in the crude titles of their youth.

And let's not forget the... um, inclinations of japanese developers who make pc games.

 

[felipepepe]

And let's not forget the... um, inclinations of japanese developers who make pc games.

I have no idea of what you're talking about.

 

[Archibald]

It is unfortunate that this is completely impossible today:

"Back then, Japanese people didn't have a well-defined sense of the RPG as a game genre. I suspect that because of this, the creators took the appearance and atmosphere of the RPG as a basic reference, and constructed new types of games according to their own individual sensibilities. In my case, I never had the opportunity to use an Apple II, so I was completely unaware of Wizardry and Ultima."

 

[Grauken]

ignorance these days is usually a choice, sadly an option often taken by both developers and 1st tier magazines like Loltaku and Phonygon

 

[felipepepe]

I must have click-bait in my blood by now, Kotaku made an article out of a tweet of mine: http://kotaku.com/one-game-many-versions-1789674627

Spoiler

Defender of the Crown, first released in 1986 on the Amiga, was at the time one of the best-looking video games ever released. Or, at least it was on the Amiga. Some of the game’s ports to other systems weren’t quite so hot, yet in today’s world of YouTube nitpicking they remain useful as examples of how wildly different ports used to be.


Felipe Pepe, author of the CRPG Book Project, has shared this image from the book comparing Defender’s original Amiga version with eight of its over a dozenports.



Here’s why I find this interesting. Yes, the Amiga version looked the best, especially when it comes to the colour palette, but it’s actually one of the worst versions of the game to play (a relative term, since this is still a classic), as it was released rushed and unfinished to market, with many original features missing or broken.

When Defender turned into a smash hit, these features—like more territories to conquer and more strategic depth when attacking—were added in for subsequent ports, so while that DOS version above looks like shit, its actually more fleshed out and fun to play than the Amiga original.

So which of these original editions (the game has since been remade) is best? That’s the beauty of it. The Amiga original couldn’t be patched with updates like a modern Steam release, and no amount of driver updates were ever going to get those DOS and Macintosh versions looking decent. In the end, each version remained as a distinct and different thing, a far cry from today where the difference between a PS4 and Xbox 1 title is measured in frames per second and the odd effect, not whether one is not even in colour.

Course, this pondering over the merits of different versions is all academic; almost nobody had multiple systems in 1986, so most folks just got the copy they could actually play.

In a hypothetical universe where I did own an old PC, Amiga and Mac though, I think I’d have gone for the Amiga version, warts and all. I mean, it was 1986. While Mario was jumping around with a handful of colours and sprites the size of trucks, Defender of the Crown was looking like this:

 

[Ninjerk]

Jesus, that NES port they just said "Fuck tone."

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The Digital Antiquarian wrote a lengthy article about Defender of the Crown in 2015.

 

[felipepepe]

You know what's crazy? Having a link to my blog on Kotaku's front page didn't really bring a lot of attention to it.

I have an average of 30 visitors each day, it went up to 100. That's it.

 

[Archibald]

I doubt that your usual Kotaku readers care about such things.