Questions for this month's Q&A

Have you ever had a game that you were enjoying playing but the length of the game and the gaps between story beats made it hard for you to finish? For example, I’ve started Final Fantasy 13 about 4 times and have gotten several hours in each time just to eventually lose interest.

JermitTheFrog

The localization process almost definitely has a factor on this, as well as the voice acting. It is essentially impossible not to change things (and from what I can see, essentially no localization teams TRY not to change things.)

Oh that's very exciting!

CosmicCrown

I agree that it gets better after the opening but the pacing is still pretty slow for most of the game, several cutscenes, sometimes lengthy ones in between each map. The story and especially the voting sections where you have conversations/debates with party members makes it worth it for me

I really reccomend you try it someetime I forget my exact playtime but it definetely took me less than 10 hours to beat it, so its not too long

And now for something completely different: What is the best sporting event you ever watched? For fairness we'll exclude Super Bowl 52 because leaving in backup QB Nick Foles going blow for blow with the GOAT and winning wouldn't be fair to all other games played.

Good to know! I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually.

Resonant Arc

I actually bought Crimson Shroud back when it was released but never really got around to playing it. Maybe I should make it a priority. It's still on my 3DS!

Resonant Arc

We haven't played it, but we do have Panzer Dragoon (not Saga) on our list to analyze in the monthly exclusive podcasts. Maybe after we play that one we'll consider Saga as well!

Resonant Arc

Nice catch! Definitely a similar melody there. I don't think it was intentional. This is something composers are CONSTANTLY coming up against. There are even resources now where composers can upload their melody to see if there is a match from another soundtrack. Also, if you haven't seen this webseries (Everything is a Remix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ2GuvUWaP8) you should definitely check it out! It goes over this and a lot of other examples where artists copy each other (intentionally or not).

Resonant Arc

the demo is picked poorly in my opinion, shortly after the demo the story starts getting more interesting and the pacing gets far better. but if you are talking about the first demo, they improved and stream lined a lot.

We have not played 13 Sentinels unfortunately!

Resonant Arc

Don't have too many thoughts on it yet but I did reserve one last year. Hopefully my name will be called here eventually to get one.

Resonant Arc

I haven't had time to dive into Triangle Strategy yet. While I thought the demo was pretty good, I had a feeling the storytelling would be too verbose for my taste so I've put it on the backburner. I'm currently engrossed by Elden Ring.

Resonant Arc

I also have this same question

Edrees Hatef

I know exactly what you’re talking about. I’ve seen many in the FF7 fandom claim that Cloti and Zerith are canon because both Cody Christiansen and Takahiro Sakurai are “Tifa men,” and Aerith and Zack’s Japanese VAs are married IRL. (Full disclosure: I too support Cloti and Zerith). Personally though, I prefer to take a “death of the author” approach to this sort of thing. Canon is determined by what was laid out/established in the game itself; not by what its creators say after the fact. For something to be canon, it has to fall within my suspension disbelief; it must not contradict anything that was established in the series’ earliest instalments.

More of a random thing than a question. => https://youtu.be/X7R2Vl_hcCA?t=13 Notice the riff in this track off Cowboy Bebop's soundtrack is basically the same as the melody of Dazil from Xenogears? Maybe a coincidence... but, both XG and Bebop released around the same time. I like to imagine Mitsuda and the other songwriter shared their work over a beer and one of them agreed to let the other use it.

Hey guys, Just wondering about your thoughts on guilty pleasures. Who decides on what falls into this category? Why is it not enough to say "I like this thing!" without also making clear that you know it doesn't live up to whatever set of standards exists for that particular medium? I have a few guilty pleasures, but I'm usually not able to identify them as such until after hearing it from a number of other people. Do you know right away that the thing you just watched/played and enjoyed doesn't actually meet the standards for 'good'? What are some of your guilty pleasures and what makes them feel guilty? Thanks for reading!

Building off a point of a previous Q&A, what games fill you with the greatest sense of adventure? For context: You all briefly touched on open worlds and games like FF10 radically shifting away from the world map/exploration formula of its predecessors. To get the convo rolling, I'd like to offer Skies of Arcadia as a good example of the above. Cheers!

I loved the Vagrant Story discussion! It's one of my favorite games of all time, and it only deepened my appreciation of its writing, world-building, atmosphere and the masterful storytelling. While I do acknowledge some of the issues around its gameplay (especially its interface), I think it can be a little overblown at times. Despite that, how could Square address this were it to do either a remaster or remake? (Personally I think it should get a full-blown remake, but a remaster with improvements might work as well.) At the very least, I think improving the menu system and introducing a way to quickly swap gear could go a long way to improving the pace of the combat. However, it's not lost on many Vagrant Story fans that it shares quite a few similarities with the Souls series, so going that direction would be really interesting, and I think it would really work. I mean.. somebody at Square must have put these two together, right? :p Speaking of which, there is an interview with Akitoshi Kawazu from a few years ago, around the release of FFT: WotL for PSP where he commented on the "extreme popularity" of Vagrant Story overseas, so it's clearly a beloved classic in NA and Europe. And its ratings (currently sitting at 92% and Square Enix's third-highest rated game on Metacritic) speak for themselves! So I can only hope that since Square has been revisiting many of their PS1 classics lately, Vagrant Story is not too far behind. It's far too good of a game to let slip away and be forgotten!

Chris

Simple question, so apologies if its already been asked, but have either of you played 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim? If so, what are your thoughts on it?

Thoughts on the Steam Deck if this hasn’t been answered already?

JackTheFool

hello Gentlemen, have you played triangle Strategie? how did you like it?

With the news of the 3ds eshop closing i was browsing through it and came across crimson shroud, an RPG by level 5 that was directed by Matsuno, composed by hitoshi sakimoto and was even translated by alexander o. smith. Im not sure how i totally missed this game but i found it to be a really fun, albeit short game with an interesting story. I was just curious if you guys had ever played this one and if you had any opinions on the writing/story

Hey Mike and Casen, Hope all is well and safe with you two. Loving the new format of the podcast and deep dives and I look forward to more growth in Resonant Arc's future. I had a question regarding Western fandoms and Eastern fandoms regarding how they view and interpret anime and JRPGs. I know you guys can probably only really speak for the Western fandom as we are here, but my question is: do you think there is a big gap between the two sides of the fandom versus how one interprets or views anime and/or JRPGs? I ask because in some of my favorite anime, I have gotten to interact with people from all across the globe and the fandom located in the Eastern hemisphere tends to view certain scenes or characters somewhat differently than we in the West do. I find it super interesting and it makes for awesome discussions and new ways to view the medium, and I was wondering if you guys can speak on that based on your experience or if you had anything to say about different interpretations in a medium regarding different parts of the globe. I’m assuming there are going to be a lot of differences given the difference in culture but I wanted to hear your thoughts on how wide or small you think that gap is. (Sorry if I wasn't able to articulate this well or sounded clunky in my wording). A follow-up question I had is, being an anime/JRPG fan, some fans (I’ve definitely been guilty of this before) seem to hold a lot of weight to what VA's (voice actors) say about the characters and story almost as if what the VA's say is canon. Now, its very cool to hear what VA's have to say and provides cool insights on the narratives and characters. They are also just as entitled to an opinion as the rest of us. However sometimes fans I've seen in the fandoms I like hold weight to what VA's say as "canon" despite not being writers, creators or directors of the show or characters themselves. I know you've spoken about the topic of what is an is "canon" overall in stories multiple times so just wanted your thoughts on whether weighing the opinions of VA's or other members of a show's team should hold any sort of weight in canonicity. Sorry if I sounded clunky or wasn't articulate and for the long-winded questions. Thanks for all your hard work and keep it up.

Have you ever played (or thought about) Panzer Dragoon Saga

CosmicCrown