PixlBit

I think you're going to love next week's NWP, Ben. Reviewing Time and Eternity has me itching to talk about JRPGs in general, and that's what we're gonna do.

The funny thing is that RPGs used to have more diverse casts, both in age and background. I always go back to Final Fantasy IV and VI, who each had old men, little girls, and nearly everything inbetween. Well, except minorities. Seems like Squaresoft didn't realize people have different skin tones until FF VII. While there have been a few notable examples of more grizzled characters (still love Auron), they end up taking supporting roles.

I don't know. I'd love to see older characters or something that's different from the norm with JRPGs. I really don't think that younger Japanese players can only connect with a game if the protagonists are also young men. Besides, the video game market is far larger in the West now, and it would be nice to see that reflected. Time and Eternity gets some propers for having the story center on a woman, but then I take points away because it's the young man that's actually telling the story.

Or I've just outgrown it. I also watch very little anime these days, but I used to consume it in mass quantities, purchasing new VHS tapes every payday.

I avoid reading reviews until I've finished my own, but I read a few after I turned mine in for editing. I won't call out anyone specific, but the reviews I read made me think that the reviewers had a limited scope on what a truly bad game is. This isn't an awful game by any means. There were a few changes that could have been made to the game's design that would have easily added a star or two to my score.

I still enjoy JRPGs, but since most of them come out on portable systems these days I don't play very many. Not because they aren't good, but I rarely finish portable games. Fire Emblem was a very rare example of me finishing a portable game. Also Dragon Quest IX.

Every genre has its stereotypes and cliches, but my issues with the cliches in Time and Eternity stem from anime. I was watching anime before it became a huge, nationwide obsession, so my problem is that I've seen tons of anime shows with these very tropes in my past, and they were done better than this.

This makes me happy. Video game music has always been important to me. I used to make my own soundtracks by holding my tape recorder to the speakers of my TV or Game Boy. More recent soundtracks are less interesting to me. I couldn't pick out music from The Last of Us or BioShock, for example. But those games with very distinct music that goes along with the event or environment really stay with me.

I guess I'm a hoarder, then.

The PS3 will probably get boxed up in January, and the 360 will stay in active status until they well runs dry.

I own it, and I put a couple hours into it. I think the camera is just as bad there as in this game. It's quite possible that this just isn't the action series for me.

I really don't get this expectation of backwards compatibility. The only home console I've ever owned with 100% backwards compatibility is my Wii, and I've never used that feature. The PlayStation 2 was the first high profile backwards compatible system (the 7800 was pretty much DOA), and it had some issues with a decent amount of games. The PS3 has been without that feature for most of its lifespan, and MS dropped the emulation on the 360 really early on, as well.

Besides Nintendo, a company that dances to the beat of their own drum, this is how it's always been. There will be some great games for current gen for at least the next year before it becomes a wasteland filled with sports and kids games, and it would be a great idea for people to hold onto them for now. I understand if you need to trade in your current stuff to afford new systems, but this shouldn't come as a surprise to people.

KnightDriver, I think you're going to get a kick out of a feature I'm working on. It's a look at the different marketing strategies of Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony over the years.

Love seeing these classic magazine ads. I've been slowly building up a collection of the original EGM, and one of the best things is the ads. Everything from the '90s was so full of 'tude and the back and forth between Sega and Nintendo was hilarious.

There is definitely a cultural barrier. It's something I've really noticed playing Time and Eternity, a game where two characters are engaged for ages but have yet to even hold hands, leading to the male protagonist perving out at any possible innuendo regarding his fiancee.

The story in this game isn't where the lack of maturity comes in. It's the actual stuff in the game. Again, the enemies that are still completely mobile after losing a freaking arm, and the constant litany of curse words hurled at Ryu comes off as something a 15 year old would come up with for a video game. It's at odds with the more character-focused story that Team Ninja was going for.