The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky

[Eusis]

Serious question: Where's my Brandish remake Xseed?

Serious answer: if XSEED sees enough of a profit from their localizations of these Ys and LoH games, there's a chance it could really happen. But it's a stretch.

I imagine it has a higher chance than Zwei anyway, that was outright brought up as example of a hard sell to retailers due to how cutesy it was.

Then again, if a good chunk of their profits are from the PSN I imagine they could opt to just release games like those two there and bypass fighting with GameStop and whoever to stock it.

[Dice]

Damn shame, I loved Zwei....  Henceforth, we shall now spell the game title "ZWEI!!" with a silent and sad ellipses... Zwei... =(

Anyways, did some reading on the title on Wicked-pedia. And I'm psyched.  First day purchase because I love a portable RPG. =)

[insertnamehere]

Day one purchase.

[Yggdrasil]

Day one purchase.

Lies.

[insertnamehere]

Day one purchase.

Lie.

fixd
I know it would be if I had infinite money.

[Kevadu]

Day one purchase for me, anyway.  I buy games faster than I can play them...

[Yggdrasil]

Hm, I wonder if Xseed is going to sell a limited edition with the game. I would really like to see this album in the package, but I guess it's too much to ask.

Anyway, I still need to see more of this in action before throwing away my money.

[(Tunnels)]

Oh man, yet another good-looking game that comes out early next year. This makes, like, 4 games that I plan on picking up within the first three months of next year. I will have no money come April.

[Prime Mover]

I dunno, at least reading the character synopsis, the first 3-4 characters on the list seem INCREDIBLY cliche to me. I'm mean really over-used architypes. If the game has unique dialog setting and exploration, then I could be wrong. But generally, I find that if one aspect of a game panders to generic cliches, it's fairly likely that the rest will too.

[Dice]

I dunno, at least reading the character synopsis, the first 3-4 characters on the list seem INCREDIBLY cliche to me. I'm mean really over-used architypes. If the game has unique dialog setting and exploration, then I could be wrong. But generally, I find that if one aspect of a game panders to generic cliches, it's fairly likely that the rest will too.

I've stopped looking at that after being disappointed often (it's even worse with a lot of B-grade JRPGs).  Now I just go for decent combat and world, hope it's kinda tough, and hope that maybe the cliche'd characters have some nice "secrets" to them or something.  Except for titles like Nier, where the reverse is true.

[Prime Mover]

Actually, that's what I was mentioning. Games that tend to have cliche characters, tend to have crappy worlds.

Wait, what am I talking about? Few games DON'T have cliche characters, and there are still great worlds out there. Yeah Skies of Arcadia!

[badsanta]

Actually, that's what I was mentioning. Games that tend to have cliche characters, tend to have crappy worlds.

Did you read the whole article?

[Dice]

Actually, that's what I was mentioning. Games that tend to have cliche characters, tend to have crappy worlds.

Wait, what am I talking about? Few games DON'T have cliche characters, and there are still great worlds out there. Yeah Skies of Arcadia!

I don't know... maybe those cliches are important for overall characterization.  I thought they were pretty cliche... or at least Vyse and Aika I couldn't care less about aside from their awesome friendship.  Vyse was a do-gooder, Aika tagged along for the adventure, and Fina was the good and tame girl on a serious mission.  The difference?  You're flying and exploring a "floating version" of earth in the most dense of cultural cliches (earth and mayan people?  Indians and fire?  Water and ASIA?!  I geeett ittt..!)
The game was awesome though, the world being absolutely fascinating.  I feel the villain was lacking a bit though - could have had way more to him.

Come to think of it, I'm trying to think what ISN'T a cliche or archetype we haven't seen before...??
Very little... Especially an archetype that isn't used to establish some sort of charatierization that isn't flowered out for later.  I've always admired Tales games for trying to flesh out characters more by having an arc dedicated or veered to their interests/backstories as well as skits which can be serious or just for a lark on them amusing themselves - kinda human like.

[Prime Mover]

Ah... Dice, once again, you're right, I'm just being negative. i've made the same point about Zelda games. Some of the world's greatest works were built on cliches. I guess the important part is not the over-arching character architype but what you do with it. The Tales team has had a good time playing into common architypes only to twist them around, but that only works a few times (Lunar 1 did it really well too). What I love is to have a common architype, but explored in much more subtle ways than can be defined by a simple lable. Having an architypical character defy expectations is fun, but having them meet expections while at the same time emotionally connecting with the audience on a visceral level is really where narratives excel.

[Dice]

Ah... Dice, once again, you're right, I'm just being negative. i've made the same point about Zelda games. Some of the world's greatest works were built on cliches. I guess the important part is not the over-arching character architype but what you do with it. The Tales team has had a good time playing into common architypes only to twist them around, but that only works a few times (Lunar 1 did it really well too). What I love is to have a common architype, but explored in much more subtle ways than can be defined by a simple lable. Having an architypical character defy expectations is fun, but having them meet expections while at the same time emotionally connecting with the audience on a visceral level is really where narratives excel.

I'm flattered you agree I guess, and I like your take on it.
I suppose if good characters were that easy to make it'd be done all the time.  Oddly enough, I always like the games that pointed out minor nuances to their characters.  Name someone who wasn't chiefly amused with Ashton's [a la SO2] barrel fettish, or even man-Nier's soft and "dad"-like patience to bounce against his brute-attitude and Weiss' nose-in-the-air remarks.  All cliche, but I think it just has to be played out right.

I'm kinda kicking myself for the world in Arcadia remark... what else would you associate a desert with if not a "fire" element... I think what made me laugh though was how it was such a blatant play of earth-based cultures and didn't even bother adding to it.  Indians wore turbans, Asia-land wore yukatas, etc.  But many games do it, and only few actually try developing their own cultures (I think FFX is a good example to the opposite, it tried to mix several cultures from what I saw to create something truly "otherworldly").  Nevertheless, the game nails the pirate aesthetic.