Messages

1

Current Episodes / Re: Episode 354

« on: October 15, 2018, 01:33:41 AM »

I feel blindsided, because Sleeping Beauty is one of those films I never paid any attention to. I doubt I've ever even seen the full thing. Oh well, great catch Aazealh.

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Video Games / Re: Nintendo Switch

« on: October 11, 2018, 07:13:12 PM »

I don't know about an XL version. The switch as is already barely fits into pockets

Just spitballing here: It could be for the people who don't need to fit it into their pockets.

I could see them upgrading the system in general with just overall better performance and battery life.

Well that's why I called it "xl." They can upgrade it in a number of ways, not the least of which would be an enhanced screen — whether that means bigger or not.

As for smash and pokemon, once those games drop the switch will surely either be flying off of shelves again, or have a pretty steady sale rate for the next year or two.

Those aren't enough for everyone, myself included. It's been a long while since I regularly played my Switch.

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Video Games / Re: Nintendo Switch

« on: October 11, 2018, 05:14:27 PM »

Are you sure they aren't just going to put in the new chipset like they were talking about before?

No one can be sure of anything yet. Even Nintendo is still weighing the options for upgrades, according to the article.

As for small hardware changes to counteract piracy, those happen pretty regularly with consoles. But such changes wouldn't be "a way to maintain sales momentum" as this article indicates. That's something only a new or revised model could do. Anyway, two years into the console's life, it's pretty easy to guess at an "xl" version of the Switch on the horizon, particularly given Nintendo's handheld history. Lower cost for the base model, slightly better screen, slightly better performance for the "xl" sounds about right to me.

Personally, I think any slump in sales for the Switch are more likely to be software related than sticker shock. Because aside from Smash and Pokemon, there's been a dearth of major first-party software announcements. Hitting 2017 running with 2 amazing first-party titles was a great move that clearly paid off on the interim, but the long view has been looking spotty as a result -- hence slower sales. You can tell from the past few Directs that Nintendo has been leaning into their growing third-party lineup (I mean fuck, it finally happened for them!), but those are at best appetizers while most of us wait for more main courses to be served up.

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Speculation Nation / Re: Death

« on: October 10, 2018, 05:40:00 PM »

Voted.

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Speculation Nation / Re: Death

« on: October 10, 2018, 12:39:18 PM »

I think they'll find a way to separate Femto from the body. After that, the Vortex seems appropriate to me.

6

Berserk Miscellaneous / Re: Dark Horse Releasing Berserk Guidebook

« on: October 08, 2018, 02:48:16 PM »

To be honest I wasn’t planning on buying the guidebook, but your comment made me change my mind. My copy should be arriving in a few days.

I could trash-talk 75% of the guidebook for a full thread. Most of it is worthless for fans who have even a passing understanding of the basics of Berserk. As Aazealh said earlier in the thread, if they needed filler to surround the interview, an artbook would have been a much more welcome — and needed — addition to the Berserk merchandise lineup. But the interview itself is unassailable.

Speaking as someone who has spent a lot of time intuiting Miura's impressions in the absence of very little information, it's powerful (even surprisingly disconcerting!) to read Miura's straight talk on aspects of the whole series. The interview goes through each arc of the manga and captures insights from Miura on his intent and how he executed the ideas, sources of inspiration, and more.  Of course, there was a fan translated version of this interview circling around a year ago, but I didn't pay much attention to it, as I was waiting for a better translation. In comparing the two last night, I found this official one more coherent and natural-sounding, which is pretty important if you're trying to formulate the main man's opinions on things.

As usual, Miura comes across as modest to a fault, which requires some processing to get at the truth of the matter. This manner of speaking is natural for Japanese readers, who see a modest person and infer mastery and confidence (think "Yoda"). But in English, he sometimes comes across as self-deprecating and inconsiderate, given the pristine quality of the series he's created. For example, he talks at length about how he doesn't plan very far in advance, creates dialogue for scenes on-the-spot, etc., but then drops the bombshell that he created the idea of the Beast manifesting from the Berserk Armor back in Volume 16 — 10 volumes ahead of its debut. So much for not making explicit plans!

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Berserk Miscellaneous / Re: Dark Horse Releasing Berserk Guidebook

« on: October 08, 2018, 02:21:35 AM »

I'm reading through the whole guidebook now, which is just surreal. One thing I'm curious about: they spelled it as "Tudor" instead of their translation of "Chuder." I'm curious if they're correcting that error, or if they just didn't coordinate the translation with previous releases. But if they ARE correcting it, how could they still call him "Knight of Skeleton"? 

There are quite a few inconsistencies, which is sadly to be expected given that this is a real hodge-podge production by Dark Horse, with a ton of text and obviously not a ton of copy-editing. I was surprised to see that in the interview they used the correct phrase "incarnated" to refer to Femto, and but then on the character section, refers to it as "resurrected." Oh well!

And yeah, that Knight of Skeleton business: back when a few of the DH team used to post here, they shared that they had reached out to Hakusensha to clarify how they should translate Dokuro no Kishi, which turned out to be a mistake. Because the official verdict from up top was "Knight of Skeleton" likely because they had already dealt that shitty translation for statues/figures and wanted consistency abroad.  And because they had asked for clarity, they had to stick to it.

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Berserk Miscellaneous / Re: Dark Horse Releasing Berserk Guidebook

« on: October 07, 2018, 01:15:59 AM »

Just finished the interview. A few typos aside, it's really fantastic. Everybody should read that thing.

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Movies, TV, Books & Music / Re: Movies to look forward to

« on: October 06, 2018, 06:08:35 PM »

It's the mannerisms that are impressive. He's shrunken down Bale and blown up this old man.

As for Bateman, now I can't unsee it. After all, Patrick was a VP (so was everybody else  in that company). "Well George ... I'm a vice president of a large company. Im into Murders and Executions." 

10

Movies, TV, Books & Music / Re: Movies to look forward to

« on: October 06, 2018, 12:13:30 PM »

Yeah I saw the trailer a few days ago and was really impressed by Bate-man. I saw it first without sound (Twitter feed) and wondered who the fuck this Costanza-looking guy was. Then I heard the voice and knew -- no way! 

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Manga Mausoleum / Re: Volume 40 release

« on: October 04, 2018, 12:28:32 PM »

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2018-10-03/japanese-comic-ranking-september-24-30/.137655

  They don't say NUMBA WAN FANTASHII KOMIKU for nothing.

12

Video Games / Re: What Are You Playing?

« on: October 03, 2018, 05:30:40 PM »

BUT, what if I sweeten the pot with every N64, Gamecube, and Wii game you don't want to play!?

That'd be quite generous for the company that's re-selling 4-year-old WiiU games for $50  (you know, I actually bought Tropical Freeze for my son, who really didn't like it -- and neither did I -- so we returned it).

Again, I like the service model idea. I just don't think they'll ever be able to cook up an enticing enough package for me or ... really anyone who cared enough about those old games to seek out the NES/SNES Classics.

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Video Games / Re: What Are You Playing?

« on: October 03, 2018, 03:24:21 PM »

I don't think it's going to last between me and CrossCode then.

Well I would say that because they're sidequests, you don't have to engage with them ... but there's a suggested level cap on the dungeons that gate story progression. So it's either grind quests or enemies. I did both for about 2h and ended up a little bored before I was allowed to progress the story.

Now that I'm through the second dungeon, gotta say the puzzle design of those areas is pretty great. Reminded me of Zelda 3 and Lufia 2 puzzles.

Yeah, but what if they gave you their NES/SNES Library for $5 a month?

I genuinely don't care about it. Because I already have the games I actually care about in my back pocket, and I don't even play them that often.

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Berserk Miscellaneous / Re: Dark Horse Releasing Berserk Guidebook

« on: October 03, 2018, 01:40:27 PM »

My guidebook shipped yesterday. I gave it a cursory look through. A lot of work went into it, just from a design perspective, but it's also very visually confusing. Their charts and character relations maps are mostly nonsensical, bordering on useless. Great to have the interview translated, though I haven't read the whole thing yet.

Also wanted to note that they do indeed fix the typos and problem with that preview page they tossed out on Twitter over the summer (which had Farnese's description on Guts' page). Yay.

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Shootin' the Breeze / Re: 7 year manga reader, new member here

« on: October 02, 2018, 06:24:01 PM »

Hey welcome to the forum! Glad to have you on board.

If you're looking to hear from more female readers, a few of them host a podcast together: The FloraCast

Ep 1: http://www.skullknight.net/forum/index.php?topic=14340
Ep 2: http://www.skullknight.net/forum/index.php?topic=14590

Enjoy!

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Manga Mausoleum / Re: Dark Horse Berserk Blurb Compendium

« on: October 02, 2018, 05:08:51 PM »

Updated the OP with vol 39 and the Deluxe edition blurbs. 

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Manga Mausoleum / Re: Dark Horse Releases "Deluxe" Berserk Edition

« on: October 02, 2018, 12:34:21 AM »

It's so basic a thing that I wish they did this already. Heck, if they dangled a carrot of fixed translations like "Hey, buy all volumes again with these new cover designs and spines and by the way, translations are now fixed.", I'd buy them in a heartbeat. I'd be less willing to pay for a second set of new covers if nothing was improved.

This was my hope when I re-bought volumes 1-3 after a dramatic re-printing of the series was announced 5 years ago. No changes, not even to the terrible initial quality of their page scans.



Still, if ever they were going to re-do things like these, a "deluxe" edition would be the time. I haven't done an extensive comparison between the official digital scans from Dark Horse and the print editions, but I really wonder if they're improved.

Scratch that, I did it:

Volume 1, Pg 4
Japanese (Digital)
Japanese (Print)
English (Digital)
English (Print)

Volume 1, Pg 24
Japanese (Digital)
Japanese (Print)
English (Digital)
English (Print)

Dark Horse's digital quality really isn't that bad, except for the obvious banding issues that happen when there's a detailed pattern or screen effect. Even still, the Japanese digital editions weren't great in the first few volumes, either. Volume 1 in particular looks quite washed out. I don't  know why, but they improved over time (as did Dark Horse's coincidentally). Maybe they were still figuring out the best method for scanning the originals, and never bothered to do another pass once they optimized? Either way, my money is still on the Japanese print being the best, most consistent visual quality, except for the very limited color pages, in which case the Japanese digital pages obviously win, as they're just fucking pristine. Alright there goes my evening, somebody buy me a drink.

18

Video Games / Re: What Are You Playing?

« on: October 01, 2018, 03:43:38 PM »

I'm trying the demo on your recommendation and it's indeed very much like Seiken Densetsu, and aesthetically and sonically reminds me of Chrono Trigger as well. Not bad company!

Small update, I'm about 5h in, still having fun but the part I'm in is a bit of a grind. Once they unleash you from the tutorial section, it funnels your progress through sidequests which are structured around typical MMO-style quests, most of which are pretty boring. There's still the main story of course, but the sidequests take up an inordinate amount of your time. Looking forward to more, but whew, there are a LOT of throwaway quests in the early part of the game.

It's also worth noting that I played the game through this weekend with my cat in the same room. The cat who had to get radiation treatment this week and be isolated in a room (my office) so the rest of us don't get irradiated. So yeah, future back-of-box quote: "I braved an irradiated wasteland just to squeeze in a few more hours of CrossCode. And so far, I only feel slightly mutated." -SKnet's Walter

Well, I've explored a few options, one is a New SNES 3DS XL from amazon for $150 + Mario Kart, which is a hell of a deal

Get that. I really appreciated the bigger screen of the XL. And having some more power would be nice (though not a game changer). That being said, I get far more use out of my Switch than my 3dS (which is pretty much my son's console at this point). So that's up to you. Nintendo is clearly leaning away from the 3DS, now that it's about 8 years old.

BTW folks, how much would you pay a month for access to Nintendo's classic game library (whatever that is to you, from NES-Wii)? As in, what would you need included and then what price would be too high? Nintendo must really be weighing that cash cow versus selling the same shit ala carte every time since it's hard to pretend at this point these guys are so quaint and out of touch they can't figure out the equivalent of email accounts when they've otherwise been innovators in the marketplace for decades, "How can you be so obtuse; is it intentional?"

The Switch Online thing is worthless to me. I don't play online games on that thing, and while I like their service model pricing ($20/year for all those games is a better price than $6-8 per title) I already have an NES Classic AND an SNES Classic  (sitting side by side in a cabinet  ) to deflect inevitable future offers. The only thing it has going for it is the portability of those games, which is nice, but not enticing enough to me, given the above considerations. I mostly play docked anyway.

19

Video Games / Re: What Are You Playing?

« on: September 29, 2018, 05:03:49 PM »

I have a mostly free weekend for the first time in a while, so I picked up something on the recommendation of a friend: CrossCode. It's an action-RPG in the vein of Secret of Mana, but with a huge MMO-like world. It's pretty solid so far (2h in). It definitely hits the right notes for the genre. Even things like the ground tilesets and layers of the textures are very SNES. I haven't played a game that feels as much like Seiken Densetsu 3 (sequel to SoM), probably ever? Anyway, check out the trailer:

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Manga Mausoleum / Re: Volume 40 release

« on: September 28, 2018, 08:22:45 PM »

He's called the Black Singer in Japan

Ahh that explains it. Thanks!

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Manga Mausoleum / Re: Volume 40 release

« on: September 28, 2018, 03:24:38 PM »

the digital volumen is out. https://www.hakusensha-e.net/top?id=16824#

Thanks! I flipped through the preview and noticed a confirmation of our name spelling for Danan. 

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Berserk Miscellaneous / Re: Berserk: The Flame Dragon Knight novel

« on: September 28, 2018, 11:07:35 AM »

Honestly, foreign sales of the novel aren't likely to impact any decision Hakusensha makes about extending this property. Now as for people who imported it... 

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Manga Mausoleum / Re: Volume 40 release

« on: September 28, 2018, 10:13:32 AM »

I know it's just a dumb video, and I actually kind of like it too, weird as it is, especially the print images surprisingly (maybe cause they remind me of our bad Photoshops =),

It's funny that you mention that, because I look at this thing and just feel it's like one of our many April Fool's Day pranks. Elaborate, but ultimately just a flash-in-the-pan gag. Again, I think the reason this one feels off is because they hyped its release.

It'd just be nice to get some genuinely kickass, or just up to par, Berserk stuff once again instead of this fucking around (it's not funny when everything not produced directly by Miura is bad). I sure miss the nostalgic days of the merely underwhelming '97 anime, respectably authentic Dreamcast game, and actually awesome artbooks (even the postcard one =). Now we just have to basically be numb to this shit and that's really too bad.

I think the last decent product they licensed with Berserk's name on it was the PS2 game, and even that wasn't great. I'd chalk it up to the people handling the property at Hakusensha not caring or not having a good eye for quality. I've become accustomed to just settling for pointing to the manga as the only thing that really matters. As we often say, Roseanne was good enough to stand on its own, she didn't need an animated series.

BTW, back to the video, what's the big idea behind it? Like who is that guy? Is he some old Japanese action star or manly actor? Is this like if they'd cast Arnold in the part or something? Or is it just the guy is old and it's stupid and... that's the joke?

It's Shigeru Matsuzaki, a famous singer. I guess the intent is : Berserk is old and so is he, haha.

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Manga Mausoleum / Re: Volume 40 release

« on: September 28, 2018, 02:08:37 AM »

I mean, it's just an ad. The only difference between this dumb thing and every other low budget video they've made to promote Berserk is that we were given expectations for it (PROJECT!) Instead of it just dropping, and us derisively laughing and moving on.

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Manga Mausoleum / Re: Volume 40 release

« on: September 28, 2018, 01:51:33 AM »

In context of Hakusensha putting out something (anything, apparently) small-scale to promote vol 40's release, I'm okay with it, I even laughed a little. In the same way I'm okay with those goddamned pachinko machines for being hilariously bad, there's something endearingly cheesy about this.

After all, what if that video ended with: Coming to Netflix 2019