11 days and still no results for the JSR contest. You know, $250+ worth of merchandise for digital art no larger than 512x128 seemed like a pretty poor allocation of funds to begin with, but if I don't get my cocktail shaker I'm going to drink my own piss over and over again until I die.
I NEED an English release of Shining Force PSP. They aren't going to fuck us over again like SFIII are they?
Haven't they ... not released very many Shining games at all overseas? Like wasn't the last one Shining Force Neo or something? They just released Shining Blade on PSP, by the way...
Yes, I know. Quite a disappointment, they were more then likely never going to translate it anyway. But now there's no way. I personally would have thought a translation but not a dub would not take long, and effort vs potential sales to a whole country would make it worth their while. I guess not though...
According to these guys (http://www.gamekyo.com/newsfr46962_sega-europe-devrait-annoncer-sa-fermeture.html) all of Sega Europe is going down the shitter. Well ain't that fun. While that seems unlikely, if it's true then we may be in trouble here. Hate to bring up this argument again, but Sega just take anything worthwhile your company has and sell em to other publishers and just spend the rest of your days on arcades and pachinko crap. Sonic, SMB, Jet Set Radio, NiGHTS, Yakuza, Semune, and whatever other good non arcade games ya got. Just sell em off (preferably not to Nintendo btw) and just fade into obscurity.
As a former PSU player and PSO player who knows how SEGA's handled their online games in the past, in my opinion, there is probably at least a 60% chance that PSO2 will NOT be released state side. Because that's the kind of shit SEGA does and the fact that they haven't announced a localization yet, nay, have practically gone out of their way to ensure they make no remotely definitive statements about a localization, it seems pretty clear to me that they're leaning towards not releasing it in the US. It really sucks and it pisses me off, but I'm not going to get my hopes up when it comes to a company that has consistently been a huge disappointment in terms of managing their online properties. If that wasn't the case, PSU wouldn't off been handled SO HORRIBLY that they ended up shutting down the USA PC servers forever. They lost a lot of their player base due to horrible decisions, incredibly OP and imbalanced events (MAG anyone?) and so on. Not to mention the fact that the US version was WAYYYYYYYYY behind the Japanese servers in terms of content, despite much of the content already being translated. This compiled with an extremely poor and highly convoluted server architecture really crippled what could have been one of the biggest top-dollar earning games ever produced by the company. SEGA does a great job at initial production of a lot of their online games (though PSU was launched in the worst place possible, with 70%+ of the content already produced but "locked" on the disc. The fuck SEGA?), but afterwards it's a god damn mess. I expect this to be no different until I see evidence to the contrary. Which is fucking depressing, but it's true.
If it's true, then maybe Sega can sell off Phantasy Star to someone else and we can get Phantasy Star V.
Kind of hard when Phantasy Star IV closed the entire thing for real. Which is probably why Phantasy Star Online deviated from that completely. Maybe, though looking at all the other big publishers, Sega probably deserves much more credit than it gets...
Keep in mind that PSO2 still isn't finished... Oh and no, Sega of Japan gets its kicks off Phantasy Star and Shining — don't expect a franchise sale anytime soon.
I have no idea why, but it's hard to find a complete plot synopsis of Phantasy Star IV. I know this is off topic, but can someone give me the rundown as to why there can't be a sequel to Phantasy Star IV? What happens in that game that makes a continuation of the story impossible?
Spoilers ahead: Spoiler They killed Perfect Darkness, which was the real villain (Dark Force was just a spawn from Perfect Darkness, which is why it kept "resurrecting"). This also means Dark Force is done for real.
So it was set 2000 years later than PSII? (PSIV was set 1000 years after PSII, since Dark Force reappeared every 1000 years) And even then it doesn't happen in the Algo solar system either. For all we know it could be considered a completely different game. Actually I think PSIV was an attempt to retcon PSIII, to the point it never recognizes itself as the fourth entry except in the credits (where it says "PSIV")... I'd need to recheck, I wouldn't be surprised if PSIII is considered non-canon thanks to that. It's possible it also happens in parallel to PSIV (and thereby Dark Force was still alive).
And PSO after that (the Dark Falz in the Ruins is confirmed to be the same one from III), and by extension PS0 and likely PSO2 (unless it gets shitcanned, in which case I will bravely suicide bomb Sega headquarters). It doesn't seem odd to me that there are still Dark Falz/Forces around after the Profound Darkness was killed. They were just released from the seal before PD was destroyed, and were either undefeated or not properly defeated before the games they appear in. Or am I forgetting something? PSIII's worldships and the story behind them are referenced in PSIV. They're connected.
So that's what happens, huh? I'd also love to know why, in a science fiction setting, everyone is still using swords and shit. But eh, I've derailed this topic enough.
