Behold, the body of Adonis and the brain of a squirrel.

[Chozon1]

Awesome for an opening song. I'd be excited to play the game. XD

And yes; Brawl in the Family. Apparently it shut down several years ago...so clearly, I haven't been reading it. O_o

[Deepfreeze32]

Yeah, I hadn't read it in ages either, but I was like "Wait...that sounds familiar..."

I couldn't find just a music version of this video, so here's a slideshow/Russian subtitled version of the opening to a Visual Novel I'm playing through right now. I recommend not really watching the video because it's a bit disorientingly-edited and has some really random screenshots from the VN, so just pop it on and go to another tab or something.



Thoughts?

[Chozon1]

I liked. Kinda bubbly and happy, but that's not a bad thing. XD

[Deepfreeze32]

There's an interquel to that VN that features a new opening song, which you might like too.

(Apologies for the Spanish subtitles, unfortunately there aren't a ton of copies of this song on YouTube because copyright bots...)



Thoughts?

[Chozon1]

That's OK. I can read Spanish. I have no idea what the words mean, but I can read it.

That was really good though. I don't know how to form words about it because my brain cloud at the moment is a thunderstorm, but I really liked it. XD

[Deepfreeze32]

You know, I dunno if I've ever even asked this, but...

Visual novels?

[Chozon1]

I've never played one, actually. I'm not entirely sold on the concept, but it's mostly I've never found one that looked like something I would enjoy.

[Deepfreeze32]

Well, I would probably recommend the following for your first forays into the genre (Ordered from most gameplay-oriented to most Visual Novel-oriented):

Zero Escape: The Nonary Games (Or alternatively the individual games: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors for the DS and Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward for Vita or 3DS). This series is a blend of visual novel and escape-the-room puzzles, and the blend is perfect for easing you into the genre. If you like the story and how it plays out, you will probably like the rest of the items on this list.

Ace Attorney series. Yeah, this totally counts as a visual novel, but combined with courtroom/investigative gameplay. And they're amazing.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. This one is pretty bloody, and features some disturbing violence, but it is also excellent. If you like the gameplay hybrid of Ace Attorney but wish the gameplay had more active elements to it, then this is the one for you. The setup is a group of students is trapped in a school, and forced to play a "Killing game." If they can kill someone and get away with it, they get to escape. But once someone dies, you have to investigate the murder and participate in a "class trial" to determine who the culprit is. The music is awesome (As I'm sure you've noticed from all the songs I've shown you), and the gameplay is hybrid visual novel and courtroom logic puzzles with some more active elements than Ace Attorney. You have to shoot down incorrect statements with facts, and play other minigames to answer key questions over the course of the trial. The sequel, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair is even better, IMO, but you must play Trigger Happy Havoc first.

Steins;Gate. Steins;Gate is the second game in a loose series called the Science Adventure series. I recommend this one for the following reasons:

1. The first, Chaos;Head is not legally available in English, and while there is a fan patch for licit or illicit copies, the game is still super Japanese, and even has some pretty intense sexual/violent content. I recommend familiarizing yourself with the story in some way, but the game is...yeah. Probably not for you
2. It's the strongest in the series (Though the newest game, Chaos;Child isn't out in the states yet, so I can't say anything there) that isn't a sequel/interquel (There's Steins;Gate 0, but you really should play Steins;Gate before playing that one) that is released in English (There's also Robotics;Notes in addition to aforementioned Chaos;Head, but R;N has no fan translation at all).
3. It's stinking awesome. It's a weird story about time travel, physics, and fate. Further, the characters are among my favorites in any story.

This one has very little gameplay, except for what are called "Phone triggers." Phone triggers allow you to subtly change the story by responding to texts or picking up certain calls, or to drastically change the story by taking actions which alter the flow of time. This is my favorite of the ones I've listed, but I can understand if you would be hesitant to throw yourself into a more conventional Visual Novel without getting an idea if you like it. So consider this like the ultimate hurdle: If you like this, you will probably like Visual Novels as a medium.



All of these can be legally bought for various consoles/handhelds as well as PC via Steam (Save for Ace Attorney, which is Nintendo only). If you do choose to enter the wonderfully weird world of Visual Novels, please let me know, because I'm always down to talk with someone about them.

So on that note, here's a song from Danganronpa V3:



Thoughts?

[Chozon1]

So then what is the difference between a visual novel and an adventure game? Because I've played story/theme heavy adventure games before and enjoyed them. Hotel Dusk comes to mind. There were items to find and solve puzzles, but mostly it was about deciphering the characters and figuring out the truth.

The Ace Attorney series has been something I've wanted to play since they first came out. Not sure why I haven't, but it seems like the thing I'd most likely enjoy. I'll keep an eye out for them.

That was just OK. Not bad, not great. It just felt like background music to me.

[Deepfreeze32]

So the distinction is actually a bit fuzzy. In Japan, a "Visual Novel" can refer to two types of game:

NVL-style (Comes from NoVeL), which are very text-heavy and have minimal interaction.
ADV-style (Comes from Adventure), which are what all of the games I've recommended are.

ADV-style games have a lot in common with Adventure games, but still feature a very text-heavy story. Visual Novel could almost be called a presentation style more than anything.

For example:



The style generally consists of character sprites set against a background, with a text box covering part of the screen. The player has to click (or press a button) to advance the text. Advancing the story generally involves changing the sprites to reflect the character's mood, dialog, etc and changing the background to indicate location changes.

I know that's a super basic description, but if any of those sound familiar, then you're probably at least somewhat familiar with the style. In truth, a lot of games use a similar system to Visual Novels to advance text, especially in Japan. A lot of JRPGs use similar techniques to advance the story in absence of the budget for sweeping cutscenes.

Anyway, point being, you should check some of the games I recommended out, especially Ace Attorney cuz hot dang that series is good.



How do you feel about AI?

[Chozon1]

I'll give it a look. Fundage is low at the moment. XD

AI? I don't know, really. At the moment its much ado about nothing. Most of the 'AI' in existence now is just...a fancy veneer over the normal lights and clockwork of a computer. Google isn't really intelligent, just...smart. I can tell my phone to do all kind of random stuff in the name of google. I can ask it to find a place, or tell me how to get there.

But it's like an internet argument. It doesn't really know me, nor does it know anything really; it just spouts facts I ask for. Same with Siri and Cortana. Very nice, very helpful, very far away from a true intelligence.

I realize there are much higher level AI's out there, some that even 'approach a semblance of humanity'. But when you get down to the knitty gritty, it's just a veneer of feigned intelligence. Pretend humanity over a calculator.

Will that ever change? I kinda doubt it, actually. Not only are there uncountable 'evil AI takes over the world' movies, computer peoples, as a rule, do not like unpredictability. We like things to work like we want them to work. We don't like programs that do what they want or don't listen to us.

Which is, by definition, what an 'intelligence' does. Artificial or not, they tend to do what they want rather than what we want them to do.

[Deepfreeze32]

I think that whether or not we can create general artificial intelligence ("True" AI, you might say) ultimately depends on if the factors required for intelligence are deterministic. And, well, I'm not convinced that's the case.


How do you feel about Destiny 2 so far, now that it has been out for a while?

[Chozon1]

Succinctly? I feel...good. Optimistic for the future, and very few complaints about the present. There are complaints...but Bungie is addressing them as the days go by. Just like Destiny 1. It's much more akin to a very much improved vanilla Destiny than, say, the Taken King or Rise of Iron, so don't go into it expecting that. Like they took Destiny, buried the old story arcs and foibles into the pages of history, and started fresh while still keeping a lot of the feels and improvements of Destiny 1.

If you hated Destiny 1, you'll hate Destiny 2. If you were one of the vocal minority that constantly screeched at Bungie about Destiny 1 while secretly loving it, you'll find plenty of screech fodder here (as the internet constantly shows).

I myself belong to the quiet majority who loves the game and will keep playing it knowing it will only get better.

I could make a list of complaints and praises...but I won't, for once. XD It's a good game. It deserves being explored with an uninfluenced mind. <3 I will say that I pretty much haven't played anything else since September 6th, and I don't regret it.

[Deepfreeze32]

I mean, my main issues with vanilla Destiny 1 were:

Too little story.
Too little expositional worldbuilding.
Not enough characterization from the NPCs.

If the beta is anything to go on, it looks like they at least improved some of those. I just hope the main campaign is a little longer, or at least feels like it has more impact to it than vanilla Destiny 1's campaign which ended right as it was starting to get interesting. XD

How do you feel about wonky translations from other languages?

[evered]

If you could be any animal in the world, What would it be?