As a sequel, Actraiser 2 failed, but as a challenging platformer akin to something like Ghosts n Goblins, I think it did a great job. Had a ton of fun blasting through it last year.
I must have miss-clicked after the Xenosaga podcast with the Resonant Arc guys. I watched the Xenosaga review and thought I subbed back then, but I guess not. That's fixed now! I always enjoyed Illusion of Gaia. The music was a big part of it for me. Music in games is one of the aspects that draws me into the world so much more than story and characters alone (though I do weigh those later two elements higher). The wealth of emotions that this soundtrack is able to cover was a nice thing to have when I was playing this as a kid. My friend owned it, so I didn't actually finish the game until many years later, but I was always drawn in from what I heard when my friend would play or the few times I got my hands on the controller as well. Oddly, I found that the bacon sacrifice did more to make me laugh than it did to make me feel emotional. Maybe it was a character that I didn't have any attachment to and never had a line of dialogue to speak, but it just didn't hit for me.
So much to say about Illusion of Gaia... The worst part about the game is that Red Jewels are missable and if you don't get them, you can never complete the side quest (this is mostly only a problem in the first half of the game but for example there's a random spawn in the first town that you might never encounter, move on, and never get to return to find it. The music is SO good, so many moving moments where the music carries the scene. The sound effects are also solid, though many are rehashed versions from Soul Blazer. I think the questions the game asks the player to think about are, as you mentioned, some of the most mature, fundamental issues in ancient times and of the modern era. Will doesn't have solutions because he's 12 and we don't have solutions, either. He can stop a killer comet but he can't end slavery and human suffering due to war, famine, and disease. It's very anime in that way. Losing Seth at the Inca ship and later learning that he died did a number on me as a kid. Here's a guy who has already lost his parents, gets separated from his grandparents, his best friend gets the girl while he's stuck with the prissy princess nobody likes, and to top it all off, he gets to go Super Saiyan but nobody can ever know it was him the whole time. Love this game!
This may be a really weird tangent on an Illusion of Gaia video, but I think you're treating the Star Wars prequels unfairly. The romance between Anakin and Padme being awkward and stilted is in my opinion intentional, or if it isn't, it could as well be. I don't know if George Lucas can write romance well, but it also doesn't matter, because the story of Anakin and Padme isn't a love story. It's a story about a woman falling in love with her future murderer, in a relationship that is somewhere between ill-matched and downright creepy from the very beginning. From Anakin's side, the feelings involved are not so much genuine love as obsession and possessiveness. Furthermore, both have been raised in very strict, formal environments, in Anakin's case even a monastic order where romance is outright taboo. Of course their romantic interaction with one another is going to be stilted. Whether Lucas could write a better romance or not is beside the point, because their relationship _shouldn't_ be written as a better romance. It would both be diegetically inconsistent and undermine the themes of their story.
As a sequel, Actraiser 2 failed, but as a challenging platformer akin to something like Ghosts n Goblins, I think it did a great job. Had a ton of fun blasting through it last year.
I must have miss-clicked after the Xenosaga podcast with the Resonant Arc guys. I watched the Xenosaga review and thought I subbed back then, but I guess not. That's fixed now!
I always enjoyed Illusion of Gaia. The music was a big part of it for me. Music in games is one of the aspects that draws me into the world so much more than story and characters alone (though I do weigh those later two elements higher). The wealth of emotions that this soundtrack is able to cover was a nice thing to have when I was playing this as a kid. My friend owned it, so I didn't actually finish the game until many years later, but I was always drawn in from what I heard when my friend would play or the few times I got my hands on the controller as well.
Oddly, I found that the bacon sacrifice did more to make me laugh than it did to make me feel emotional. Maybe it was a character that I didn't have any attachment to and never had a line of dialogue to speak, but it just didn't hit for me.
I just now understand why I love the ending of Illusion of Gaia and Xenoblade 3. Both of them look kind of like that.
27:20 - BUT IT IS BECAUSE I'M SO IN LOVE WITH YOU TJ
Illusion of Gaia has the best music out of all Quintet games. Did not know it was done by the Zoids guy.
So much to say about Illusion of Gaia... The worst part about the game is that Red Jewels are missable and if you don't get them, you can never complete the side quest (this is mostly only a problem in the first half of the game but for example there's a random spawn in the first town that you might never encounter, move on, and never get to return to find it.
The music is SO good, so many moving moments where the music carries the scene. The sound effects are also solid, though many are rehashed versions from Soul Blazer.
I think the questions the game asks the player to think about are, as you mentioned, some of the most mature, fundamental issues in ancient times and of the modern era. Will doesn't have solutions because he's 12 and we don't have solutions, either. He can stop a killer comet but he can't end slavery and human suffering due to war, famine, and disease. It's very anime in that way. Losing Seth at the Inca ship and later learning that he died did a number on me as a kid. Here's a guy who has already lost his parents, gets separated from his grandparents, his best friend gets the girl while he's stuck with the prissy princess nobody likes, and to top it all off, he gets to go Super Saiyan but nobody can ever know it was him the whole time. Love this game!
Brings a bit of inner conflict when bacon is your comfort food!
This may be a really weird tangent on an Illusion of Gaia video, but I think you're treating the Star Wars prequels unfairly. The romance between Anakin and Padme being awkward and stilted is in my opinion intentional, or if it isn't, it could as well be. I don't know if George Lucas can write romance well, but it also doesn't matter, because the story of Anakin and Padme isn't a love story. It's a story about a woman falling in love with her future murderer, in a relationship that is somewhere between ill-matched and downright creepy from the very beginning. From Anakin's side, the feelings involved are not so much genuine love as obsession and possessiveness. Furthermore, both have been raised in very strict, formal environments, in Anakin's case even a monastic order where romance is outright taboo. Of course their romantic interaction with one another is going to be stilted. Whether Lucas could write a better romance or not is beside the point, because their relationship _shouldn't_ be written as a better romance. It would both be diegetically inconsistent and undermine the themes of their story.
It's jarring to hear someone use "ambivalent" right.
Actraiser 2? More like Actlower