I'm a speedrunner and I help produce a weekly show so I'm constantly playing NES games. A couple times a year I'll put some time into improving my record in Kabuki Quantum Fighter.
I think they seem 'sketchy' because the bomb crew, especially someone like Jeff, caring a lot about Loot Crate or whatever seems doubtful. For people who have been listening for a long time and know who they are, their fake enthusiasm for the product seems like sarcasm.
Hrm.. are you holding Y to run? Are you hitting '?' blocks to pick up mushrooms and stuff? It reeeeaally shouldn't be as hard as you're making it out to be.
In Persona Q, the characters aren't quite as fleshed out as they are in their respective games, but there are a handful of moments that really ring true with the sort of thing the series is known for. This is mostly the relationship between Kanji and Ken if you choose the P4 protagonist, the P3 cast coming together if you choose the P3 protagonist, and in either when some mysterious pasts are revealed towards the end (which actually got me pretty emotional). However, there's plenty of light-hearted, cute, and funny moments peppered in throughout the game had me smiling.
Also PQ has got styyyyyyyyyyle. The vibrant use of colour, j-rap, trumpets, guitar, as well as the delightfully bizarre enemy design that gives the series its distinctive aesthetic. Then again, bosses aside, you're probably familiar with all the enemy designs already.
I haven't played EO4 yet so if there's an argument for it someone else will have to make it, but I loved Persona Q.
I don't play it very often so I still enjoy it whenever I do. Over time the cards that are jokes in and of themselves obviously lose their appeal, but you can still be clever about things to come up with some great stuff.
"Before you die Mr. Bond, I want to show you a PowerPoint presentation."
Max Tempkin seems like a cool guy. Sorry to hear he apparently did some not cool things.
I've played a couple games in the series and I think I like the cast from Eternia the best. I hear good things about Vesperia though, been meaning to play it for awhile.
It's an NES platformer that plays like Ninja Gaiden. You're a cyber-kabuki manifestation of a military dude inside a computer killing robot samurai viruses by whipping your mane of red hair. You get different sub weapons for beating the stages, some good, some bad. It's infamous for its wonky ice and conveyor belt physics which continue to affect you even in the air. The first and fourth levels have some Geiger-esque shit going on in the background. Two problems with it for the show: One, your health counts down into score at the end of every level (they're fairly short), so you'll need to turn an infinite health cheat off and on pretty frequently. Two, even with infinite health you might get stuck at level 3 because it's a vertical stage and getting hit usually means falling and losing progress.
I was hoping for a Fire Emblem game with SMT characters but this looks like a completely different beast. I am definitely less excited for it but I'll keep an eye on it all the same.
Oh riiiiight, Yiazmat. I went in completely unprepared so his crazy Aeroga attack or whatever would always kill all 3 of my dudes. Sub the next 3 in, revive the first 3, resume fight. Over and over. Hours and hours.
Some of those terms and concepts are complicated for sure, but it's necessary for higher level players. Understanding those higher level concepts is key to playing the game well. If that stuff wasn't surfaced in the game, you'd end up with a situation similar to fighting games where players who are looking to move from beginner to intermediate have very little guidance from the game itself. You're right that it can be overwhelming for beginners, but I think DotA 2 does an okay job of mitigating that.
In DotA 2, characters are sorted into their roles like initiator, carry, etc. no? That seems like a pretty good way to give beginners the basic concepts of the genre.
Obviously there's more they could do to help beginners, but I don't think slapping arbitrary labels that they might be more familiar with is the answer. Is there a description of each role in DotA 2? I feel like that would give beginners an idea of the type of character they want to play. Get huge then crush things, carry. Stay back and cast spells, support. Start some shit and jump enemies, initiator. That kind of thing.
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