Brickman

Hatena Satena (GBA)

Hatena Satena is a puzzle game best described as a mix of Picross and Minesweeper. You have different size grids, and you reveal a picture using the available colours. You will also receive a number which will gives you a clue how many of the same colour are around the one you just placed. Added to the pressure is a time limit and a life bar. This simple puzzler gets addictive, and I enjoyed chipping away at a puzzle or two every night. 

This was an exclusive for the GBA in Japan. I’m not sure why it never made it to the West, but it is a pretty decent puzzle game that probably should have. The art style is nice and colourful and the music is catchy and never distracting (an important thing with puzzle games). 

It does fall short in some areas unfortunately. The pictures aren’t very interesting or at times don’t really look like the final object they are meant to be (there’s definitely a stretch of the imagination on some of them).   

The core game revolves around four stories and each story has a set of puzzles to complete over different sized grids. Unfortunately, the core gameplay never changes things around except for the grid sizes so it really does start to drag towards the end and eventually the game overstays its welcome. 

I think with a few tweaks this could have been an even better puzzle game. It’s still worth a play if you’re into puzzle games, you may find yourself getting addicted to the simple nature of the game. 

7/10 

I’d like to see some sort of rotation, although it doesn’t have to be exactly like I said. You’ve raised some good ideas too so any variation of those would be good.

I just figured with such a small group that it would be good to get a good variety of people’s tastes.

I agree that if you put a movie up for nomination and it gets selected you have to have a small intro about it and maybe some facts about it if you know any or do some quick googling. 

Faster Pussycat KILL KILL! is my recommendation.

Should we make a rule that once you get a movie selection you have to wait until everyone has a go? That way we can get a good spread of movies and everyone feels included.

3 hours ago, a3quit4s said:

I dunno man I see a couple in this list like Minecraft for sure, I’ve never played it personally but that doesn’t stop me from denying its impact on gaming and society in general. GTAIII set a standard from what we expect from games that is still being adhered to today; not just the gameplay open world stuff - the dialogue, music, and that feeling you could be watching a movie instead of playing a game. Halo for sure had an impact on me, especially from a multiplayer perspective and what was possible on console for multiplayer. Halo 2 gave rise to Xbox Live and that impact lives on today though and I think CounterStrike before Halo set the standard for first person shooters for me. I feel like Metal Gear Solid 4 should at least be spoken about here and also StarCraft 2 which laid the foundation for esports imo. I don’t think I could just settle on one game there are so many that had huge impacts 

Yeah all those games are definitely important. I’m actually surprised no one has mentioned a COD game yet.

Minecraft is a good one and probably my second choice. I also thought MS were crazy when they paid what they did for it but they have made that game into a whole other beast. My nephews are hooked on it and they’re 6 and 7 so they’ve managed to extend it to another generation of kids. 

3 hours ago, fcgamer said:

At the end of the day, English has become somewhat trendy in other parts of the world, almost a fashion. Sometimes I sense it might be used to "show off" as if to say "Hey, I can speak another language with great fluency". I hear this sometimes on the local radio station here in Taiwan, or even sometimes when people speak Chinese, throwing in English phrases here or there, especially if they notice a foreigner is nearby.

Yes this is 100% a perfect summary of one of the main reasons the Japanese (and a lot of other foreign languages) do it. It’s seen as interesting, cool, smart, in fashion or whatever other adjective you want to use.

It’s funny that you mention about Taiwanese throwing in English words or speaking English when they notice a foreigner is near them. This exact same thing happens in South America. I’ve walked around rural areas where they’re speaking Spanish but then they’ll see me who is as pale and white and they come with my South American wife and they’ll instantly start throwing in English words while looking my way. My wife says it is very common for South Americans to do that when they see English speaking foreigners. So it’s interesting to hear the same happens in Taiwan.

Language is such a fascinating thing and I wish I had the time to study linguistics like yourself. For now, studying Japanese keeps me busy enough though 

42 minutes ago, fox said:

Still need to play this, it's Shadow of the Colossus right? That's a good one.

12 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

GTA3 is my dog. I couldn't even believe that game was possible coming off of Driver and GT2 on PS. You might as well have beamed me directly into Ready Player One's VR world.

Oblivion is a big runner up for me. It's a big 3D sandbox RPG landmark. It was a big shift in game design from last gen. You never need to think in Oblivion. You load up on quests, follow the quest markers, and zone out for 300 hours of a guided dopamine tour. And Horse Armor was a landmark DLC, the snowball that began rolling down the mountain in the avalanche of garbage video games are today. You can broadly divide games into Before Oblivion ("The Good Games") and After Oblivion ("The Bad Games").

I was thinking of Oblivion and horse armour. Crazy how one decision has lead to the DLC/micro transaction hellscape we live in today.

As we slowly march towards games being made more in the 21st century vs the 20th century more and more games from the 21st century are starting to earn the title of being an influential game. Which game do you think is the most important of the 21st century (Jan 1st 2001 onwards) so far?

For me it probably would have to be GTAIII, that game has had a huge impact on current games and it expanded on the open world nature of gaming.

4 minutes ago, RH said:

Many decades ago, when the internet was not afraid to be non-PC, there was a site called "Engrish.com" and I think it might have even been a part of the "Cheezburger Network", which was a series of sites that made most of the images we call memes today.  This was back around 2001, or so.  Anyway, Engrish.com was dedicated to all of the random English words that are, and were, posted all over Japan, often with no contextual relation to whatever "thing" it was stamped on.

I recall they had a FAQ page and, supposedly, the site was ran by a Japanese-American who could speak both English and Japanese with high-proficiency.  According to him and his personal knowledge, it's not much different than someone getting a tattoo with a Chinese or Japanese character or two that says something meaningful to that person.  Except, in Japan, they put a LOT more English everywhere and it's less about what it says and more the aesthetic of having English plastered on something.  Often the context works, but other times, the context is wrong and potentially funny... much like someone who has "Soup" tattooed on them, rather than "Hope", but in Japanese.

Assuming that information is correct, there's probably an element of that desire when they put the English name on these boxes--they simply like English and the way it looks.  Keep in mind, they tend to only do this with English and, from my observation, it's American English too, not British English.

If I had to guess a reason why English is singled out, it probably goes all the way back to the General McArthur era when the Japanese people gained a deep since of respect and appreciation for America when we helped re-establish them as a prosperous nation and we then became strong allies with them.  In other words, they probably like English for the same reason several generations obsessed with Mickey Mouse--it represents a lot of good after a very tragic era.

Yep this is 100% it.

It is done for style and look, especially with JRPG's because they are often based around English fantasy or medieval history. 

7 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

PTSD maybe.  

Oh yeah if you work in tech you will spend the whole series relating somehow. Especially if you worked in Silicon Valley or deal with companies/work for companies that do.

22 hours ago, OptOut said:

The VGS interface is inarguably worse! Everywhere I go there's a damn floating banner following me around and calling me an idiot! 

Any good results? Asking for a friend  

On 4/30/2024 at 9:52 AM, Reed Rothchild said:

I started Silicon Valley and it's stressing me out.  That never happens to me with movies or shows.

In what way? Loved that show, not many like it get released.

5 hours ago, Goodvibes said:

Anyone have a list like this for 360? Preferably in excel.

Best list I’ve seen. The guy who wrote it has a full US set as well: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XvrA3ewQkJ06AW3_stzOrTW5NvZecVc2acQHcPSYD7U/htmlview

2 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

 

The Museum of the Moving Image in New York has video game exhibits with things like Pong, Pac-man, Magnavox Odyssey, Spacewar, etc. I feel like I'd be about 100 times more likely to see a Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt cartridge in an actual museum than some weird spray painted gold magazine prize.

Maybe when if any of these collectors making museums find a financially viable way to get people to care about their RCA Studio II set I'll be wrong one day.

I am talking about the normal NWC not the gold. The gold doesn’t have the same meaning as the grey because it wasn’t used in the actual competition so I can see why it wouldn’t be in a museum.

I’ve been to a couple of gaming museums but they were in Europe. They didn’t have a NWC but they did have some rare items there.

12 minutes ago, Ankos said:

Maybe Swordquest? I'm pretty sure it had competition carts too

I hadn’t heard of this one but it sounds epic. Although the article I read said the competition never finished and some of the prizes have an unknown location.

I’m sure Atari nuts would be all over it if they ever did finish it and had a significant prize to show for it. 

5 hours ago, T-Pac said:

That's fair - I can certainly appreciate the historical significance, but I don't think I'll ever understand why people value it so highly, especially relative to other competition and prize games.

I've gotta practice what I preach, though - and just let people enjoy stuff without trying to say they're wrong for valuing things differently than I do haha.

[T-Pac]

It’s because it was an absolutely huge video game event that very rarely happens and especially not of that size. I don’t even live in America but nothing like that would ever happen here. It also happened on Nintendo’s first console which adds to the historical significance.

Zoom out 50 years from now. Hardly anyone is going to even care about most of the NES library, but sitting in gaming museums will definitely be a NWC telling the history of a huge gaming event. This is why people value it so highly.

Which other events have been as big and significant as NWC? I know of the Famicom one thanks to defaultgen but I’m not aware of anything quite as huge as NWC or the Famicom competition. Especially in the early days of gaming.

Also, it’s good to question people about why they think a certain way. It creates discussion. You don’t have to agree but at least we can have a friendly back and forth  

This is fake I would say. The GBA colours on the left look off and the Nintendo seal is also in the wrong place. There’s probably a lot more.

I also agree with Tyree that the seal doesn’t look legit.

I’d personally stay away from this.

6 hours ago, T-Pac said:

Yeah - there's a middleground for me, too. Recca might make my list because it has gameplay value AND collectable value to me. But it could just as easily be ousted by a dirt-common game that I want - because with only a limited number of slots to fill, "collectability" doesn't hold as much weight.

And I guess it makes more of a difference for me personally because, since I don't pirate games, if I don't own a title I'll likely never get to play it.

[T-Pac]

"Cool for a purpose" is the operative phrase that I 100% agree with, but get confused about how it applies to certain high-end stuff like NWC. Sure, plenty of people genuinely think it's cool, but just as many only see it as the "must have" game because other people have convinced them to think that way (when they wouldn't have otherwise). I mean, if you actually participated in the competition back in 1990, an NWC cart would be the best thing ever. But otherwise it's basically some 90s kid's video-game equivalent of a little-league participation trophy...

I'll admit to some hypocrisy on that point, though. I'd love to have a genuine prototype in my collection, even though I have no involvement in the game's development. But I would only want a proto of a game that I love (hence the personal value over hype value argument), and I don't see a proto making my "only 5" list when there are so many games I'd rather own AND play.

[T-Pac]

I think the NWC is interesting because it’s a piece of video game history. It’s literally something that should be in a video game museum. Although I personally only think Thor’s NWC is worth having because he was the winner. 

Retail games don’t have the same feeling to them. 

13 hours ago, Sumez said:

I'm not sure there was ever a "pre internet guides" era for Pokemon  The English version came out in 1998. Hell, I played it on emulation while it was still only available in Japanese

6 pokemen might be harder than 1. Because my approach the first time I played the first game, was just exclusively using the one I picked in the intro, and for at least the last two thirds of the game, it'd already grown so strong it would just stomp all over anything it fought before they could do anything, no challenge at all.

I'll try to elaborate. It might come across like a jab at fans of the games, but it's really just my impression of them.

A lot of the games I play (maybe even a majority?) are games that are definitely designed with kids in mind, and occasionally as the primary audience, which as you say is definitely the case with older games, since kids were the only people really playing video games then. But there's absolutely no reason a game made for kids in that context can't be a great game, with a ton of depth, challenge and well designed, fun gameplay.

But Pokémon conversely feels designed not around just being approachable for kids, but pretty much requiring you to be a kid.
I've actually given the games a pretty fair shake! I played through all of the original when the English language version came out, and I've played the GBA remake all the way through much more recently, as well as one of the GBA sequels. I also got one of the DS games when it came out, curious to see how the series had evolved, but gave up not too far into it out of boredom.
But regardless of all my time spent with the series, and me really wanting to like them, I've always felt my ability to have any fun with them was completely hindered by my frame of reference, comparisons to much better games, and expectations of a game's core gameplay to be at least a little bit engaging.

Pokémon instead hinges entirely of that feeling of compulsion that you get from finding additional creatures to fill out a stupidly large compendium (which can only be filled by giving in to a stupid marketing ploy of crossing multiple simultaneous but nearly identical releases). I could see that being really engaging if I were a kid, but as an adult with plenty of other things to play, I just can't be bothered.

Outside of the games themselves, I think there's a whole microcosm of various other things that helped make the franchise appealing which, once again, would bypass you completely if you were older than 13 or so at the time.
Like a line of toys, playing cards - and the cartoon (which is absolutely 100% a kiddie cartoon) especially was instrumental to Pokemon being a success at all in my part of the world at least.
And finally of course, there's the aspect of trading and fighting pokemans with other kids, which was one of the primary aspects used to sell the game. Again, this is something I've never been able to participate in on account of being too old for that when the game came out (and even then it took a couple more years for the series to actually get any traction at all around here).

I don’t agree at all with what you said but at least you gave the games a go instead of instantly dismissing them because you think they’re for kids.

17 minutes ago, TDIRunner said:

Guitar Hero Aerosmith is complete.  This was my first time ever playing this game, and therefore, first time beating it.  This is also the first new game I've beaten for this thread.  

I started GH3 tonight and I'm about 1/4 of the way in.  I've also ordered GH Rock the 80s from @Hammerfestus, so when that one arrives, I will play through that one as well.

 

What are your thoughts on it? I’ve been picking up Japanese 360 games for super cheap and they got a couple of the GH games in Japan. I only played 1 and 2 so was interested to maybe check this one out too.

10. Played it this year for my backlog so I won’t repeat myself. A must play for RTS fans who haven’t played it.

51 minutes ago, RH said:

Regardless, Nintendo has to give the stamp of approval on these games. 

You are definitely in the minority if you think RPG games created by second or third parties for Nintendo that get their stamp of approval aren’t very good or uninspired. But this site is well known for bonkers hot takes, so it doesn’t surprise me 

18 minutes ago, RH said:

Well, I know this will be a hot take but other than the Paper Mario games, Nintendo can't seem to make an RPG that I neither enjoy or feel isn't uninspired.  Even for the Paper Mario series, the appeal is largely playing an RPG in the Mario universe.  If it were some other generic theme, I wouldn't enjoy it.

I'm not saying RPGs have to be complex to be good but, eh... Nintendo needs to do a bit more work in their storytelling for me to really get pulled into their RPGs.

The ironic thing is that some series like Metroid tell fantastic stories and those games have used little to no dialog to get the point across.

Not trying to be funny, but I can’t think of a Nintendo made RPG. Paper Mario was made by Intelligent Systems. Pokemon is made by Game Freak. Fire Emblem is also Intelligent Systems.