So, I did a bunch of reviews for the PS series.

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Re: So, I did a bunch of reviews for the PS series.

Postby Tanith » Thu Dec 4, '14, 5:05 pm

Oy, PSIII's music. Excellent score, excellent themes, absolutely horrible instrumentation. I understand why (I think) they used the chiming sounds, as it suggests clocks and the passage of time (a primary theme in PSIII), but this:

BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG

Does not work as a soundtrack.
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Re: So, I did a bunch of reviews for the PS series.

Postby Bragatyr » Thu Dec 4, '14, 6:44 pm

I actually like the bells! One of my favorite themes is the Laya's Temple one. It's definitely neat that they used the sound so extensively in the soundtrack, gives it a unique, crystalline feel (like in the intro). My biggest issue is with the generally muddled lower tones, like in the battle "theme". I use quotation marks because that is one of the worst tracks I've ever heard in a video game.

Speaking of the music, I was just checking out the soundtrack on Youtube, and discovered that it's back up, in individual tracks! I am rejoicing. For months I've been having to use Audacity to get small snippets of music for the purpose of transcribing it, which is tedious. Maybe now I can actually get around to doing more PS III covers.
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Re: So, I did a bunch of reviews for the PS series.

Postby Tanith » Thu Dec 4, '14, 7:15 pm

Sorry to continue this tangent, but the cave/dungeon theme in PSIII: does the melody sometimes disappear for anyone else? Sometimes it's nothing but the accompaniment for me. Oh well, it's the one I mute the most because it is awful. It sounds like creep show music.
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Re: So, I did a bunch of reviews for the PS series.

Postby Hukos » Thu Dec 4, '14, 8:56 pm

I'm in the camp that hates the bells. The tracks I do like don't really have the bells or at least don't use them that much.

Laya's World is obviously the best track in the game.
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Re: So, I did a bunch of reviews for the PS series.

Postby Zio_Falz » Thu Dec 4, '14, 9:26 pm

PSIII as a whole, has great tunes. More good than bad. To think it was 1991 and they have what almost sounds piano-ish for the shops, coming out of a Sega Genesis' FM chip. Or the Intro theme itself, I remember the intro text saying the word "Epic" to describe the adventure, and truly it is an epic tune to start off the game. The tranquil town music. Or Lashute's sinister theme when you finally get to the end of said adventure.

Granted the music did get funky at times--If you go straight to the Fortune teller in the beginning, it is a rather dissonant song playing. Downright Chaotic. And then there is the battle music, where theres 3 or 4 different battle tunes, but each loops after about 5 seconds of airtime making for an annoying repetition of sounds. Laya's Temple+the music for the Sattellites---I can also do without.
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Re: So, I did a bunch of reviews for the PS series.

Postby Icecypher » Fri Dec 5, '14, 6:55 pm

I just read a good portion of the PS III review. I will not read the PS and PS TEOTM reviews (at least for some time) for the same reason I skip most things related to those games. I still have not played them (or enough of them).

I am surprised at how much I agree with most of your points (even though I hate the way the battle music sounds, I love the bells and all the parts where they are used).

I think I went to the classic games knowing the "story" would be a few sentences scattered through the entire game. And that I would have to complete the story by reading what all the NPCs had to say.

In this state of mind, I was ready to make my mind fill in whatever was not explicitly there, which makes the game very attractive to me. A friend on deviantART just commented on how I must love PS II, because of all the fan art I am creating for it in a (relatively) short time, and I replied that I could do things in the illustrations that I imagined while playing the game, but were not fleshed out in it. I also mentioned that I do not seem to get that motivation to draw things from more recent games, which is due to a combination of things already have been presented in the game in a very graphically detailed manner, so there is little sense on drawing them again, and because everybody else is already creating fan art for them, so the games have enough attention and do not need more.

So things like the first protagonist having a reason to marry Lena were not a problem for me, because I knew the reason was there. In any event, marrying Marina, whom he just met, was more of a shocker. He could still go and free her from the "monster" that kidnapped her, which is what a hero and a gentleman (or heroine and gentlewoman, too) would do, without needing to be in love with her as a motivation.

Also, I am in my first playthrough, so the fact all the other third generation heroes become obsolete by living the same story is still not something I have experienced.

I even made my mind ignore the fact that even I hate the monster designs AND (worst of all) their (short) animations. I hated the rappy groups at the start of the game (mainly because their constant 1HP attacks in large volumes put a dent on my hero's health), too, but the monsters kept getting worse and worse. But I liked the characters enough, so I may have thought to leave monsters out of any pics I create, and then simply stopped thinking rageful thoughts whenever I saw them. I still do not like them (and never will) but started ignoring them without noticing it.

So I am not one to defend the game, since any defense I may have mentioned, you already brought up in your own review. In any case, this was interesting for me since it made me think about my own instant-editing of what the game is and what I take from it.

Then again, I have years of experience with that. I can read the text of Dragon Quest II's spells doing x amount of HP damage, and my mind sees fire/wind/explosion effects instead, with a manga-style full battle going on. So it should not be such a shock that I would do the same with PS III.

Edit: I have not read the review of PS II. I will as soon as I get more time (if it is as long as this one, I will need it).

Also, who are you to call people "lazy"? You are just a lazy F-tard yourself. :yuck: :neenerneener: :misspeak: :? :lol: :proposetoast:
Last edited by Icecypher on Fri Dec 5, '14, 6:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: So, I did a bunch of reviews for the PS series.

Postby Hukos » Fri Dec 5, '14, 11:40 pm

I kind of want to leave this conversation with you where it is, I don't feel like we're getting anywhere but there are a couple of points I want to address.

Parma Ham wrote:
But if someone says "this thing was made by a lazy person", I don't just buy into that. Laziness is a character flaw. Accusing someone of laziness in their work implies that they're negligent, and that they did poorly because they didn't care, were selfish, etc. If someone does poorly at something DESPITE having put their whole heart and soul into it, and some other person decides to call their results "lazy", I'd say that's unfair and insulting. If someone is accused of laziness, the accuser should have to provide proof unless it's truly self-evident. Otherwise, it just harms the reputation of the accused. And I'm not saying there needs to be "forensic evidence" for you to be able to make the claim, but you've got to present a reasonable, persuasive argument. I don't think you did.


As far as I'm concerned, I did present a reasonable argument, but you know, opinions.

That sounds more like abuse than a personal attack. But whatever--you can call anything you want whatever you please. That's not my point. My point is, in part, that real damage can be done to someone's reputation by people who aren't careful about what they say.


If that's abuse, then I know extremely abusive 5 year old children. That kind of thing happens all the time in my experience. To me, its not really that big of a deal.

I just wanted to add in my thoughts to that, but I don't really feel like carrying on this conversation further since I feel its gotten somewhat toxic.
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