#its extremely 'mediocre anime dub'-coded

[memorys-skyscraper]

now hang on

man im watching clips of y8 with the eng dub and its uh. i mean, kasuga and chitose sound alright? robbie daymond makes a decent zhao too (and can sing, damn), but the rest...............

[archoneddzs15]

Nintendo Game Cube - Sonic Mega Collection

Title: Sonic Mega Collection / ソニック メガコレクション

Developer/Publisher: Sega (Sonic Team) / VR-1 Japan

Release date: 19 December 2002

Catalogue Code: DOL-GSOJ-JPN

Genre: Compilation / Variety

You know of the first four Sonic games already - good platformers. These are presented in mostly their original form, except for a few graphical modifications. These do not affect the overall experience, and die-hard fans should not be put off. Sonic Spinball is a slightly mediocre game - imagine the pinball areas in the Casino Night levels of Sonic 2, with the difficulty upped and the gameplay quality lowered - this one's an acquired taste (I personally hated it as much as that Dinoland game from Wolfteam).

Mean Bean Machine is excellent - this is just Puyo Puyo with a Western twist, and the Sonic license slapped on to make it sell. Flicky may be off-putting due to the dated graphics (I'm not kidding - I played it 2 times on my Mega CD already) but is an addictive game which originally started back in the arcades in 1984. Ristar is the best game on the disc, but you probably didn't know that this was there. Do you know why? Because in Sega's infinite wisdom, the company has chosen to lock it out until you start every other game 50 times. Personally, I think that the people putting the disc together thought they were funny.

One HUGE scar on the surface of this pretty little optical disc - NO SONIC CD: the best 16-bit Sonic game ever (IMO) has been sadly not included in the compilation due to hardware emulation difficulties (the game was on the Mega CD; a port of the 1996 PC version would be included in Sonic Gems Collection). Knuckles' Chaotix (32X) is also missing, and while I miss it, I don't see this as a huge problem.

Visually, the games still look great. Of course, they have technically aged, with the possible exception of Ristar - its use of the Genesis hardware and its extreme colorfulness make it too hard to criticize. (Make sure you're using the RGB cable, or if you live in North America, the next best thing, is S-Video - or Component if you can afford it!) The audio's also hard to fault. Some of the menu songs on Spinball are so grating you'll wanna put your TV on mute (thanks a lot, GEMS sound driver!). But the catchy songs of the other games (Chemical Plant in Sonic 2, anyone? Starlight Zone in the original?) are still good after all those years.

Oh, and the Japanese disc also includes The Ooze and Comix Zone. I liked Comix Zone's music. Despite using GEMS, the music is strangely awesome.

Along with these classic games, Sonic Mega Collection has some extras up its sleeve. Remember the lovely Sonic CD anime intro which we also got to see in Sonic Jam on the Saturn? Well, you probably would, if that game was on this disc. On the Mega CD, the frame rate was poor, the video size was tiny, and the colors were nasty. But it was a stunning intro. The PC version of Sonic CD lets fans see the intro in its proper colors. Squashed into a tiny window and badly resized (read: pixilated!) Sonic Jam came closer, but Sonic Mega Collection finally lets us see the intro (and ending sequence) in broadcast quality, full screen, full speed. The sequence was animated by Toei Animation, who I believe is also to blame for "Digimon", and is stunning. This version has the American music "Sonic, You Can Do Anything" dubbed over the original Japanese rap song, but in all honesty, I prefer the American version as far as the one in this disc is concerned.

It's not perfect though. A graphical smoothing option on the emulator would have been nice like is available on PC emulators. The rest of the movies are cop-outs. Rather than giving us the selection of TV commercials on Sonic Jam, Sega has decided to give us advertisements for current and upcoming games. Oh, and a really bad "History of Sonic" video, nowhere near as good as Sonic Jam's museum section. There are also lots of comic cover scans, some of which are nice, but because these are the American Archie comics, some are painful too.

Overall, Sonic Mega Collection is worth picking up, considering how many titles you're getting on one disc. The fact that Sonic CD isn't included is a huge kick in the stones, but considering Ristar is here (albeit in a nearly impossible-to-unlock form), as well as other classic Sonic games, movies, and illustrations, it's hard not to recommend.

[joeriley121]

In case the text on my blog is too shitty to read. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TRUSVH7cGn4bDf-2D6Q2516X4W64NDDCWm5PZ31FNMo/edit?usp=sharing

Arc System Works should make a new Sailor Moon fighting game. The SFC one is a classic in its own right, still being played in tournaments to this day, though it very much shows its age as being a fighter from the mid-nineties. The proceeding Sailor Moon fighting games for the 3DO/PS1/and Saturn were ultimately garbage and critically panned as such. In a way,  this mirrors the history of Dragon Ball fighting games in this era.  Toriyama's iconic franchise saw its own classic titles such as 'Hyper Dimension' and 'Super Butouden 2' flourish in the 16 Bit era, while largely tapering into mediocrity in the 32-Bit era with titles like 'Final Bout.' Ever since Dragon Ball titles have fluctuated in quality, up until the recent release of 'Dragon Ball FighterZ', a game developed by Arc System works. In this essay, I shall discuss into the history of the prolific Fighting game developer, Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z in the west, and go further into detail on why I believe Sailor Moon is a perfect property for Arc System Works for which to base a fighting game upon.

Arc System Works was founded in 1988 under the name of Arc Co., Ltd, largely consisting of former Sega developers. Their early games were largely ports of varying quality, contracted by larger developers such as their former bosses at Sega. Their first non-port job was developing all but the audio for a Capcom contracted NES title by the name of 'Code Name: Viper.' In 1992, Arc System works would be contracted to develop the first ever Sailor Moon video game for the original Gameboy. Little information exists about the title on the English speaking web, though it could best be described as a hybrid platformer adventure game. It likely sold surprisingly well, if only due to the recognizable license at the time, and Arc System Works was brought on for further projects. At the tail end of 1994, Arc  System works released the first Sailor Moon fighting game for the Super Famicom, published by Banpresto. At the beginning of this essay, I mentioned 'The SFC Sailor Moon Fighting game.' However, this was technically incorrect. I was actually referring to the second Sailor Moon fighting game developed, which was largely an update to the aforementioned game, which came out in March of 1996, two years before the company would make a name for itself with the first Guilty Gear game. Two other fighting games based on Sailor Moon were produced, one in 1995 for the 3DO and another in 1996 for the PS1 and Saturn, though neither were developed by Arc System works, which no doubt contributed to the relative lack of quality. After 1996, Arc System works would never revisit the Sailor Moon brand, mostly becoming well known for the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue franchises, as well as the 'Family' series of shovelware for the Wii.

It goes without saying that Sailor Moon very much played a large role in Arc System Works early days, and it's very possible that the previous success with Sailor Moon fighting games had some influence on Arc's president green lighting Daisuke Ishiwatari's idea to make a 'Street Fighter-like game.' Of course, that said, Arc System works has had a little bit of experience with making fighting games for the Dragon Ball Franchise even prior to FighterZ. In 2004, they developed 'Dragon Ball Supersonic Warriors' for the GBA, also putting out a sequel to the game in 2005. More recently, in 2015, Arc developed 'Dragon Ball Z Extreme Butoden' for the Nintendo 3DS, a return to form of sorts to the Super Butoden series of Dragon Ball Fighting games for the Super Famicom. Of course, during the 2000s, Dragon Ball had exploded in popularity in the west, giving it an international appeal that Sailor Moon never quite grew to. While Sailor Moon did have a significant following in the 90s in the west, the series was censored even more heavily than Dragon Ball outside of Japan and was largely targeted at young girls and women, with the English dub meant to work as sort of a 'girls version' of the popular 'Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers' series, whereas most game developers at the time were trying to pander to young boys and men. Dragon Ball grew a larger audience in the west thanks to its syndication on Cartoon Network's Toonami block. Sailor Moon largely faded from the public consciousness in the west, while Dragon Ball was kept alive. This was largely due to video games and the popularization of the internet and sites such as youtube, allowing the spread of fan content and even various media that had only been officially released in Japan, perhaps most notably the animated special 'Yo! Son Goku and his Friends Return!!' which featured the first new official Dragon Ball animation in years, which likely helped lead to the development of 'Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods' and subsequently 'Dragon Ball Super.'

Around the time that 'Yo! Son Goku and his Friends Return!!' was released, Sailor Moon was resurging in popularity in Japanese territories, being rebroadcast. Unfortunately, this didn't translate to much popularity in the west, aside from Italy, which in 2010 received an Italian Language dub, and in 2011, the last non-mobile Sailor Moon game was released for the DS exclusively in the territory. However, this was almost a decade ago at the time of writing. In 2014, the Sailor Moon Crystal web anime began airing, as well the premiere of Viz's redub of the original anime series, which is still going on as of the writing of this, which is one of the biggest reasons I propose that a new Sailor Moon game be developed by Arc System Works, as I have no doubt that after the success of FighterZ,  Arc System works would be able to bring the series back into relevance in the west, which would be a great thing not only for the series, but for Arc System Works and the fighting game community as a whole.

While Sailor Moon's SFC outing is still played at tourneys today by prolific players such as Tokido, it's far from a popular game and there are plenty of people in the scene who aren't even aware of the game's existence. No doubt a new title by Arc would spark some interest in the older game, though it would also serve for a title of significant importance for the FGC. While I know this is the part of the essay one might decide to derail me for sounding like an 'SJW cuck,' while the FGC is known as a very racially diverse community, it has come under fire a fair few times for misogyny (And often rightfully so). This is very apparent often times in the games themselves, playing up female sex appeal to a ridiculous degree, most notably in titles such as the Dead or Alive series which in and of itself has spun-off into a series selling itself /entirely/ off of sex appeal. A large scale fighting game with a franchise that is so well known for its depiction of empowered women would do well for the communities image, and hopefully even ostracize some of the more sexist members of the community, such as those who complained at the idea that Mortal Kombat X would feature more realistically proportioned women or those who defended the infamous words of Aris Bakhtanians back in 2012.  Ultimately, I believe a Sailor Moon game would be a great boon to the community and Arc Sys as a whole, the ultimate question is which style of Arc Sys game would we want to see. A BlazBlue style 2D game? A Guilty Gear style 3D game? Or perhaps a tag team game done in the style of FighterZ, fitting with the series focus on teamwork and camaraderie?

Of course, it's very easy to think that another developer could take a crack at the series and do it justice, such as SNK or perhaps a smaller studio. Though no other company has ever managed to capture the magic of an anime series in a fighting game quite like Arc System Works. Be it understanding and studying Dragon Ball to the point of creating scenes in jaw-dropping cel-shaded 3D that are near indistinguishable from the anime and manga themselves, or faithfully recreating iconic attacks from Hokuto no Ken in sublime 2D sprite work, no one can do anime games quite like Arc System works, and the fall into obscurity that Sailor Moon games have suffered since Arc dropped them is, in my mind at least, clear evidence of this.