- I wonder if this is a wind-up to the Lunar 0 Kei Shigema & co. want to make. (No one will acknowledge the news in that interview, despite the translation being around for over a year.)
Someone says the SSS opening theme isn't sung by Jennifer Stigile. Someone on Tumblr says, though, that posts from Leo's VA's son (all right, grain of salt with that tortured provenance, but) are suggesting that at least some of the rest of the original Working Designs crew's back. This plus the use of some of Working Designs' original scripts signals Victor Ireland's involvement in the remaster.
IIRC, Victor Ireland was mad at Stigile at singing for the U.S. PSP version. Stigile's absence from her iconic vocal work indicates that Ireland has blackballed her. I've championed Ireland's legacy in gaming in the past, which has been elided to an extent due to some understandable hard feelings about how he treated some people in the WD heyday. The absence of Stigile, though, gives me added pause about Ireland helming a production today.
Never mind. I read confusion about this point elsewhere after posting this, so I listened to the snippet in the video, and it sounds like Stigile to me.
Never mind never mind: regardless of whether it's Stigile in the song or not, we're getting an all-new English dub. I don't have my hopes up.
Also, I'd forgotten in my absence how much of an iconic pairing the Lunar fan community and misinformation are. Reminder: don't trust any info without receipts!
ETA: What is with the spidery, ultra-thin font? The dialogue boxes are translucent, and the letters get lost among the colorful backgrounds and chunky pixels. I know I'm in clear gift-horse territory, but between this and the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, why has it become so difficult to choose easy-to-read, context-appropriate fonts for remakes of classic RPGs? Why have we lost this ability, as a species?
As you've probably heard, romhacking.net has imploded. At least, that's what I've heard; the site still seems to be up as of this writing, but the claim I read most recently is that downloads and new patches are not going to be hosted. The current content seems to consist of brief news articles about patch releases combined with "Relevant Link"s. Someone at what remains of the site threw its entire content up on archive.org, but, um, a) it's an 11.7-gig download, b) it's not getting rave reviews for its organization, and c) there's a rash of user complaints about trojans that, er, are not being addressed in a reassuring manner ("if you don't have the stomach to handle false positives and MAYBE a malicious file or two").
But at least one patch is safe: a kind soul contacted me offering to house the Phantasy Star III retranslation patch put together by romhacker Peaches with help from lory1990. It is up on FlamePurge's page!
This reminds me, actually, that I haven't looked at the PSIII patch to see if the script was edited. It'd be a small thing, as my script files are here. ROM script editing is an issue that's been on my mind as of late.
Fans of the games watching the Dead by Daylight x Castlevania livestream: LEON! Um, that one Ayami Kojima Dracula design from that one PlayStation game no one cares about! SIMON!
Fans of the show watching: Who are these people?
ETA: CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENT FROM BEHAVIOUR: "We chose Trevor because he is...the ultimate Belmont." I don't know how Nocturne's going, but in the games, I'd argue Richter's set up for that title, weakness to cream pies (not that kind) (that we know) notwithstanding.
NON-CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENT FROM BEHAVIOUR: "Everyone should play Symphony of the Night at least once."ETA: 2 EXTREMELY CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENT FROM BEHAVIOUR: Shanoa gets just a costume for another character?! (Yui, but still.)
(The Nurse as Death is good, though.)
Also, I'm not sure the TV fans watching knew The Thing about Soma the stream casually spoiled.
Costumes announced so far: An Alucard alt; Leon, Simon, and Soma costumes for Trevor (not the deluxe costumes that are actually separate characters, like Alucard; it's still Trevor's face and voice - it's like he's cosplaying); Castlevania Chronicles and Rondo of Blood costumes (both his final demon boss form and this one; I didn't recognize it at first; I originally thought it was based on Malus) for Dracula; and Sypha, Maria, Shanoa, Jonathan Morris, and Death costumes for original characters (again, for these voices & faces aren't changed) . Some of these have delayed release dates.
FIELD REPORT: I can't with this Alucard. His hair is poofy, and his build is too willowy, even for Alucard. And the voice is outright whiny. I watched a few snippets of the show to see if it was the show voice; it isn't, but I'm not fond of the show voice either.
The motion of his cloak while he's running is very Symphony, though.
A FEW DAYS LATER:
- I was going to make a crack that they should have gotten Xenomorph Rocket Sled Dracula from Curse of the Moon, but, lo and behold, they did use Xenomorph Rocket Sled Dracula! The final boss form they took wasn't from Rondo of Blood! I didn't recognize him without his Xenomorph rocket sled. Man, Curse of the Moon and Castlevania Chronicles: good job on the deep cuts, Behaviour.
- While the streamers I watch are going up against wall-to-wall Dracs, I haven't seen much of Mr. Cronqvist myself. A couple nights ago, I wanted to see what Detective David Tapp made of this Dracula nonsense, but Dracula was nowhere to be found in the five matches I played. In the last match, though, Tapp did team with a Claudette to body-block for a Trevor that had run the Unknown we were against for the last gen-plus. (Honestly, though, Trevor, you didn't have to teabag at the exit. You picked up some bad habits in a very short period of time.)
- Speaking of Trevor: From his voice lines and demeanor, this is a very straightforward incarnation of him, all stalwart, heroic Belmont, with none of the cockiness from later games. I was going to express concern that fans of the show would probably revolt at this version of the character.
- Instead, there seems to be a lot of complaining that Alucard can't just merc every killer he faces. (Everyone expressing this idea on the subreddit is completely confident that they are the first and only person who has thought of it.) Yeah, but, say, a Xenomorph wouldn't be stopped by a wooden pallet, either. You have to make some accommodations to fit the characters into the game. It's all for fun. You can't take it too seriously. Behaviour certainly isn't, because:
- If you play as Trevor or Alucard after buying the DLC with cash money and cleanse one of the killer's "totems" - an activity that typically involves disassembling a small pile of bones that usually materializes near a wall on a map - you'll hear the "stage clear" NES jingle, and you'll get this charm in your inventory with which to decorate your character:
Whiny Alucard or not, this is a good chapter.
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