Historical accuracy in video games...

[Malacite]

Re: Historical accuracy in video games...

Bahamut is stretching things actually, as even before D&D he's some kind of ancient 2-headed fish God IIRC.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Historical accuracy in video games...

Bahamut is stretching things actually, as even before D&D he's some kind of ancient 2-headed fish God IIRC.

Yes, we know, that's what we've been talking about:

Then there's also Tiamat, the Babylonian goddess of the Ocean who is a dragon in most FF games. There is also Bahamut, a giant fish who carried the world in Arabic Mythology who somehow becomes king of the dragons in Final Fantasy.

Blame D&D for Tiamat and Bahamut, actually.

Bahamut as a dragon is derived from D&D. I assume some tweaks were made to these mythological characters to keep those nutty RL roleplayers from doing something stupid like going into bodies of water with armor on. Not that roleplaying with weapons was safe anyway, but hey, some at least kept it to to more mundane things like wooden swords and such.

[Malacite]

Re: Historical accuracy in video games...

tl;dr =3

Just wanted to say again what an awesome game Hotel Dusk is lol.

[Armando]

Re: Historical accuracy in video games...

Bahamut as a dragon is derived from D&D. I assume some tweaks were made to these mythological characters to keep those nutty RL roleplayers from doing something stupid like going into bodies of water with armor on. Not that roleplaying with weapons was safe anyway, but hey, some at least kept it to to more mundane things like wooden swords and such.

Aww come on. For starters I don't think anyone bothers making sure their game is real life RP retard-proof, and besides that, if I were a roleplayer and was prepping for a nautical encounter, I'd make buoyant armor and say a wizard made it.

[Malacite]

Re: Historical accuracy in video games...

I think it's a matter of striking the right balance of Fantasy with Reality.

Is it realistic for characters like Kain to leap 50 feet into the air wearing full plate? Hell no, but it's cool as shit! It's also not that hard to imagine; he could just be that strong.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Historical accuracy in video games...

OK, Hotel Dusk did botch the pager a little, in Hyde's inventory you can see his pager. It has an LCD display on the topside. They didn't have those back then.

[Firewind]

Re: Historical accuracy in video games...

Hotel Dusk does look interesting. I'm in need of DS games to play since the only games I ever play on it anymore are Pokemon Platinum, FFV, Pokemon Emerald and Golden Sun: The Lost Age only one of which is even a DS game. I have taken a liking to Elite Beat Agents though so I might pick up a copy of that.

In either FF7 or 8 Odin does have a javelin when you summon him to fight a boss.

Technically he throws a Lance in FFVII (According to both it's appearance and the blind idiot translation) but that's just me being nitpicky . I think he uses an actual Javelin in FFIX though but it's been years since I've played that game.

Bahamut as a dragon is derived from D&D. I assume some tweaks were made to these mythological characters to keep those nutty RL roleplayers from doing something stupid like going into bodies of water with armor on. Not that roleplaying with weapons was safe anyway, but hey, some at least kept it to to more mundane things like wooden swords and such.

Isn't that called natural selection?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Historical accuracy in video games...

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor and Knights in the Nightmare are two really good DS games that recently came out. Both great for a quick strategy fix.

Devil Survivor has all the critter collection of Pokemon, but sadly no multiplayer.

[Firewind]

Re: Historical accuracy in video games...

I might pick that up. I've been meaning to pick up Nocturne and the DDS games too since they are relatively inexpensive here. Devil Survivor hasn't been released in the UK but it should be easy enough to import it. The one thing I like about the PS3, PSP and DS is them being region-free so I don't have to wait some ridiculous amount of time for the game to come out then then gouged on the price only to discover that an updated re-release has just come out on Japan. *Looks at FFX, FFXII and Persona 3 and glares*. It took nearly a full year for Disgaea 3 (Release date for the UK was Feb 2009) and Persona 4 (release date for the UK was April 2009) to come out here though that might have had something to do with SE picking up the rights to publish Atlus and Nippon Ichi games over here (Koei used to do it here and were slightly less incompetent. At least they kept to release dates) and well everyone in the UK knows just how long it takes for them to bring even their own games out over here. Actually Persona 3 was infuriating because when it was released here (Feb 2008, it had been out in the US since Sept 2007 and Japan since late 2006), FES had already been out in Japan for nearly 10 months and was out in the US 2 months after we only got Persona 3. We didn't get P3 FES until more or less Christmas 2008. Thankfully now I only have to worry about release dates on 360 and Wii games. And I don't own a Wii and my 360 is bricked (by one of MICROSOFT'S OWN UPDATES and because it's not a RRoD they refuse to fix it without charge) and now serves as a $500 book end so yeah.

That being said. I just have to pray that customs don't get their hands on it and slap me with a huge import fee like they did with my Pokemon Platinum, ended up having to pay around £40 (about $65) on top of the price of the game in tax and fees before they would release it and then it took the 6 weeks I would have had to wait for the game to come out here for it to arrive. Ended up costing a total of £90 which is just under 150 US dollars for one game

And to stay on topic I might as well nitpick at Dynasty Warriors since it was literally the first "historical" game I spotted on my shelf. As much as I love those games am I the only one who gets bugged by the implied lifespan of some of the characters in that game? I know the game is based on an epic that is only loosely based on history but still, you would have thought that Koei had at least looked at their own in-game encyclopaedia.

[Armando]

Re: Historical accuracy in video games...

I haven't played Dynasty Warriors but I saw a friend playing it for like 10 minutes and I was immediately turned off.

He was using a female general. She was using [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_and_fire_wheels]wind and fire wheels[/ame] as her weapons...on horseback. She would throw them a short distance, they'd fly in a curved path and return to her hands. What.

And yes I'm anal about that sort of things. I know the gameplay is a bit button mashy/hack and slashy, but I would've forgiven the boomerang syndrome a bit more (I understand the need for AoEs etc) if she at least weren't using something with the range of a dagger while on a horse.

[Firewind]

Re: Historical accuracy in video games...

DW4 and 5 have generals who should really be in their late 90's fighting in some of the later stages as well as those who even according to the in-game encyclopaedia should have died at least 40 years ago.

I don't know about Dynasty Warriors 6 because I gave up buying the games after DW4 (rented 5 and never bought 6) but Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce does have everyone using more appropriate weapons and it actually uses being anachronistic as a selling point for once so it's pretty enjoyable. It plays a lot like Monster Hunter and probably uses the same engine since the games are almost identical gameplay-wise.

If you want improbable weapons wielded in ways that are physically impossible play Dead Rising. In that game you can wield a flat screen TV as you would a baseball bat or a park bench as you would wield a halberd or poleaxe.

And to nitpick about another game series I like: Total War, in particular Medieval Total War 2. Really other than a few nitpicky things over cavalry and unit appearances Shogun and Rome are the only TW games that are really accurate and you can see that Creative Assembly really did a lot of research. But M:TW2...It shows France, Russia and Spain as united countries in the 11th century. Empire Total War also shows Germany as a united country in the 18th century. The main campaign mode also implies that the American Revolution was caused by the British being too lazy to go kick the French out of Quebec and Louisiana . It also heavily implies that piracy only ever existed in the Carribean and nowhere else in the world...

[Feba]

Re: Historical accuracy in video games...

I haven't played Dynasty Warriors but I saw a friend playing it for like 10 minutes so I've seen like %95 of the gameplay anyway

Burn!

[Durahansolo]

Re: Historical accuracy in video games...

Burn!

lol

I remember I had DW4 for PS2 and I believe that was the first DW I ever played or owned. I now own 5, 6, and DW: Gundam 1 & 2. I played the first Samurai Warriors and I thought it was ok. I went to gamestop to buy Warriors Orochi today but couldn't find it in there. I should've went to Best Buy instead. I might buy DW:6 Empires for the create player, it looks like it would bring back memories of DW4 lol.

[Firewind]

Re: Historical accuracy in video games...

Get DW3. It's easily the best one and the AI actually gets more aggressive as you turn up the difficulty. All turning up the difficulty in 4-6 does is gives you less defence and attack. Archers ambushes are as deadly as they should be too instead of just slowing you down for a second.

Orochi wasn't bad. it's just the game became way too easy with a Zhou Yu/Xing Cai/Hanzou Hattori team

[Durahansolo]

Re: Historical accuracy in video games...

Get DW3. It's easily the best one and the AI actually gets more aggressive as you turn up the difficulty.

Yeah.....Did I mention I usually play on Normal difficulty unless I was trying to unlock higher weapons. So me playing on higher difficulty would just equal frustration and RAAAAAGE!!!

On a sidenote DW: Gundam Domon's God Gundam Musou = epic fail. on DW: Gundam 2 God Gundam's Musou = epic death for enemies. Only because when you do the Erupting Burning Finger in Gundam 2 he acutally grabs the enemy mobile suit, holds it up and does massive damage with the explosion.