Forum - View topicThis Week in Games - The Gaming World Says Good-Bye to Akira Toriyama
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Saeryen
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I am very grateful to Akira Toriyama-sensei for Chrono Trigger. It is one of my favorite games, and like many a fan I was delighted to see Man on the Internet’s musical version a few years ago (it’s gotten me back into the game’s lore and I’m even writing my own fan theories/stories about it).
None of that would’ve been possible without Toriyama-sensei. Thank you for that, and for Marle and Schala especially. |
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Heishi
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I think what people should really keep in mind is that the Sonic movie had its share of needledrops, too.
We don’t even get to hear the music from the classic games. We barely got to hear Green Hill Zone that played somewhere in the movie. We could have had something, heck even something modern like “His World”, could have been awesome to hear. Instead we just get typical movie soundtrack with needledrops thrown here and there. As for the Mario movie sequel, you know what I think they should do personally. I think they should probably cast Uma Thurman as the main antagonist and radiate sone of that Poison Ivy energy she had from Batman & Robin. And instead of Bowser, we could have Kamella, a boss from Super Mario Galaxy in the lead villain. Just my two cents. A absolute shame we won’t ever get to know what Mr Toriyama has in store for us for Daima. He was an absolute legend. |
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GNPixie
Posts: 322 |
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.hack fan projects were numerous in the late-to-early late 2000s and 2010s. I remember myself being a frequent visitor of a certain board which had its fair share of drama with another forum who was largely trying to do the same thing. I left around the early 2010s after butting heads with one of the forum moderators a little too much. I don't remember much of what happened after I left; I think they merged with another group and a couple years later things just basically ******* imploded? It's hard to remember given I was immensely focused on high school and work in general at the time so I wasn't nearly as active. I'm not surprised that people are still trying to do something, given Bamco is basically sitting on the franchise at this point. Even if the thing basically ends up being a glorified OS-screen or just .hack//Chat with nothing to do, it's still something. .hack doesn't even have a mobile game at this point. Even dead franchises get mobile games. It's not like CC2 doesn't have any ideas either. I believe they've stated during interviews that its all up to Bamco to just greenlight it and that they've already got several ideas of where to take the franchise. |
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Cho_Desu
 Posts: 242 |
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Ended up going down a rabbit hole to figure out what in the world this was referring to. Apparently a gritty 70s Japanese crime film called Battle Without Honor or Humanity had a reboot in 2000 (New Battles Without Honor or Humanity) which had a theme song titled Battle Without Honor and Humanity... and that song also got used in Kill Bill Volume 1... and, for whatever reason, a whole bunch of kids' animated movies the past decade or so have used that song. |
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Gem-Bug
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Personally, I remember first playing Chrono Trigger in the mid 90's around the same time YTV was airing that early dub of Dragon Ball(BLT/Ocean, I believe), followed shortly by the first dub of DBZ on Fox. So his visual style was easy to spot, even as a kid. |
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FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 655 |
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To their credit, a lot of these overused gags in movies have their origin in genuinely good films. There was that period of time where every freaking movie was recreating the spinning camera shot from The Matrix. On the one hand, hey, The Matrix's cinematography and visuals are iconic. On the other, folks ran it into the ground because hey man, have you seen The Matrix? Isn't it a thing that exists? At least we managed to bully Paramount out of using Gangster's Paradise for Sonic...
Bandai is freaking weird with it's non-AAA licenses, man. Digimon fans know true suffering what with how Bandai completely stonewalls us with the new V-pets. They truly do know Anime Fan Wants™ |
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Top Gun
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I know it's probably heretical to say it, especially now, but I've always found Toriyama's human character designs to be actively unappealing, if not downright ugly. Or more accurately, his human designs after a certain point. I think the characters in Dr. Slump and the original Dragon Ball era look fantastic, with their classic cutesy rounded look, but then he hit on what one could call the "Saiyan look," and that's where he lost me. The harshly-angled eyes and eyebrows, the massive foreheads, the giant spiky hair...it just doesn't do anything for me. Even when I was playing Chrono Trigger on the DS, I liked the look of the in-game sprites a lot more than the official full-sized character artwork.
Now that being said, when it came to everything else, I think Toriyama was amazing. Frog and Robo are all-time character designs, and of course there's the iconic parade of Dragon Quest monsters. I have no interest in playing those games myself, but when you see that Slime, you know exactly what it's from. One area where I probably don't give him enough credit is in mechanical design. One of the tribute tweets I saw floating around was a series of shots of motorcycles from Dragon Ball over the years, and they're these fantastic hyper-detailed bits of artwork. The man was so immensely talented at nearly everything he did, and even though there are parts of his work that didn't click with me, I'll never deny his legacy. |
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light turner
Posts: 190 |
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I'm not too worried about Dragon Quest myself. Like with Sugiyama's music, Toriyama's artwork style can be reused orcontinued by his prodigee. Toyotaro has been drawing the Super manga already and it looks like a nice re-creation of Toriyama's style. But man, when Horii passes that's all the original trio all gone. That will definitely suck.
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FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 655 |
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Those CT sprites are damned timeless, for sure. Especially all the charming little animations like Frog standing around croaking. Even the tiny overworld sprites are packed with character. One of these days I'm gonna have to try and play Chrono Trigger on a proper CRT, see those sprites how they were meant to be seen. |
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Villain-chan
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The thing that finally blew my top though after all that, was we got to the end of the game section, nothin to show for it besides a lousy ranking poll for most popular Digimon and some really nice music (the only good thing about the con imo, which also did nothing to quell my anger) and then, the lady asks the dev on screen, if he had anything to say for a new Digimon game. and he says. . . "Yes. I've heard they're working on a new Digimon Story game. We apologize for keeping fans waiting. Please be patient and wait until we're ready to reveal more about the game." If u know then u know but to anyone who doesn't get why thats enough to make any fan mad... its the same response we got year after year. We also got no new info on the game. We've known about the game for about 7 years now but they didn't even bother to show anything for the game and nothing new revealed. Digimon games also don't take THIS LONG to make I should add. I doubt its real at this point... even if its real, it was the 25th ann, the very LEAST they could've done was reveal the title or reveal a pic of something from in game; and to anyone who says maybe they aren't ready too, sorry but 7 years means u should have something to show for it and its not like companies don't add a disclaimer to the pics and vids anyway about this is from a game in dev and may not reflect the final product so they have no excuse botching the 25th ann and ticking fans off etc. ^ All that to say, yes, us Digimon fans do indeed know suffering :( If only they'd give the IP to someone else who actually cared about Digimon... |
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Uchay
Posts: 84 |
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This reminds me of this news from a few years: animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2017-01-02/akira-toriyama-shares-30-years-of-feelings-about-dragon-quest-designs/.110506 It always felt like Toriyama was more at ease with drawing silly designs, and I always liked them more, too. Yangus from DQVIII comes to mind---I liked the big guy more than anyone in the cast, and part of that was how his design stood out. It seems like he had more freedom on Sand Land, so I'll be for sure checking that game out |
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Avec ou Nous
Posts: 154 |
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I'm going to be honest and say I see no reason why a Japanese panel or showcase should mention American DVDs or Blu-Rays. If you think an Japanese IP is being mishandled because it's not focusing on America enough then that's a very poor reason in my opinion. If you want the V-Pets then import them like everyone has been doing for years. It's not hard to do and many sites offers them. Digimon is a Japanese franchise. It focusing on the Japanese market should be self-explanatory. To put a call out for the original creators to be stripped of their own creation because you don't like that is extremely selfish and disrespectful to the people who make the art you claim to love so much. |
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FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 655 |
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Yeah, I'm gonna agree with this. I love the Digimon V-pets and I certainly wish Bandai did more for the American fanbase... but also, I certainly can't pretend Digimon is as big in the US as it is in Japan. And while I wouldn't complain if Bandai of America hurried up and released the X3 v-pets or announced an English release of the Digital Monster Color or even the Pendulum Color... yeah man, I've already imported them. So has anyone else in the fandom who cares, at this point. Now, that said: just because a Japanese franchise is Japanese doesn't mean the American fanbase needs to be discounted offhand entirely (American releases do factor plenty into Japanese franchises and their profit margins). But that said: hey man, sometimes there just isn't anything to announce. It doesn't mean the sky is falling, it just means the franchise is laying fallow for a bit. I already didn't cover the Digimon convention because there wasn't much to report (and as much as I love toys, this is primarily a game column, not a "Look what Jean-Karlo bought this week!"-column). Nothing to report on, nothing to say. |
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Villain-chan
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1. Digimon con has never been a Japanese event, much less JP only event. It was created for the purpose of streaming world wide news about Digimon. The only thing u can say is yes in the real world it takes pace in Japan and yes its hosts and guests are mostly (or entirely) Japanese, but that doesn't change the reality that its a event for the whole world, not just Japan and its streamed to my knowledge, to the entire world and thats why they kept having to add the disclaimer "Only for Japan" so many times. 2. with the above mentioned, thats exactly WHY they should mention the BD which, prolly also will release in japan too if I had to guess but even if not, it was the 25th ann for the series and it was a stream for a con for the entire world so why, marketing wise, would u only focus on the JP side? That is DUMB. Plain and simple. 3. I don't even care about the V-PETS (Though one of ya'll does so maybe u can answer this) but, if the V-Pets in Japan are in Japanese language then that right there is why they need to bring them out of Japan with a translation for the other parts of the world. 4. Gonna quote these specifically so I can more properly respond to them. "If you think an Japanese IP is being mishandled because it's not focusing on America enough then that's a very poor reason in my opinion." As mentioned, its not solely a Japanese event etc. so yes it SHOULD be focusing on more than just the Japanese side. About the only thing I saw it focused on this year was giving English Subs for the stream but they do that every year anyway and doing that q and fav Digimon poll which they took tweets from across the world which was cool (Not the fav Digimon though but the rest was cool) 5. "Digimon is a Japanese franchise. It focusing on the Japanese market should be self-explanatory." While that is true (1st sentence), it is not true that its sole focus is the Japanese market, esp from a con thats aimed at the entire world. Sure the JP market gets stuff first for Digimon, sure some lv of focusing on the JP market is a given, but entirely ignoring the rest of the world (No the twitter stuff doesn't count for what am talking about here) and doing a stream for an event that was always from the day it was made for the entire world, is beyond dumb. I rest my case. 6. "To put a call out for the original creators to be stripped of their own creation because you don't like that is extremely selfish and disrespectful to the people who make the art you claim to love so much" Nothing selfish or disrespectful at all. And with all due respect, twisting someone's words sure is and just so u know, the OG creators are not Bamco or as they were known back then, Bandai but for simplicity sake on my part I'll just refer to em as Bamco since thats what they're known now as. Bamco only owns the IP. The OG creators are the ones who created the franchise. And I'll point out, in my post I didn't call for (ur words) or ask them (Which would be my words if I was too but not what I did here) to give the IP to someone else. This was my response "If only they'd give the IP to someone else who actually cared about Digimon..." Thats me remarking the sorry state the series is in. If u didn't notice, I was talking about Bamco, the only ones who CAN give the IP to another. Again, the company may own the IP, but they are not the OG creators even if they funded the creation of it, that'd be the people who actually made the Digimon IP. Regardless, the fact remains even if I had put out a call (Again, ur words, I did no such thing period) or asked them, it doesn't change the fact no one is being stripped of their IP, esp when the company who owns the IP is willingly giving the IP (sold really) to another whom i hope would care about it, that brings me to my last bit here. The only thing Bamco is known for is treating the Digimon series poorly for the last 15 or more years now. If not for Habumon, the series might well have perished game wise at least, years ago. Here are some facts we know (Unrelated to my statement there other than Habumon did confirm some or all of the following). a. we know Bamco doesn't give the devs making the Digimon games much of a budget. b. For Digimon video games we know they don't rerelease old games or do ports or remakes with the sole exception being the games starting with Cyber Sleuth. Yet they'd release ports and or remakes for their other IPs they own... (Never mind Digimon is one of the FEW monster collection games that survived the test of time, still going today and thats no small feat when Pokemon is right beside u and all the other monster collecting games died with some getting a rerelease decades later like Monster Farm aka Monster Rancher) c. From Habumon's twitter: "Due to personnel changes within the company I am no longer in charge of producing Digimon games. In reality, I was no longer in charge as of last April and the handover was done quietly. Please be assured that the team is continuing the development of the new Digimon Story under a trusted director." Draw ur own conclusions there, I sure have. Either Bamco took his role from him or he willingly stepped down. Prolly if I had to guess (emphasis on guess) Bamco said no to the fan support of remakes and or ports of past Digimon games which Habumon asked fans on back in March of 2023 during a Digimon Con iirc (A month later and he isn't the director? Yeah... easy to connect) and with the strict grip they have on Digimon (for lack of better words) and all the other probs Habumon prolly had enough realizing he'd not get to do what he wanted so he stepped down. Thats assuming he willingly did that is. Habumon has been the director for about 10 years give or take of the Digimon video games btw and has been very passionate and shown great love and care for the series, so something big enough musta happened regardless of my guess there to make him step down or have the role taken from him, whichever it is. d. we know Digimon games don't take as long to make as they have for this Digimon Story game which we've known about for about 7 years now. If its real, and since it was the 25th ann, they should have shown something, the title, a pic of the in game world, idk, SOMETHING but nothing besides info we've known for 7 or so years now... e. And I think theres a bit more but, my mind is blanking and I've typed enough anyway. Its not just the video games that have suffered, various parts of the franchise has such as the anime. The whole point is, I, and countless other Digimon fans, are not happy with how Bamco sits on the Digimon IP (esp for the games side) and they need to do better but they won't, hence why we're frustrated with them and where the series is at which, regardless of anything else, is a fair and VALID thing to feel. The sky doesn't have to fall in order for someone to care about the state of something they love is in, esp when in the case of a game they've been working on they have shown nothing for it and if they've been working on it, there should be something they can shown after 7 or so years of working on it. |
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Gem-Bug
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Just jumping in here as someone who was collecting them a few years ago: Most of the V-pets in the entire franchise either have very little Japanese text, are entirely in English, or have no text menus at all. And for the former, there are many quick fan-guides online for using them easily. |
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