kitsunebi's talking to himself again

[kitsunebi]

I don't normally post about stuff I buy because I'm a good boy and don't buy more stuff I don't need and have no room for anyway. 

But sometimes I slip up take a peek at Yahoo auctions and before you know it I've gone and done something bad and this arrives at my door and DON'T HIT ME MOMMY I'LL BE GOOD I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SO SORRY YOU'RE RIGHT DADDY LEFT BECAUSE OF ME IT'S ALL MY FAULT BECAUSE I'M BAD I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'm Sorry for the blurry photos.

I'm intrigued by the Computer Games Strategy Plus in the bottom right corner there.  It is sealed in its original polybag, and yet the demo disc on the inside is in a ziplock bag.  Did it really ship that way?

[Areala]

23 minutes ago, kitsunebi77 said:

I don't normally post about stuff I buy because I'm a good boy and don't buy more stuff I don't need and have no room for anyway. 

But sometimes I slip up take a peek at Yahoo auctions and before you know it I've gone and done something bad and this arrives at my door and DON'T HIT ME MOMMY I'LL BE GOOD I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SO SORRY YOU'RE RIGHT DADDY LEFT BECAUSE OF ME IT'S ALL MY FAULT BECAUSE I'M BAD I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'm Sorry for the blurry photos.

I'm intrigued by the Computer Games Strategy Plus in the bottom right corner there.  It is sealed in its original polybag, and yet the demo disc on the inside is in a ziplock bag.  Did it really ship that way?

Login magazine with Tomb Raider 3 cover feature MUST BE PRESERVED!! You have done well, my friend.

*huggles*
Areala

[kitsunebi]

I'm still enjoying spoiling myself by playing through Might and Magic III rather than spend all my free time editing magazines, so don't expect any new scans in the immediate future, but whenever I do get back to it, the first thing on my list is another issue of Dengeki Nintendo64.  While flipping through it today, the article that caught my eye wasn't about the 64 at all, but rather the Nintendo Power peripheral for the Super Famicom.  Not being a Nintendo fanboy, this was the first I'd heard of it, so pardon my ignorance if this is common knowledge, but I thought it was interesting.

It was basically the same concept as the Famicom Disk System, except better, since rather than using a limited-memory disk that required a separate console add-on to play, it could copy games as flash RAM directly onto an actual SFC cartridge that could hold more or less the same amount of data as a regular game cart.  You just took a flash cart to your local convenience store, popped it into the machine at the kiosk, selected which game you wanted from the menu, copied it onto the cart, printed out a receipt, and paid at the register.  The magazine lists 39 games that were available.  Without listing them all here, they're made up of titles from Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, Hudson, Human, and Chunsoft.  There was a Game Boy version as well.

Here's the wikipedia article I looked up afterwards if anyone else is interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Power_(cartridge)

[Melki]

Do you or marktrade got any missing gamepro to scan?

[kitsunebi]

Marktrade is retired.  For now, anyway.

Almost all of my American mags are in America, so I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure I threw away all of my GamePros years ago.  Sorry - it was before I'd ever heard of people scanning magazines, and Gamepro was never a magazine I cared for (the only reason I had it in the first place was because I got several years of free subscriptions.)

[Melki]

3 hours ago, kitsunebi77 said:

Marktrade is retired.  For now, anyway.

Almost all of my American mags are in America, so I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure I threw away all of my GamePros years ago.  Sorry - it was before I'd ever heard of people scanning magazines, and GamePro was never a magazine I cared for (the only reason I had it in the first place was because I got several years of free subscriptions.)

Free sub!!  btw im not sad because of u throwing the gamepros or anything T.T 

Edited August 13, 2017 by Melki

[kitsunebi]

3 minutes ago, Melki said:

Free sub!!  btw i dont envy u or anything T.T 

Yeah, back in the late 90s, early 00s, businesses were still learning how to effectively market and advertise on the Internet.  You could get tons of free magazine subscriptions just by clicking on a few ads.  Often times, you could even stack multiple promotions, so your free subscription would last for years.  I probably got around 200 free DVDs just by clicking on ads as well.  Ah, the early days of the Internet...

[kitsunebi]

So I'm in the middle of editing a mag and I just finished stitching together the fold-out poster.  And it's goldurn purty, if I do say so.  If anyone ever wanted to print out a super-big Aya Brea poster for their wall, well now you can.  I've uploaded the full-size pic here (it's BIG):

https://mega.nz/#!EBxjzCpS!Yv2RRJsutCUNNUuPDZxjs8-MBHFzbfOzmRO0JX6KfnE

and here's a much smaller preview:

[E-Day]

I wish I had access to a professional printer so I could print my own posters. I know someone on eBay who sells prints of game box art, but they are about $20 a pop. for 18x24. There are several I want, but it gets expensive.

[kitsunebi]

First time I've had a 3 page spread on one of my scans.

[kitsunebi]

I'm sure most of you look at my scans and say to yourself, "Wow!  These are the most beautiful scans I've ever seen!  His magazines must all be in pristine condition!"

But seriously, making things look good usually requires at least some amount of Photoshop magic.  Sometimes a lot of Photoshop magic.  And sometimes, not even the entire senior staff at Hogwarts has the power to help a badly damaged page, Photoshop or no.

After recently scanning an issue of Dengeki Super Famicom I had lying around that had a cover that looked like it had been used as a doormat for the last 25 years, I was tempted to just skip edits on the cover, since making it look good simply wasn't going to be possible without essentially redrawing the entire thing.  But I just wasted 45 minutes of my life fiddling with it anyway, and although the results at first might not seem particularly impressive, I can at least be happy that I successfully recreated the part of the cover that had no doubt been torn off and eaten by rodents of unusual size decades ago.

First, the original, then the edit:

[sqwirral]

Can't wait for the Super Fami one

[kitsunebi]

Well this is nothing new, but god damn the Japanese magazine industry once again.

I've already discussed the extreme difficulties in creating databases for mags like Famitsu and Dengeki Playstation due to things like a single issue being given multiple issue numbers (Famitsu) and issues being published out of order (i.e. issue 49 having an earlier cover date than issue 48 - Dengeki Playstation).

I've recently been creating a database for Dengeki Super Famicom.  Everything was going fine up until the issue I scanned (Issue 31).  However, sometime after that, things got screwy.  The next issue I have a cover scan of large enough that I can read the tiny print that contains the issue number is issue 47.  Unfortunately, that issue is actually the 45th issue published.  I'm not missing any - it is definitely the 45th issue published, and yet the cover indicates it is the 47th.  This probably means that somewhere in between issue 31 and 47, two special issues of some sort were published and included in the number count.  Or, it could also mean that they went the Famitsu route and gave a couple of issues two issue numbers each.  Or maybe they went really crazy and went the Gamepro route and just fudged the numbers on purpose.  I have no way of knowing.

So what to do about the DB?  Since the teeeny tiny printed issue numbers are causing so much trouble, I think I'll have to name everything according to the bigger issue numbers visible on every cover (which is how I know I'm not missing any).  Unfortunately, this is how those work:

The first issue from 1993 is No.1, followed by No.2, No.3, etc., until the first issue published in 1994, at which point the numbering starts over at No.1.  Essentially, it's the same as a volume/number system, except that there aren't any explicitly stated volumes.  Still, the most obvious means of identifying the issues are the date and the number, so that's what I'll be using.  Hopefully the fact that No. 1 follows No. 21 won't confuse anyone too much.

For example: This is issue 29 (according to the tiny print that you can't see at the top of the page. From now on, it will be No.8 (as seen near the bottom left).

 

 Combined with the date (May 13, 1994), we can tell it apart from this issue, which is also No. 8, but is dated May 14/28, 1993:

Or this issue No. 8 (May 5/19 1995):

Is anyone else having fun here, or is it just me?

 

[kitsunebi]

...aaaaannd as I sort of expected, Retromags' software won't allow me to have two issues with identical names, so after renaming every gallery pic and issue in the DB, now I have to rename every issue again to impose a fake vol.1/vol.2/vol.3 etc. upon every issue in order to not break the database.  SO. MUCH. FUN.

[kitsunebi]

Actually, they couldn't be renamed and all DB entries from vol.2 onward had to be deleted.  Now I get to redo 30 entries.

Hate this place sometimes.

 

[kitsunebi]

Oh, and did I mention that renaming a magazine title breaks all of the "next issue" and "previous issue" links?  So you may as well just delete the entire damn database folder and start over from scratch since almost nothing is salvageable.

I've spent 3 hours working on this problem, and in that time, not only have I made no progress, but I've regressed back to where I was several days ago.

Sometimes I hate this place A LOT.

 

[Phillyman]

1 hour ago, kitsunebi77 said:

Oh, and did I mention that renaming a magazine title breaks all of the "next issue" and "previous issue" links?  So you may as well just delete the entire damn database folder and start over from scratch since almost nothing is salvageable.

I've spent 3 hours working on this problem, and in that time, not only have I made no progress, but I've regressed back to where I was several days ago.

Sometimes I hate this place A LOT.

 

I can export the main fields to a CSV file, then all you would need to do is edit it in Excel and give it back to me to drop back in. You would probably need these....

• Title
• FURL
• Previous Issue
• Next Issue

Which would control these.....trust me, much faster to edit them in a spreadsheet

SuperFami.csv

 

[perfinpuz]

Could you number them Vol. 1993,No. 8 and Vol. 1994, No.8, etc. ? That way they would fall in correct order and you did not have to make totally artificial volume numbers.

[kitsunebi]

9 hours ago, perfinpuz said:

Could you number them Vol. 1993,No. 8 and Vol. 1994, No.8, etc. ? That way they would fall in correct order and you did not have to make totally artificial volume numbers.

I could, but whether I call it Vol.1 or Vol. 1993, the bottom line is that there is no such thing on the cover.  The cover just says No.1, along with the date which is actually only the month and the day.  The only place the year is written is in the same teeny tiny print that includes the confusing issue numbers and information on publication frequency (although they use the Japanese year based on the reign of the emperors, so I have to look it up on a chart to see what year it actually is according to the system we use.)  If I use the year in the issue title, then the year will be included twice, since it's necessary in the "year" field, as well.

So, it would be a choice between

vol.1 No. 1 January 8/22, 1993

or

vol.1993 No. 1 January 8/22, 1993

I don't like the redundancy of the second one.

In Japanese, I would list it as "電撃スーパーファミコン 1994年1月8日22日号 No.1" which is perfectly clear, informing me of the year, the month, the fact that it is a double issue with two different dates, and the number.

But in English that equates to "Dengeki Super Famicom 1994-1-8/22 No.1" which is confusing as hell, in my opinion.  So I do what I can.

[kitsunebi]

So I just ran across this image comparing the Famitsu scores for Super Mario Bros. USA (aka SMB 2) and Yume Koujou Doki Doki Panic (the original game SMB2 was based on).

As you can see, Doki Doki Panic scored 6,9,9,7 (31/40) while Mario USA got 6,7,6,5 (24/40).

I guess Mario USA scored so low because it was such an old game by the time it was released in Japan?

[lytron]

4 hours ago, kitsunebi77 said:

So I just ran across this image comparing the Famitsu scores for Super Mario Bros. USA (aka SMB 2) and Yume Koujou Doki Doki Panic (the original game SMB2 was based on).

As you can see, Doki Doki Panic scored 6,9,9,7 (31/40) while Mario USA got 6,7,6,5 (24/40).

I guess Mario USA scored so low because it was such an old game by the time it was released in Japan?

Maybe the reviewers say something about it?

I think there might be several other ways of explaining it:

• Maybe the reviewers were different persons
• Maybe the taste of the persons have shifted. Depending on the years of these reviews, maybe some other platforming game-changer appeared meanwhile (like SMW), so their standards changed
• Maybe they thought "This is not what I expect from a game from the Mario franchise" and the critic had a harsher tone
• Maybe they thought "This is Doki Doki Panic with Mario graphics, so why should I give the same credit a game that does literally the same as another one?"

[kitsunebi]

2 minutes ago, lytron said:

Maybe the reviewers say something about it?

I think there might be several other ways of explaining it:

• Maybe the reviewers were different persons
• Maybe the taste of the persons have shifted. Depending on the years of these reviews, maybe some other platforming game-changer appeared meanwhile (like SMW), so their standards changed
• Maybe they thought "This is not what I expect from a game from the Mario franchise" and the critic had a harsher tone
• Maybe they thought "This is Doki Doki Panic with Mario graphics, so why should I give the same credit a game that does literally the same as another one?"

The reviewers are almost definitely different people.  As for the rest...

The reviewers' attitudes are basically "this is more or less the same game as before, but it's a good game so I guess that's OK...however, it's essentially a 5 year old game, so the price is too high.  It should have been released earlier." 

 

 

[lytron]

4 minutes ago, kitsunebi77 said:

The reviewers are almost definitely different people.  As for the rest...

The reviewers' attitudes are basically "this is more or less the same game as before, but it's a good game so I guess that's OK...however, it's essentially a 5 year old game, so the price is too high.  It should have been released earlier."

Yeah, so, uhm... there you go. ^_^;

Back in the day, the famitsu guys had quite tough standards for their game ratings (it was nearly impossible to get a full score of 40 points back then, right?). So, I think, this is also a reason why the score plummeted so heavily.

[kitsunebi]

10 minutes ago, lytron said:

Yeah, so, uhm... there you go. ^_^;

Back in the day, the famitsu guys had quite tough standards for their game ratings (it was nearly impossible to get a full score of 40 points back then, right?). So, I think, this is also a reason why the score plummeted so heavily.

It's a debatable stance.  Their comments are fair, but saying "it's a good game, and the Mario characters make it more interesting, but it's old so I won't score it as high" basically means that their scores don't actually tell you whether a game is good or not.  If the review wants to tell me that the price is too high and the game is more or less identical to another game, that's all good information to convey.  But it shouldn't have any bearing on how much someone might enjoy the game who is seeing it for the first time.  If reviewers score games based on their age and price, well...I guess that's why most sensible people ignore scores and just read the reviews.

Taken to the extreme, there are a number of popular sports titles that are released every year, with very few changes other than roster updates.  So it's fair to warn owners of previous versions that there aren't enough changes to warrant a purchase of the latest edition.  But if Madden NFL 2017 was a good game and scored well, it doesn't mean that Madden 2018 should score poorly just because it's more or less the same game.  (Disclosure: I have no idea if recent Madden games are reviewed well or not.  I assume they still make them, though?)

[lytron]

3 minutes ago, kitsunebi77 said:

It's a debatable stance.  Their comments are fair, but saying "it's a good game, and the Mario characters make it more interesting, but it's old so I won't score it as high" basically means that their scores don't actually tell you whether a game is good or not.  If the review wants to tell me that the price is too high and the game is more or less identical to another game, that's all good information to convey.  But it shouldn't have any bearing on how much someone might enjoy the game who is seeing it for the first time.  If reviewers score games based on their age and price, well...I guess that's why most sensible people ignore scores and just read the reviews.

Taken to the extreme, there are a number of popular sports titles that are released every year, with very few changes other than roster updates.  So it's fair to warn owners of previous versions that there aren't enough changes to warrant a purchase of the latest edition.  But if Madden NFL 2017 was a good game and scored well, it doesn't mean that Madden 2018 should score poorly just because it's more or less the same game.  (Disclosure: I have no idea if recent Madden games are reviewed well or not.  I assume they still make them, though?)

 

First part: Imagine I'm a gamer who owns whether DDP nor SMB USA and I read that review in the Famitsu. My conclusion would be: I can pick up DDP which should be a bit cheaper by the time now and get the same game sans plumber for a cheaper price.

On these sports games, I would consider it fair to the customer if reviewers would handle it the same way. These games get dirt-cheap for a reason after a year. And every now and then, there is a (graphical) overhaul and maybe a tweaking of the game mechanics which may give a good reason to bump the score a bit up again, but generally, I think there is nothing bad in pointing out one gets sold the same game over and over again.

But I think these sports licence games (Madden, NBA, FIFA etc.) are a bad example to win me over. I think they are an evil that needs to be purged from mankind.