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You can’t keep a good arms dealer down!

2015-ogo

Hey, Joe and I will be at Matsuricon this weekend. It’s the con’s 10th year anniversary! We’re once again hosting a number of panels this year:

An Illustrators Guide to Photoshop
Main Events (Ballroom 1) | Sun 11:00 AM – 12:00 AM

Webcomics 101
Guest 1 (Taft A) | Sat 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM

Action & Comedy in Feudal Japan: No Need for Bushido
Guest 1 (Taft A) | Sat 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM

Legendary Legends of Galactic Heroes
Guest 1 (Taft A) | Fri 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM

Star Wars A Newer Hope
Matsuri Room (Muirfield Ballroom) | Sat 12:00 AM – 1:00 PM

 

There’s a Humble Bundle featuring some not-so-humble Bandai Namco produced games. I picked it up to try the often lauded Dark Souls, although I suspected it was the type of game that wasn’t for me. Turns out the PC port is nearly unplayable without the fan-made Dark Souls Fix mod. So I installed that, and was feeling pretty good after making it through the tutorial area. Then all the dying began and the game got extremely frustrating. Dark Soul’s formula seems to be: “here’s your character that can die in two hits, now make it to the next bonfire to progress, but we’re gonna throw who knows how many traps, over-leveled enemies, and mobs in your way, and, on top of that, you have no idea where the next bonfire is and your weapons degrade with use. Also, with each death, all the enemies respawn, but your inventory is still depleted from your previous attempt so you have to farm for souls and items before you try again. Have fun!”

I don’t feel like it’s giving me an impossible challenge, necessarily, just that it requires far more time and effort to make progress than I care to invest in a game. I’d say that I just like easy games, but I love intense action games like Metal Gear Rising and Bayonetta. I think the real problem for me is that Dark Souls is a game built on testing the player’s patience, and real life has plenty of that game mechanic built into it already, I don’t need it in my video games!

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  • IDPounder

    I believe we’ve now found the long-lost ancestor of that guy who made his fortune selling ice to Eskimos.

  • http://jediannsolo.deviantart.com Anne Iglesias

    Genchu should really get the back of his neck looked at. He’s been scratching it an awful lot.

    • Sunwu

      but Uranium laced steel is so much stronger for a Katana! and it glows in a dark!!!

    • Da’Zlein

      He really should stop picking at the stitches, sewing a person’s head back on is hard enough as it is without them picking at the seams

  • charles81

    Saved Ricardo’s hat as well. Thats the biggest win.

    • http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai

      He really loves that hat.

      • Neska

        Hats are important!
        <==a woman who has at least a dozen hats

  • Xinef

    Now guns are worth so much, every ninja clan will start training divers, to retrieve the guns from the bottom of that river. And that’s how water sports have become popular in Japan.

  • Kid Chaos

    That’s my Ricky, always looking on the bright side.

  • foducool

    lmao that dude never gives up

    • http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai

      If you look for light, you’ll usually find it. If you look for darkness, it’s always there.

      • foducool

        my optimistic self is seeing his head at the end of a pike in a few pages if he keeps this shit up XD

        • Neska

          The head, of course, will be grinning.

  • Flaming Squirrel

    He should just sell hot dogs. Cho, alone, would make him the richest man in Portugal AND Japan.

    • Xinef

      Don’t forget about the prophecy! Once Rrricarrrdo starts his hot dog business, the end of the world is guaranteed to happen. With Cho, the priest and the guru all eating hot dogs… yes, Rrrricarrrrdo will be able to buy the world, then explode it.

      • Flaming Squirrel

        I think there was a Christian priest and a Hindu goofball in there somewhere too.

        • margarinecup

          That is the priest and the guru…

  • KungFuKlobber

    Genchu: “You should ruin more of your stock, so the price goes up even higher.”
    Ricardo: “Genius!”

    • Eltharrion

      Imagine if he destroyed 59 of them.
      “This, good lord, is the ONLY GUN in Japan!”

      • Da’Zlein

        Then Genchu bumps into him and he drops it
        “Whoops, now it’s broken”

        • http://jediannsolo.deviantart.com Anne Iglesias

          YOU BREAK IT YOU BUY IT

  • Eltharrion

    We could always claim this to be ‘setback to be used as a bouncing board to new heights.”
    Then again, I’m sure Genchu can find a way to destroy at least 30 more of those babies “by accident”.

    • http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai

      He could trip and fall on them!

  • Da’Zlein

    Yeah, should’ve just brought one box of guns, you could’ve made a fortune off the high prices then brought another one in a few months once they find out how awesome they are

    • http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai

      Ricardo’s an all or nothing kind of guy!

    • 627235

      On the other hand, muskets are pretty much a weapon for only massed use. They are good because they are cheap to use (specifically, cheap to train for). If the guns themselves become too expensive, there’s no reason to use them.

  • Speedy Marsh

    What Genchu doesn’t realize is that he probably just greatly extended Ricardo’s lifespan. If he had supplied them with all the guns, powder, and bullets they needed, then his continued existence would have become a threat. Can’t let him live to sell the same tech to the enemy.

    • Cross Ikon

      Well, I dunno if it was the fact that these guys needed Ricardo dead, or simply to ruin any chances of selling the guns. Either way, I don’t see why Genchu didn’t just get him killed in the first place…

      • Speedy Marsh

        I was talking about his customer. The only thing better than getting guns for their army, would be to also make sure the enemy can’t get any.

  • Flaming Squirrel

    (my second comment on this page- SORRY!)

    I’m the same way with the Souls games, but I just never learn my lesson. They’re amazingly well made, and I see the appeal, but they’re just not for me. But when the hype starts and I see people ranting and raving about them on the internet, I either forget all my previous experiences, or I convince that *this time* I’ll stick through it to the end. Yeah, that never happens 😛

    On a similar note, I just bought White Knight Chronicles 2 for my PS3, which includes WKC1 on the same disk. They’re two of the least-talked about JRPG’s on the system, but they’re not half bad. The story is one big cliche (it has the Sauron-like armor wearing bad guy AND the mustache twisting bad guy!), but the combat feels like I’m playing an MMO. And it’s easy, so far. If you’re looking for a fun game, there are way worse things you could spend your money on, especially since you’re getting two complete games for less than $10.

    On another side note, have you (or anybody else) ever played Shin Megami Tensei: Persona? There’s a new one coming out soon, and I’ve heard great things about them. They’re one of my friends’ all time favorite games, and he usually doesn’t like JRPGs.

    • http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai

      I would never reprimand you for posting multiple comments! And I, too, feel the pull of the hype train behind Souls games, but somehow I’ve managed to do a full reverse impulse maneuver to avoid getting sucked into that gravitational anomaly. I only got Dark Souls PC because it was part of a humble bundle with a couple other games I was interested in, so I don’t feel too bad about finding it not to my liking.

      White Knight Chronicles seems like a fun game series, if not an incredible one. I do like the idea of being able to create a character and get a big ol’ giant robot. It would be low on my priority list of games that I currently have backlogged, and I have a lot! Heck, I never even touched Ni no Kuni since I got it over a year ago. I’m also more into puzzle, action adventure, and stealth type games than I am RPGs, partly because they don’t take as long to beat. Action RPGs I’m far more into than turn based stuff or MMO style combat. I’ve never played Shin Megami, although Persona 3 and 4 seems to get a lot of praise (same publisher, different series? Or is it all the same? Not even sure).

      • Flaming Squirrel

        Yeah, the problem with the character creation is that your character is completely pointless. He never speaks, he never does anything, and nobody ever interacts with him. All “you” do is get introduced as the new guy, and everyone promptly begins to ignore you in favor of the REAL main character, Leonard. I found it beat to cycle him out of the party as soon as possible and pretend he doesn’t even exist because, for all intents and purposes, he doesn’t. It makes me wonder why they bothered implementing that feature at all. If you want a good action RPG with worthwhile character creation, I recommend Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning or Dragon’s Dogma.

        • http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai

          I totally do want to try Dragon’s Dogma, that game looks rad! Amalur seems fun, but it’s like too big, sort of? I did Skyrim already, I sunk 120 hours into it, and I don’t think I need another game like that for a long time, because it’s pretty repetitive in the end. Dogma’s battles look intense, though, which I can appreciate. And I LOVE a game with a story, no doubt! A lot of JRPG story tropes may have lost their impact on me, though. I also don’t particularly like shooting, unless we’re talking a Metroid style game. I love the Uncharted games, but I play them on easy mode because shooting all those dudes is kind of monotonous and I just want to get through them for the next cut scene on set piece action moment. I’m obsessed with Metal Gear games, which certainly involve shooting, but emphasize stealth and non-lethal gameplay. But you’ve been reading the comic for a long while now so I’m sure you know all that!!

      • Flaming Squirrel

        Also, I tend to suck at straight up action games. My reflexes and coordination just aren’t good enough. Same with shooting games. That, plus my love of being told a story, are what makes me so obsessed with RPGs.

  • Rose

    Shouldn’t the powder still be too wet to use? You can salvage a gun, but if it doesn’t boom, then what’s the point?

    • http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai

      those drums were air tight.

      • Rose

        Damn that super-prepared Ricardo! How dare he take measures to protect his loads of weaponry?!

  • Filipe de Sá

    no…. NO NON ONONONONONONONO!
    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
    I FINISHED READING FROM THE START, WHAT I WILL DO?! D8

    • Kid Chaos

      Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again!

      • Cross Ikon

        ^ This. The comic is hilarious when (possibly not-so) accidental foreshadowing seems like it fits 😛

    • KungFuKlobber

      I know that feeling.

      The trade-off is, you can now participate in discussions of new comics, and you don’t need to sign up to a forum to do so.

  • Rose

    “Everybody needs to kill somebody!!” Ain’t it a bitch when people defy your generally correct assumptions?

    • margarinecup

      But… doesn’t everybody? Or at least WANT, if not NEED?

  • This guy

    Damn it!
    He an Economical Mad Genius.

  • http://insolenz.echoing.org/ SotiCoto

    THANK YOU! I’ve been waiting for someone to say that about Dark Souls for years.

    I ended up downloading that silly game and 100% completing it on the 360 just to prove to a bunch of challengetards that my reason for hating difficult games isn’t just an inability to play them.

    There were parts of the game where I could feel myself just screaming on the inside… especially those two archers in Anur Londo… but I powered through the whole damned thing. And when I finally did it all and came back to the challengetards on GameFAQs with the screenshots to prove it… they just told me to do it all over again.

    Well fuck ’em.

  • This guy

    Good thing he understands how economics work.

  • Insane Disciple

    This Genchu guy was badass how?

    • Kid Chaos

      You’ll see. 😎

  • Frank Royce Harr

    That’s one way of knowing a good theory. Even before it’s offcially formulated, people get it.

    Didn’t they have their own home-grown firearms industry:? Nope, sorry, I forgot. Actual history’s not the point.

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