JB0

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Both games help set up/corroborate a plot point in the Macross II: Lovers Again about how Earth comes under semi-regular attack by Zentradi (and Meltrandi) fleets and that the task of fighting them off has become routine enough for the military to become complacent.  By 2092 in that timeline, Earth had successfully fended off at least five Main Fleets from the Zentran and Meltran forces (Moruk Laplamiz's doesn't count, IMO, since Boddole Zer did that) and was being attacked every couple years by smaller straggler forces of rogue Zentran and/or Meltran ships left over from the defeated main fleets.

And every last one of them was brought to Sol by Kamjin, making him the most annoying troll in Earth history!

...

Or not.

11 hours ago, Black Valkyrie said:

 

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2025/05/yuzo-koshiros-earthion-confirmed-for-switch-ps4-ps5-and-xbox-series-xs

 

That headline leaves out the most important part.

"...as well as Steam and Mega Drive"

Genesis does!

2 hours ago, davidwhangchoi said:

probably by 2027 we'll need a RTX 6090 to play it with DLSS 5.0 path tracing and super frame gen

Heck yeah! No rendered pixels at all, just AI estimates everywhere!

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Macross Chronicle's Technology "Macross Galaxy Fleet Technology" (a Macross Frontier movie one) suggests the New UN Gov't was worried the Zentradi might use cyborg tech to become more of a threat if development wasn't carefully supervised and restricted.  Basically, the didn't want Zentradi cyborg supersoldiers in the next Zentradi riot.

That's a more boring explanation.

On 4/25/2025 at 12:42 AM, Shawn said:

instead of every 10s I'll make it every 10 weeks lol, that'll help for sure.

Oh yeah, that sounds about right.

It is actually hilarious they provide an option for weeks between searches.

1 hour ago, Scyla said:

 

I made a meme

As a long-suffering fan of the original Lunar games... folks have no idea how true this is.

You think you want a remake until it happens, misses the point and every adjacent point along the way, and effectively erases the original in the process.

I JUST WANT A NEW COPY OF THE SILVER STAR, GAME ARTS. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

28 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The New UN Government imposed strict regulations and restrictions on cybernetics research after the First Space War in order to keep humanity's cybernetics research focused on humane and ethically-sound medical applications and outlaw research aimed at weaponizing cyborgs.

It occurs to me this is probably a direct response to Space War 1, and what we learned about the history of the galaxy at large and Earth's aggressors.

The tale of the zentradi and the protoculture stands as a very large warning sign that has "don't make custom-engineered supersoldiers" written very large and in an awful lot of blood.

22 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

On paper it should be; that MV car and the one in the original OutRun are but Testarossas (F110), and the Testarossas was one of the playable Ferraris in OutRun 2/Coast 2 Coast. But I could see Ferrari (or Bay) insisting that they use a more current model like the F80 or 12Cilindri.

... And I don't know how I feel about that. The gamer in me says the Testarossa is more authentic, but the car nerd in me would love to see the F80 in action.

And the cynic in me says it'll be sponsored by GM. I hope you like Outrun in a Camaro.

5 hours ago, F-ZeroOne said:

Can blue skies in video games explode?

If we seed the puffy white clouds with enough nitroglycerine, anything is possible!

18 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Ultimately, they may just opt to fold prime up into a cube and keep him isolated in the top half while trying to work in the cuts and articulation of the armor without having to work around the core bot. However, as you say, that moves away from toy accuracy by a fair amount. In the end, a white Optimus may be all fans get.

I feel like making Magnus work more like Powermaster Prime, with a truck-lump core, is a better compromise than just throwing an Albino Prime out there because engineering is hard and repaints are cheap. Minimus Ambus isn't Ultra Magnus.

I guess we'll see how TakaraTomy feels about it.

Yeah, I don't see Starscream et al getting the Missing Link treatment, because as much as they'd love to(one mold with six color schemes is WAY more profitable than six molds) it just doesn't seem possible to do the arms.

But I've been wrong before, and TT has a financial interest in making it work.

Personally, I'd like a Missing Link Tracks, as he's one of my few childhood Transformers that didn't survive and also one that turns into an awesome flying car.

14 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

I think the trumpets were one of the dumbest things in The Movie. Why would bots in space, presumably without lungs, many of which with facemasks covering their mouths, deign to play a human-made instrument when they are all in the faction that disdains humans? DUMB!

Oh, yeah, it was definitely a dumb thing in a dumb cartoon. One might say it was less coronation and more bad comedy. But really, the entire franchise is dumb and goofy, so I just embrace it for what it is.

The fact that half the Constructicons don't even have mouths makes the trumpets that much funnier to me.

8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

You get a big green chunk of... thing.  You get his trumpet, and you get his gun.

I don't usually care much for "that one thing from that one episode" goes, but I love that they included his trumpet. And even chromed it!

2 hours ago, Scyla said:

I really miss the days of FansToys translucent plastic over silver greebles that looked so good.

God yes. I love that on every toy it exists on, going back to when I was a wee laddie taking Slag into the bathtub with me(there's reasons my childhood Slag looks rough today).

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Most fold carbon in use is synthetic.  We're told in Macross Frontier that it does occur in nature as a product of supernovae. 

I gotta say, "forged in the heart of a supernova" is about as credible an origin as you get for an exotic material with extraspatial properties. Everything else about them beggars the imagination, I'm willing to accept they twist spacetime itself into knots and drill holes through it.

12 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Surely you jest. 😜

Mylene is Fire Bomber's Only Sane Woman!  She does more to keep Basara on task than anyone else in the band or in the series as a whole.  Ray's too burned-out by a decade-plus of Basara's BS to muster a decent response half the time, Veffidas is too lost in the rhythm to participate in a conversation, and their label's manager Akiko is never around.  She's the lone breakwater preventing Basara's madness from sweeping the band away... and also the best character in the series.  (That she at no point attempts to garrote Basara with his own guitar strings is a testament to her sheer focus, commitment, and force of will.)

 

Mylene is seemingly so good at wrangling weirdos and eccentrics that she's briefly able to keep Quamzin Kravshera himself on-side and on-task in Macross 30.  Even Vrlitwhai Kridanik and Moruk Laplapmiz struggled at that, arguably making her better qualified to claim strategic weapon status than the Ghost!

Is Mylene truly the strongest character in the franchise? Signs point to yes!

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

What bothers me more is the overall aesthetic of this one: it feels off to me, and not in a "not G1-toy" version or "not cartoon" version type of way.

It kinda gives me Marvel #1 Cover vibes.

I saw someone saying it's based on some of the Studio Ox illustrations.

Man, I really like this Optibotimus.

I probably won't get him, but I dig him nonetheless.

...

Mmmm, but that metal axe body may push me over the edge. 

2 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

This better?

I mean... honestly, the splash of gold on the legs goes a long way towards making them look finished.  (I did notice they're the wrong legs entirely, but they look so much better!)

The torso's still just completely devoid of any detail at all, though. It really does look to me like someone forgot to put the stickers on.

Unrelatedly, it isn't anyone's fault or any sort of actual deficiency, but I can't see that head as anything other than Leader-One with a fake tan.

19 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Because what Transformers fans demand, more than anything, is animation accuracy. 

Some of them. I will say that the brand's current obsession with toon-accuracy saves me a lot of money, because they're putting out a lot of toys that to me are hideously deformed or just straight-up unfinished.

Maybe Slingshot's robot mode will look good after the stickers are applied. I can't imagine something that barren is actually the final appearance anyone wants.

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Aside from lacking a bigger handle and the scope, what was wrong with Shockwave?  I thought, for a guy that turns into a gun that can't turn into a gun anymore, he came out pretty good.  Better than Sunstreaker's too-wide, no-spoiler ER toy.

Worth pointing out that the previous version was a Leader, and the 86 version is listed as a Voyager...

Siege Shockwave was actually really good. But as a Studio 86 design he's got far too much molded detail.

7 hours ago, F-ZeroOne said:

why it seems to attract the majority of the ire directed towards "Westernised" anime as opposed to things like "Battle of the Planets" or "Speed Racer"; the former in particular being messed around with to arguably an equal degree. 

Some of it is because Macross is a much bigger deal than Gatchaman, Mach GoGo, or Golion(Voltron being my favored example of a contemporary that dodged the wrath).

MOST of it is the way they aggressively blocked importation of new merchandise and media that everyone knew were outside of their wheelhouse, and actively antagonized the Macross fanbase either through talking down or lawsuits. Especially as some of the importers they went after were more "active fan with a side hustle" than the "major business" HG implied they were.

2 hours ago, guyxxed said:

(And, as an engineer who can't let things go, I started doing some calculations on just how much acceleration you would need on those few milliliters of fuel to impart the kick we observe to an 18m long fighter plane, and...well, it's very big numbers.  Significant fractions of c.  Wild).

Those few milliliters of fuel aren't all that gets thrown out. It's like a jet engine, the fuel is being used to heat air and the superheated air is doing the work.

Except in space, where extra tanks of reaction mass are installed to replace the air.

1 hour ago, Scyla said:

a Convoy that looks like he is mocking the super toon accurate style that defined the line for the past decade

Good, super-toon-accurate is a hideous-looking trend that has produced the least-interesting toys in the line's history!

1 hour ago, Scyla said:

Maybe this is a misconception on my part but I always imagined that toy collectors that collect a line value consistency highly.

I don't think you're wrong, but I think it is a fool's errand with Transformers. The brand's had precious little consistency over the ages, often failing to remain consistent even within a single year's lineup.

That said, I really don't understand the difference between MP and MPG. Maybe they just thought the series numbers were getting too big and wanted to reset the counter.

9 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

If this had been done smartly back in the 80's, RT may have gotten a much better fan base and release. Unfortunately, when Harmony Gold  is involved in anything, they seem to have the Reverse Midas Touch©™.

 

There were attempts made "back in the day". By most accounts, Robotech II:  The Sentinels failed not or quality reasons, but economic ones. The japanese economy was on an upswing the US was in a slump, and it suddenly wasn't cheap to hire Japan to draw cartoons for America, so the show was cancelled after three episodes had been drawn.

Their biggest mis-step was when the 90s anime boom hit and they suddenly decided they owned Macross, sued everyone, and declared war on their own fanbase.

No one told them that a small real estate company with a side hustle in tax fraud TV production can't act like the friggin' Walt Disney Company, and  they scored a bunch of own-goals while pissing off the anime fans they were supposed to be courting.