Linda Cube 25th Anniversary

video games
1

I haven‘t played it before, but I saw that the 25th anniversary of Linda Cube is coming up, and they’ll have a pop up shop near Harajuku. Doesn‘t look like they’ll be selling any of the books (or reprints of the game), but there is some neat stuff. I want one of the tshirts.

https://videogametokyo.com/linda3/

[URL=https://i.imgur.com/LrxzTLt.jpg][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/LrxzTLth.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/7RTetKF.jpg][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/7RTetKFh.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/gzioWdC.jpg][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/gzioWdCh.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Has anyone ever played it? It was a little steep but I picked up the Saturn version. It looks like it's on PS3/PSP Game Archives, though I guess that's region locked? But besides that I think the Saturn was the last port.

2

this is the game I most want to play. The fan translation was supposed to be out in oct, but no dice

I do have a couple of the art books and they are neat of course

3

I‘m surprised this was popular enough to get a popup 25 years later but what do I know? That being said, yeah this is definitely one of the top 5 games on my bucket list I’d like to see get a fan translation.

4

Just in time for Christmas! (i know very little about this game)

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d3/c1/7c/d3c17c6521f646fbe9d2007b3ae577ea.jpg

5

that’s nek

6

I also want to play this very badly. Funny that we already got threads for two of my most wanted games, Baroque and this one.

If someone opens a thread about Suzuki Bakuhatsu, the game about disabling bombs hidden in tangerines we are going for bingo!
https://youtu.be/M7YWJDefhXQ

7

@JoJoestar#10364 I actually posted about Suzuki Bakuhatsu in the Auction Finds thread… :sweat_smile:

8

going to get in touch with whoever is fan-translating this and give them an inspirational half time speech

9

I spent a whole lot of time getting nowhere in this game back when I first started learning Japanese. Linda (the character) reminded me of someone I knew once, long ago. But that might have been because I barely understood anything she said and was just projecting whatever personality I wanted on her. Someday I will play this for real! Probably not for another five years though.

10

I played this for 30 minutes once and stopped because I can't take a DQ battle system anymore the end.

11

doesn't matter how bad this game is, when the english patch is finally done I will love it

12

I have all the linda cubes and haven‘t played any of them for very long because they Feel Important so I feel like I should have the time to get through them? and they’re all a bit different so I should compare and contrast!?!??!?

I'm probably putting too much pressure on it but I love the art style and the vibe, that is for sure. I'd go to this pop-up shop! it's probably in that crap area in the mall where the sailor moon one was

13

I have a sealed copy of the PS1 version of this game.

I can‘t even with the artwork - it’s just too good, IMO!

I've always always wanted to play this but what stops me is the Japanese, of course, and on top of that, life.

This twitter thread has some of the remarkably good artwork and also some discarded art by the same artist for a Tengai Makyou game that did not end up happening!

https://twitter.com/VGDensetsu/status/1339166675221041152

14

I was working on my own translation of this like 15 years ago. Life got in the way but I picked it back up a few years ago and remembered why I stopped – there‘s a checksum routine that needs to be dealt with, and I’m not a programmer. And I learned some real rom hackers had taken on the game anyways.

Pretty proud of myself for starting with zero knowledge and translating all the menus and non-dialogue stuff:
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/K20Ek4P.gif][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/K20Ek4P.gif[/IMG][/URL]
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/BvE2sAm.gif][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/BvE2sAm.gif[/IMG][/URL]
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/y2jxU4J.png][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/y2jxU4J.png[/IMG][/URL]

I saw the 25th anniversary on twitter and got really nostalgic. Some days I think about working on it and releasing a patch to light a fire under those guys who are translating it. I really do hope more people play it, it's a fantastic game like nearly all of Shoji Masuda's works. Its setting, plot, and gameplay are all incredibly unique. It's easily my favorite JRPG of all time. Check out Masuda's other great JRPG on the PS1, Ore no Shikabane o Koete Yuke (which I think got an english sequel on the Vita). He's very underrated in the West.

15

rat shoes

16

@bodydouble#12370 wait… there’s a whole menu heading for “Dogs”? That’s awesome.

17

@yeso#12373

All the weapons and equipment in the game are made of the animals you‘re capturing and so they don’t have interesting names (for the most part). In the beginning of the game, you can only turn animals into meat; as you level up, you learn to skin and tan animals for armor and use their horns, bones, and teeth to fashion weapons. Also you can see a useful system here where the names of animals you‘ve not encountered yet are in red; this extends to all dialogue and menus. It’s helpful in a game based around capturing pairs of animals for an ark. Once you send the animal pair to the ark, their name is in white. (You only have eight in-game years to complete your task.)

@CidNight#12375
You only have two party members in the game, though often it's just one. Thus, you can employ two hunting dogs to help you in battle. Eventually with further experience, you learn to capture and train dogs yourself -- at higher levels, you might even use dog-like monsters (quadripedal dolphins!!). In addition, there is an entire town dedicated to dog fights, with a yearly tournament. If you train your dog well enough and they become the champion, your prize is that you're allowed to rename your dog using kanji -- this is kind of a big deal (and doesn't translate to english well) because dogs can otherwise only be named with hiragana and katakana.

18

So I started playing this this week and went to the pop up shop.

The venue for the shop was not what I expected - it's by Omotesandou Station, near Harajuku, but in a really quiet part, and on the second floor of a restaurant space in a remodeled very old style building.

https://urasando-garden.jp/

[URL=https://i.imgur.com/gsfizoS.jpg][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/gsfizoSh.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

The props in the space were neat. Even though I'd just started the game I recognized everything. If you push the lights they blink.

[URL=https://i.imgur.com/cIqTJiF.jpg][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/cIqTJiFh.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/6r2Ggxs.jpg][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/6r2Ggxsh.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/wFXzDPP.jpg][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/wFXzDPPh.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

The game is really interesting - the writing is great, and while there's a lot of game systems they're definitely things you can pick up over time or even ignore, rather than things you must learn to progress.

The battles are kind of traditional Dragon Quest style battles, which I don't really have the patience for these days, but they're very fast and have a lot of wrinkles. For example, enemies can actually be on each of four sides of you, and each side (plus the ground under your feet) has a terrain type. Terrain and facing don't seem to have effects most of the time, but in order to run away there has to be a direction without enemies.

Another thing is that there's a very narrow range of enemies you can usefully fight at any point. More than two levels above you and they can kill you pretty easily, more than two levels below you and they're likely to just be destroyed when you hit them, so you not only don't catch the monsters but you don't get any XP. Because it's easy to find incredibly powerful monsters just walking around I've died frequently, but the penalty for death is relatively minor - I think you just lose one of each monster you're holding - so it hasn't been miserable.

One thing I had trouble with at the start is getting money. Many things aren't expensive, but monsters don't drop money, so the main way to get it is to sell them. But the monsters you fight early on are often worth literally 1G apiece. It turns out you get a salary, interest on your bank balance (!), and there's lots of other non-obvious ways to earn money that you can figure out, so it's not that bad after a little while.

While reading about the game elsewhere I saw someone mention that the monster designs had been made cuter for the PS1 version, mentioning the Penguin as a particular example. I was surprised, since they already seem like nightmare Pokemon, so I looked up the Penguin and, well, they weren't kidding.

https://ameblo.jp/czka-utatane/entry-11431987201.html

PS1: (Saturn is similar/the same)
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/wDhpCpV.png][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/wDhpCpV.png[/IMG][/URL]

PCE:
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/nZErPko.png][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/nZErPko.png[/IMG][/URL]

19

I‘d prefer that the PCE version receive the english translation but from what I can tell it’s PS1 that's getting close (hopefully) to the finish line. Will take what I can get though, been eager to play this for a long ass time

20

Having played through all of them, the PS/SS versions of the game are much better – improved graphics, music, several nicely animated cutscenes, and more content. I like some of the character designs in the PCE but the aesthetic of the remakes is nicer and more cohesive (although Linda's father Hume got a redesign that is kinda racist in that special Japanese way). The SS edition is the most complete, as it has a few bug fixes, a fourth scenario, and comes with an extra rearranged OST on a separate CD.

@polm23#12521

>

The battles are kind of traditional Dragon Quest style battles

Probably the only strike against the game IMO is the excessive Dragon Quest style messages during battle, instead of just showing numbers on the sprites for damage. They're very quick battles though. And as you noted, a big part of the strategy is managing your level/strength against the animals you are able to capture at a given point; for example, you'll want to keep a low level dog out of your main party for when you need to capture low HP monsters (if you overkill an animal with strong attacks, you can't capture it).

As far as losing animals after dying -- be sure to register them ASAP at the Ark so you don't have to worry about that. You get stat increases, plus some new mutation forms every so often.