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Episode 309: Assassin's Creed & Virtual On (Patreon)

Published:
2020-06-29 12:00:00
Imported:
2021-08

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Content

Once again, we're squeezing lemonade from the pandemic lemon with another episode in which the remote segment format opens up an opportunity to tackle a couple of topics that might be much harder to arrange with the traditional in-person recording process. First, I finally get my former USgamer collaborator Mike Williams on the show (after years of good intentions and near-misses!) to talk about one of his all-time favorite games: The original Assassin's Creed. And the back half of the episode features a patron request for a topic that has previously been buried in larger Sega retrospectives—namely, the Virtual On series. 

Mmm, lemonade.

Description: USgamer's Mike Williams joins Jeremy to discuss the early days of Ubisoft's virtual history sim Assassin's Creed, then patron Andrew Oliveira steps in to walk us through the history of Sega's mech-powered brawling cult favorite Virtual On.

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Comments

Anonymous

This episode hit all the right notes on VO: how great VOOT was, how much Force and Marz sucked, and how you can't really revive it because it's from another era. Besides, the Gundam Vs. series has taken all the air out of the room for arcade mech battlers. If anyone is interested in picking up the JP version of the Masterpiece Collection, you can find it at https://store.playstation.com/ja-jp/product/JP0177-CUSA16156_00-VIRTUALONMP00000 . It's a little steep but sometimes goes on sale for under 3,000¥.

Andrew O.

Thanks again for the opportunity to be on the podcast! The recording session went by so fast and afterwards I was kicking myself for not mentioning the amazing, energetic music by Kentaro Koyama. (I'm so glad you spliced some in!) The Oratorio Tangram soundtrack for those curious... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A35E_Wnegc Sadly, Sega continues to treat the series like it doesn't exist. (You won't see Temjin in Sega All-Stars racing or anything like that.) I hadn't given much thought about where the series could go until Jeremy asked and I've been mulling it over since the recording ended. I imagine it could go a F2P route with microtransactions, double-down on what made Force/MARZ terrible with the numerous model variants, but I'd rather it just stay dormant instead. A Certain Magical Virtual-On (2018) was an honorable attempt and it plays really great. It fixes the 2v2 balance by adding a points mechanic and melee attacks work better than ever, but the fighting arenas are fairly bland since they're tied to the manga/anime series. In the end the game was just too niche and sales were poor, so it seems unlikely we'll get a new one anytime soon.

Andrew O.
>>39455961

I hadn't heard of Gundam Versus, so thanks for mentioning it. I just looked up some gameplay and it seems pretty cool. Very much in the realm of Virtual On. Maybe Sega feels it isn't worth competing with a giant like the Gundam franchise? I feel like Gundams all look so similar and the series comes with so much baggage. It makes me appreciate the simplicity of Virtual On and the unique Virtuaroid designs even more.

littleterr0r

I don't know anything about Virtual On but from the sounds of it, the series has some really cool music as well.

Anonymous

Fantastic episode! Didn't know much about Virtual On and appreciated the education. But it was Assassin's Creed that really hit the spot. I've been a fan since the first AC and have literally navigated the real life Venice based on my knowledge of the city from AC II.

Anonymous

Wait someone actually legitimately likes the original assassin's creed! I'm interested to hear mike's opinion on it, our tastes rarely agree, I can't stand the majority of Ubisoft open world games, but enjoy reading his takes on them. I was so excited for the first assassin's creed game. It looked like hitman in the middle east. What I got was the same 3 missions over and over again. And the assassination missions were all terrible scripted affairs that didn't allow the player to express their abilities to solve them. I finished it but was left wondering why I bothered. I hated it so much it out me off trying the sequel for years which was way more enjoyable.

Anonymous

Despite some repetitious gameplay loops, I felt like the original assassin's Creed was one of the first where the world felt like a living breathing place. I know it certainly wasn't one of the first open world games with multiple NPCs to interact with, but just something about the state of the art visuals at the time, and crowd interactivity pushed all the right buttons for me when it came to immersion.