@Zach:

Hey Everyone,

I want to take this opportunity to take some feedback, constructive critiques, and kind of step back and see how we're doing according to the people who really matter: you guys! If you guys want to answer some of the following questions, cool, if not just let us know what you like or don't like about the podcast. We've been going a little crazy with Funimation stuff and a lot of recent chapter stuff lately so i really want to make sure we're not going TOO crazy. With that, here are some Piece Together questions I have for you guys!

• Where do you download the podcast? (e.g. iTunes, the website) Used to dl from the website.
• Where do you listen to the podcast? (e.g. In the car, at your computer) At work.
• What do you do while listening to the podcast? (e.g. Nothing, homework, video games) Working or keeping myself occupied… aka working
• What is your favorite section of the podcast? I liked Greg no Gougai, though I don't know if you guys even do that anymore
• What would you like to see more of from the One Piece Podcast? A return to mp3s. I'm getting an iPhone tomorrow, so maybe this may be remedied, but I don't have much time to sit and watch a mostly audio show, and my mp3 player can't read .m4a files.
• What would you like to see less of? N/a
• Would you like to see more/less/same amount of podcasts per week? Less. You're doing like 3 episodes a week or so, why not just one? Cut out some of the fluff and keep it condensed.
• Have you subscribed to our Vidcast feed? Nope
• Is audio quality important to you? (e.g. background noise, volume consistency, etc.,) As long as it doesn't hurt my ears, or the content is just enthralling, I don't really care.
• How many episodes of the podcast have you listened to? (Estimating is fine, 0-88+) 10 or so.
• Would you/have you recommended the podcast to a friend? Absolutely not at this juncture.
• What do you like about the podcast?/What don't you like about the podcast? I like the One Piece analysis and fans getting together to discuss some really interesting topics. Though from what I have heard (maybe it's changed?), the cons outweigh the pros. Inconsistent hosts. Everybody is talking over each other. Constant stuttering. No fact checking. Really inconsistent audio quality. Too many useless segments/dialog…. This could all be remedied by better editing. Not expecting professional quality, but the show could be so much better if it were edited more competently. I suppose this could all be fixed, but there hasn't been mp3 feed since ep 39… Oh well, I hope it is better and maybe I'll listen in the near future, but in my experience I get better One Piece discussion from message boards... and the DaizEX podcast. A podcast about DBZ. That's just sad. Hope all is well in the future.

Thanks for all those who take their time to do this! Keep listening!

I want to like the One Piece Podcast :sad:

Speaking of Dragon Ball, if you're into podcasts you should be listening to the Daizenshuu EX podcast! It's the one and only podcast dedicated entirely to Dragon Ball in hopes of enlightening and a little bit of entertaining! It has been going on for 2 years strong and there are still so many things to talk about. You can find it at Daizex.com!
[/free plug]

I also bought the art book, and I'm trying to build up my manga collection as well. Can't wait for Dragon Ball DS either!

Yeah, I'm planning on heading to the Gamestop around 8:30 PM on Saturday. Why so early? I have to bike there! It's not too far from my house (I'd guess it's at least a 30 minute bike ride from my house… haven't tried it yet!), but I want to make sure I'm early. Only downside is that it'll probably be cold (around 50 degrees) and any random thing cold happen. I'm so hype!

At this point I'll only be playing against SRK people and close friends. Unfortunately, the online impressions from the American version are the opposite of the Japanese version: Laggy. Of course, they'll probably be working on it to the last second, but I wouldn't try to get online in the first few days anyway. It'll be waaaay too many people playing.

@Cyringohn:

It takes place during the midnight release of the game.

The biggest catch is that it's:

+Wiimote & Nunchuck only.
+Starting roster only.

News to me, though I was aware that you had to use whatever controller they provided. Doesn't bother me too much, since I was considering using that control scheme overall. If I play with the game cube controller, I'll completely have to unlearn Melee, whereas with Brawl I can use a new control scheme to start out fresh. It sucks that eventual tourneys I may or may not be going to probably won't allow such a controller (or classic controller) due to it being wireless.

Also of note, each match is a 1 minute time match, so either you get the kill and play keep away or it goes into sudden death where it either ends quickly or stalemates till a bomb kills your ass.

So after being gone for a month for whatever reason (not that anyone cares) I went back and read pretty much every page that I missed (though I skipped over the character "leaking" debacle that I'll assume happened). What stands out (and my thoughts):
Sonic/ Wolf/ Toon Link/ "clone" hate in general
As far as Sonic goes, I'm maining him, so I don't care much about what others think. The genius in his moveset involves the "WTF,why did you do that/ WTF did you just do?!" He relies on such mind games. Gotta be unpredictable and throw off your opponent. His speed allows this.

As far as clones are concerned, they were disappointing at first but they're in every single fighting game. Why some (ignorant) smash players thought they "deserved" complete original movesets is beyond me. God forbid they play Soul Calibur or Street Fighter lest their heads explode. As long as they each bring a new playstyle to the table (which they do), they're fine by me.

Tier discussion It baffles me how people are already talking about this crap. No doubt that some characters may stand above others, but to be talking about specific tiers is almost idiotic. The game isn't even out in America yet and hasn't even been out for a month. Damn, at least give it 3 months. Further, don't let tiers affect whatever character YOU want to play as. Get the character who fits your playstyle and if the end all be all tier list comes out and whatever character you love is on the low tier, innovate or make yourself known. Be proud to say that you're the best Mewtwo player on the block and prove it. Play the damn game and have fun with it.

Music
Yeah, it's awesome. I haven't completely spoiled myself on all the tracks either, but from what I've heard there isn't a song I outright hate.

Glossing over important topics
Most notably "Stale move negation". It's a huge factor in Brawl and adds so much to the game (in theory). Yeah, it was in Melee to an extent, that extent being the more you spammed one move the less damage you got out of it. In Brawl, there's that and the fact that knockback is drastically reduced, to the point that a godly attack (Like Zelda's b/f.air) can't KO at all past 100%. Strategically, one could intentionally spam and weaken a move and combo it into a kill move. Once people stop playing like Melee (approaching from the air and spamming that one move) this will become more apparent. Also, it'll be much more rewarding to utilize a characters entire moveset. To memory, every characters moveset is viable (except something like PK Flash). I definitely see a ton of character diversity when it comes to tournaments and the like.

"Advanced" Techniques
Just because there's no L-canceling or wavedashing doesn't mean everyone has a chance now. There's always something that the top players will exploit that will give some sort of advantage. Though I do think it's funny how people are determined to break the game to justify competitive play. Honestly, Brawl itself has more than enough to keep me satisfied as far as competitive play goes. Tripping sucks, but I'm not getting all butthurt about it. Extremely funny how people want to mod the game just to remove it.

Oh, and this forum/thread skews casual, with the exception of people like Gohn. That's about it as far as observations go. I think I'll like playing with you guys in… 11 days. Wow. That close, huh? I still haven't pre-ordered the game lol. Anybody going to a midnight release? I think I may be going to a Gamestop nearby and participating in the tournament. The rules suck early on, but I think it'll flesh out by the later rounds.

@DarkShinobi:

I have faith that with the growing popularity of One Piece, Viz will speed up the realeases in the next year or so.

The Barnes & Noble I work in got Kenshin volume 1 today and holy shit is it huge! The paper is much better quality though. And the only colored parts are the first few pages. I was at least hoping they'd color the covers that were originally colored in WSJ.

I no rite? I expected it to be a little thick, but the thing's huge! Just finished up the 1st volume btw.

And Viz really needs to get on the ball with these One Piece releases. They're barely done with Alabasta! I'd like it if they'd at least catch up to the end of Skypiea before 2010. At this rate…. not very likely.

@Sakurai:

Just remember, there are some NES classics in there as demos, so expect some of the time limits on those games to be so short that all you can do is laugh at how hard they are.

@Sakurai:

Just remember, there are some NES classics in there as demos

@Sakurai:

Just remember, there are some NES classics

@Sakurai:

some NES classics

@Sakurai:

some

@Sakurai:

some

It's highly likely that there are some full games in there. Plus, I wouldn't be surprised if some cheat device comes out and unlocks the time limit.

Still a great update for me. Having grown up with a Genesis meant I didn't get to play any Nintendo games…. until my short stint with emulation... and I didn't get to play everything then. If there's anything bound to be free, it's likely to be Super Mario Bros, at the very least.

Can't post any pictures since I'm way old school and have no digital camera/scanner. But the pages themselves are good quality. Nice and thick, not like the Shonen Jump pages.

And I dunno which chapters specifically are color chapters, but I flipped through again and Chapter 1 is the only chapter with color pages. I haven't read all of it so I can't tell if any other chapters have been gray scaled thus far.

Sweet, my VizBig Ruroni Kenshin is coming in today. I haven't read Ruroni Kenshin at all, but I do remember that it was released largely unedited. I won't be powering through it, but if I come across any horribly obvious edits, I'll be sure to post those. Plus, all ViZ volumes have a sort of disclaimer at the beginning if anything was edited, so I'll post those and stuff…

I remember watching the dub of RK, and I enjoyed it, so I figured I'd just start with this and follow the releases quarterly.

EDIT: I got it. Yay. Initial impressions: No disclaimer as far as edited content. That could mean that they just aren't letting people know, but I have no idea since I haven't read RK before. I flipped through quickly and was appalled at the lack of color pages, but I just flipped too quickly. A good chunk of the 1st chapter is in color, and I'd assume there are others. There is some art at the back of the book too. No idea if it's the Kanzenban artwork or whatever. And this volume is decently heavy. So... yeah. I'm gonna read some more.

At least it moved towards some of your birthdays. I got robbed of my birthday present because of this delay. :sad:

On the plus side, at least I'll have a better chance of actually getting a Wii by then, and my college friends will be back in town. Launch party!

What's really funny, is that only 10 pages ago people were talking about how close Brawl was. Seeing as I was reading these after knowing about the delay, I chuckled quietly to myself.

Plus, you guys are far more tame than some of the others on the internets. Ya know, not many death threats and whatnot…