Agnates said:

Sweet, can't wait. Low res textures and crude models galore but it has an undeniable charm with the world design and scale. Looks like the scans.

ASK_Story said:

Leo will be mad if he reads this, but GS gave SMT Strange Journey a 6 saying it feels dated and repetitive, mainly the dungeon crawling.

Also, he actually compared Strange Journey to Persona 4 saying how P4 is superior in every way. Uh-oh, I know a lot of SMT fans will be angry about that remark.

Here's the review:

http://www.gamespot.com/ds/rpg/shinmegamitenseistrangejourney/review.html

Not mad at all. If anything, I find the review very amusing!

It IS a Lark Anderson review after all, and he IS the worst reviewer on GS.

If a pencil-neck-dildo like Lark dislikes a game, it actually ADDS a point to the review score for me!

I'm playing it. I'm enjoying the HELL out of it, and that's all that really matters to me!

Been out of it for the last few days. What a crappy bunch of boringness. 

WTH? NMH2 out on 28th of May? What the F?? It was suppossed to be out 30th April. Oh nice. Freaking brilliant. So that's what, like a 7 month euro delay?

Agnates said:

Er? Extra bonus content is a bad thing in games (Monster Hunter island with the bosses etc)? Or homages to other titles (levels with the assassin's creed box, it's no more silly than other MGS boxes, and it won't be everywhere)? I suppose the product placement can be bad. But I don't think it will be very prominent, a mountain dew around every corner or something. MGS has had silly things before though, even if not specific brands.

I really don't care about the product placement. If it can help cut the development costs I'm all for it in fact.  So load up on the Mountain Dew!

The Monster Hunter crap though I'm not really keen on.  I'm not likely to play this game, but generally when it comes to "bonus" content like this I usually end up wishing the devs would have taken that time to add something more relevant to the actual game rather than something like this where they're just trying to do internal promotions.

It's like when Nintendo added Donkey Kong as a secret boss in Punch-Out.  REALLY??? Did we really need to have Donkey Kong in the game?  Why not bring back a real boxer or create a new one?  That bonus content felt like a cheap promotional gimmick, as this one does, and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

At the end of the day the philosophy that I think game developers should follow is, "if it makes sense, have it in the game." If they've worked it into the story that dinosaurs from Monster Island belong in Peace Walker then by all means put them in.  If not, it's a waste of time.

And yeah DK is in there.  There's no real big trick to unlocking him, you just have to beat Title Defense mode. Of course that in and of itself is pretty damn hard. Then once you do that you can fight him in Last Stand and later exhibition mode.

i think there were easter eggs, like mario items, in previous metal gear games right?  or am i thinking of something else?

i agree with robio that unless the mixing up is in the spirit of the game (like say smash bros, or a something versus game, or a lighthearted sports game) then it doesn't serve any useful purpose to have guest playable characters (let alone a whole section of the game) from other franchises, regardless of whether it's a promotion, or a tribute.  Don't appreciate things like the aforementioned donkey kong in punch-out, or like link in soul calibur, or mario and luigi in SSX.