The GHZ Forum

http://www.bumpytrot.com/bt2/index.html

I have more to say about this but at the moment it's 6 AM, I've only been out of bed 15 minutes, and I'm about to leave for my awful, awful job that makes me want to gut myself alive with a spoon so I'll have to reserve commentary for this evening. I will say that the prospect has me a bit - yes, I believe excited. Which is a sensation I thought I'd lost touch with. For a sequel, yet.

Here are a couple of scans from some magazine I rescued from 2chan before they disappear into cyber abyss after 20 minutes:

http://www.theghz.com/gibbon/bumpy2_01.jpg

http://www.theghz.com/gibbon/bumpy2_02.jpg

It looks like the hero's name is Dale, which is no Vanillabeans, but. The heroine in Mint, who is not as cute as Connie, but her skirt is shorter, so.

Duuuuude.

That was a fishtank. On the back of a trotmobile. And Mint is a hardcore rocker grrrl, seemingly. This had better be good, damnit.

LOOKS LIKE SHIT

Looks about the same as the first game, at least in terms of graphics and mini-games, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I wonder if they'll try to fit in a cameo of one of the BT1 characters?

I would like to see some of them return. I fancy this one takes place on another continent or another part of the world, but even then you'd certainly expect to see the travelling Ciboulette and maybe even Fennel and his band. (Despite the fact that you can continue to perform even in the epilogue of the original, it seems to me like the Trot Band would have disbanded, for obvious spoiler reasons.)

My only immediate request is that the load times be fixed - everything else can be as delightfully clunky as it was the first time and I'll be thrilled. There's something oddly genuine and honest about it.

So what's Bumpy Trot?

It's a sort of faux Shenmue with a clunky Megaman Legends interface, some charming Dark Chronicle-esque art direction, and the worst vocal songs ever made for anything on earth. It's like an 8-year old PlayStation 1 adventure game that somebody at Irem discovered and decided to release on the PS2, so of course I adore it.

I doubt you'd like it.

Is Yorda in it?

I softmodded my PS2, which allows me to rip my PS2 games and dump them on an internal hard drive (I don't really use it for piracy, really). So I loaded up Bumpy Trot and other various load-heavy games on it (DQ8, Guitar Hero, etc) and it makes a significant difference in my playing experience. Things generally load at least 3 times faster than off the disc. It's quite fabulous.

In the case of Bumpy Trot, areas would load before the loading text screens even had a chance to finish revealing all the text.

Is Yorda in it?

No, but you can unlock a photo shoot of the third Colossus in a V-thong. You need a Game Genie. It's fucked up the way it works.