Ashtear

Ashtear , 8 days ago

The accompanying Dragon Quest I & II announcement was a surprise. DQIII is the kind of game that could sell massively in Japan, so this is likely not the last we'll see of HD-2D remakes.

Ashtear , 12 days ago

About the same reaction I had. Loved the MC's design but once I put it down for something else I ended up not picking it up again before having to return it to the library. Was planning on checking it out again until this version (and especially the PC port) got announced.

Ashtear , 12 days ago

91 is a rather high score for PC Gamer, and they are usually hard on games for technical issues over there. Good sign for those of us that were waiting for a PC port.

Ashtear OP , 15 days ago

We'll see tomorrow, but I'm not convinced this wasn't all planned. Negative marketing is a thing, and if they had assets left over from earlier development, it would have been a cheaper trailer to make. People are talking about how absurd the trailer was, and that's a far, far better marketing result than apathy.

Ashtear OP , 15 days ago

I edited the link to a Youtube channel that ripped and rehosted the video.

Ashtear , 16 days ago

Same reason I never picked it up. They certainly sounded like it was never going to happen in interviews, but this was also Atlus' best launch for a title ever, so who knows.

Ashtear , 15 days ago

I believe them when they said it was just not in their budget. This already was their largest Persona in terms of voiced character lines, much less all the other development that would go into the option. Disappointing for sure, but I'm not at all surprised.

I genuinely don't think we're seeing her in a future DLC or re-release.

Ashtear OP , 16 days ago

Yeah, a lot of people don't like them. I'd be surprised if there wasn't a setting/accessibility option for it.

Ashtear , 16 days ago

I knew a new Life is Strange was coming from Deck Nine, but I wasn't expecting a Max sequel. So that's exciting, even if the recent news about the studio was quite ugly.

Ashtear , 16 days ago

How Hidden Nazi Symbols Were the Tip of a Toxic Iceberg at Life Is Strange Developer Deck Nine

Ashtear , 16 days ago

I had a good time with Before the Storm and True Colors. The Expanse was less exciting (despite it being based on one of my favorite properties ever), mostly because the episodes were too short. That doesn't look like it'll be an issue here since it sounds like it's a one-time release again like True Colors.

I didn't like them as much as the first LiS but I see that game as lightning in a bottle in a lot of ways, especially for someone like me that used to live in that part of Oregon.

Ashtear , 16 days ago

Haven't seen any follow-up, but if I'm being honest, what Square Enix Europe did bothers me just as much as the dev. That's gotta be systemic over there.

Ashtear , 16 days ago

Depending on what you mean, all of Warcraft's expansions are "standalone" now. You'll get all the previous content with a purchase.

It's the start of a three-expansion story arc.

Ashtear , 16 days ago

The studio head count is under 40, so best not to expect massive production values here. It'll be a smaller game than Metaphor, for example.

That said, absolutely the highlight of the day for me. I'll be keeping a close eye on it.

Ashtear , 16 days ago

That's my guess too. I figure this had to be just misguided marketing (or even ragebaiting) ahead of the reveal on Tuesday.

Though I suppose it's possible this is the route they decided to go with for the game with a slave state setting...

Ashtear , 16 days ago

Definitely not Doom 3, lol.

Ashtear , 18 days ago

Heavy spoilers for the game, in case it wasn't obvious.

I didn't know that Nomura did these chibi figures. Terra here was also on the back cover of the Super Famicom box. Amusing how the screenshots in this piece aren't from the Pixel Remaster while it's advertised at the bottom.

Also wasn't expecting this to get me angry all over again for the industry's sudden move to 3D. So many of the amazing sprite tools like the one Nomura discusses got thrown away in the late 90's.

Ashtear , 25 days ago

I finished Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes last month. Slow start, but had a good time with it overall. Major nostalgia bomb. I'd put it firmly behind Suiko2, but maybe on the level as Suiko1 or 5.

Feels like I've dropped Tokyo Xanadu and Unicorn Overlord at this point, so I'm not sure if/when I'll get back to those. Looking at my playlist, Ys IX: Monstrum Nox and Atelier Ayesha are jumping out to me as possibilities. I've got a few hours in each. I've also been dabbling in Honkai Star Rail, if that counts (the battle system certainly does).

Ashtear , 25 days ago

No PC demo apparently 😭

Ashtear , 29 days ago

I mostly follow Dragon Quest out of interest in its greater place in the genre at this point. After playing through DQ8 a few years back, I decided the series is not for me at this point.

I do have a long history with Dragon Quest, with the original game being my first JRPG back in 1989. I played DQ2 a few years later and didn't care much for it (the Cave to Rhone has a well-deserved reputation). I didn't touch the series again until much later with the PSX version of DQ7, which I still regret putting 110 hours into. I suppose I can thank that game for breaking me of the habit of having to finishing long games I stop liking halfway through.

I still ended up going back and playing through the DS versions of DQ4 through DQ6, and the mobile version of DQ3 more recently. Dragon Quest has had a knack for getting me into dungeon-crawling flow states with the explore-battle-victory-explore rhythm, and it generally wasn't tough for me to get started and rolling in the games. Unfortunately, they burn me out quick: almost all of them ended up overstaying their welcome by about ten hours or so. I almost didn't finish DQ4 because of how difficult the boss was.

I do have very nice things to say about DQ5, though. The story in that one still feels well above Horii's other works in the series (at least the ones I've played), and the time progression is something I'd like to see more of in the genre. That one--and the original, years back--are the ones in the series I wanted more of when the credits rolled.

Ashtear , 29 days ago

We clearly run in different circles. To me, the drip-feed marketing for FF16 felt constant for the months running up to the game. Meanwhile, the very first time I heard of Animal Well was when the reviews started getting posted (and even then I only took notice because they were above average).

Ashtear , 29 days ago

SQEX did have significant AA-sized development for a long while, although potentially less going forward until their flagship rights itself (or they develop a new one). It's less risky, and the payoff can still end up highly successful like Life is Strange or Octopath Traveler.

I guess the silver lining for them here is that FF16 had much better management than 13 and 15. It would have been a real disaster if 16 went into the budget overruns those two games did. Being hitched to a low-market-share platform and being released in a crazy year for gaming was also bad luck. Granted, FF16 and Rebirth not being good enough to move PS5 units is its own problem.

Ashtear , 27 days ago

Honkai Star Rail just passed the one-year mark and I'm massively impressed with it. I don't often play games on mobile and this is only the second gacha I've put significant time into (the first being Final Fantasy Record Keeper). I honestly didn't know my four year old, not-flagship phone could run something like this. I guess there's a reason Hoyo has enough money to buy a small country.

The battle system is crazy good. Turn based without rounds is my favorite RPG battle system, and this might be the best version of it I've seen. The presentation's great. The story and the writing is a little weird.

I wish it didn't throw a million currencies and play modes at me, but I guess that's the genre (or just F2P in general these days). Looking forward to when I can sort all that stuff out in my head so I'm not wasting time on it when I get a chance to open it.

Ashtear , 1 month ago

It's less exclusivity and more of a weird publishing arrangement. Falcom licenses out both their PC and Switch ports to two publishers depending on locale (NIS America is even doing their Japan PC ports now), and for whatever reason, they don't work with their licensing partners early on in development. Xbox isn't a factor in Japan.

Ashtear , 1 month ago

Yay, we'll be one game behind for almost three whole months! 🙄

How long Daybreak 2 and Kai will take for us in the West is fully up to NISA at this point. They've seemed to be more interested in their own greater release schedule than catching up on the series. I figure we'll probably get Daybreak 2 in late 2025.

The Switch ports of Reverie and Daybreak 1 took at least a year, so I'm guessing this is going to end up on the next-gen Nintendo console (especially considering the Switch ports haven't been great).

Ashtear , 1 month ago

I think it's the closest it's been, yeah. Better than being five behind in the early XSEED days, I guess.

There was a three-year gap between CS2 and CS3 when they did the tech upgrade, so maybe the next game after Kai will be enough time to catch up.

Ashtear , 1 month ago

It's tough. A long-standing rule of video games media--even well before web publishing--is that reviews don't pay the bills. Hype gets clicks, as do guides now that independent guide writing has waned.

Ashtear OP , 1 month ago

I've been wondering myself if their "no exclusives" restructuring also includes no more exclusives on the Epic Games Store.

Ashtear , 1 month ago

I've played all of the mainline games over the years, but my only experience with FFXI was a couple of hours of the beta. Tried the marathon as a set of replays several years back and only made it to the start of IX. The load times and the glacial pace of the battles was too much by that point. I think I was planning on skipping XI.

You could also try asking in !finalfantasy and !jrpg.

Ashtear , 1 month ago

Ahh, the tool change is nice. Functionally, it probably doesn't actually change the rate of resource collection, but it did feel bad seeing stuff you can't harvest.

Ashtear , 1 month ago

Yeah, I'm all for some shorter experiences among all the marathon JRPGs we've been getting.

Ashtear OP , 1 month ago

A Sky remaster/remake is likely a long way off. Falcom's still a rather small company, and their recent expansion has gone into more development of existing properties (like Tokyo Xanadu). Trails has also had a decline in Japan, which doesn't help.

They've licensed the property out to mobile devs and anime, so it's possible they'll do the same for another Sky project. Not something they've done in a long time, though.

Ashtear OP , 1 month ago

If you do, I highly recommend the voice mod. Sky is fully voiced in Japanese and it adds a lot of texture to the characters since it's such a text-heavy game.