Ashtear

Ashtear , 21 days ago to Games in DOOM: The Dark Ages | Official Trailer 1 (4K) | Coming 2025

Definitely not Doom 3, lol.

Ashtear , 21 days ago to Games in Life is Strange: Double Exposure - Announce Trailer

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 , 21 days ago to Games in Dragon Age: The Veilguard | Official Reveal Trailer

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 , 23 days ago to Games in FINAL FANTASY VI 30th Anniversary Interview

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 , 29 days ago to World of JRPG's in What JRPG’s will you play on June. What games did you finish last month?

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 , 29 days ago to World of JRPG's in The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak demo launches June 4 for PS4, Switch

No PC demo apparently 😭

Ashtear , 1 month ago to Patient Gamers in What free2play game are you currently hooked on?

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 to World of JRPG's in What are your thoughts about the Dragon Quest series, what are your favorite titles or gameplay elements?

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 , 1 month ago to Games in Former Square Enix exec on why Final Fantasy sales don’t meet expectations and chances of recouping insane AAA budgets

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 , 1 month ago to Games in Former Square Enix exec on why Final Fantasy sales don’t meet expectations and chances of recouping insane AAA budgets

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 , 1 month ago to World of JRPG's in The Legend of Heroes: Kai no Kiseki – Farewell, O Zemuria launches September 26 in Japan for PS5, PS4

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 to Games in IGN immediately lays off every non-UK person at their newly bought sites, including some key members like deputy editor Alice Bell

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 , 1 month ago to World of JRPG's in The Legend of Heroes: Kai no Kiseki – Farewell, O Zemuria launches September 26 in Japan for PS5, PS4

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 to World of JRPG's in The Legend of Heroes: Kai no Kiseki – Farewell, O Zemuria launches September 26 in Japan for PS5, PS4

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 OP , 1 month ago to World of JRPG's in Kingdom Hearts is coming to Steam - June 13

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