Feature: Trials Of Mana Producers On The Challenges Of Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG

pre-ordered this game and Xenoblade DE

with a slow start to 2020 for most Switch users (my gf plays animal crossing not me 😅) i'm definitely looking forward to the busy months of May and June and hoping that July and August have some AAA titles we aren't expecting

Preordered this as I love the game so much. I don't know when I'll get to play it, but I have to support it in the hopes we get more games in the series.

Here's hoping they remake the soul blazer trilogy next!

Thanks for sharing the interview!.

I think this game will turn out fine, based on my impressions when playing the demo. It won't be perfect, but a fun ride nontheless.

@Quarth what is perfect? Dragon Quest? Final Fantasy? Xenoblade Chronicles? Zelda? Pokemon? lol this game will do very well and whatever imperfections it has will be akin to those of the franchises that i mentioned formerly, the West just hasn't caught on yet

@glorymade Of course nothing can be 100% perfect, but I don't think this will reach the high standard of (for example) Dragon Quest XI, which is a 10/10 in my book. But I think it will be good.

Edit: Xenoblade Chronicles is one of my favorite games, so the remake of that is the title I'm looking most forward to this year. But I will get Trials of Mana day one. No doubt.

A lovely game. I had great time with FFVII remake, and eagerly await this one. Looks like Square finally returned to its glorious past. Just give us a Tactics Ogre and Front Mission.

Love it! So Legend of Mana will be next??
Man, I really need to put my hands over this game already.

Ill be grabbing this day 1 if i can make my way to Wal-Mart on release day

Pre-ordered this after playing the demo. Never was a JRPG or any of the trials games. Wasn’t a fan of these style games because you select a move and then you kind of just stand there but the freedoms with game make it something I couldn’t put down. I put 7 hours into the demo. Really excited for this!

Seriously! This is a game i need in my library.

@Axlroselm Interesting, I really enjoyed FFVII Remake as well. I immersed myself into it for almost 6 days straight and right the next day, I played the demo for Trials of Mana.

For the life of me, I could not stomach it. It just felt too archaic and beyond tedious in about every way imagineable. The contrast was stark to say the least. I'm worried, that I'm really done with this particular subset of jRPGs now and forever. FFVIIR spoiled me for good.

Obviously, the visuals and voice work cannot hold a candle to FFVII Remake. And while -from what I can tell- Trials is a very, very faithful remake, like 20 mins into the game, the difference could not be more drastic. The game starts a glacial pace, and even the action-combat cannot hide the games ancient design roots. Like you have about 2m range on your lock-on, how it all gets started by beating the Mana equivalent of every MMORPG's start-area "rats" ... I had to put it down like an two hours in. By that time I had already done and seen so much in FFVII Remake, that in contrast it felt as if Trials was actively and intentionally trying to annoy me by just draaaggggginngggg it's feet. That is tragic, consindering FVIIR is not free of padding itself, but at least the 1st couple of hours move at an engaging almost breack-neck pace.

I know that it's not the game's fault. It is what it is and it was never meant to be directly compared to FFVIIR, and yes, I am glad that fans are getting such a faithful remake of what is apparently a classic to many jRPG fans, but I am not 100% sure why they had to release it right after FFVIIR thus really INVITING comparison.

Also, it's worth noting, that Trials is really a downgrade in several curious way, like while it was afaik also build on Unreal Engine (THANK GOD Square stopped creating their own engine for every new game ... sinking money into a pithole this way) like FFVIIR, but not only does the game lack HDR support, the glorious particle effects from FFVIIR seem also entriely absent, just as the truly excellent per-object-motion blur seen in FFVIIR.

Besides the visuals, and the -almost charmingly retro- phoned-in over-the-top voices, the animations also just so-and-so. Hitting enemies feels like hitting a plushie with a wooden bat. There is no sensation of weight here or impact, compeletely unlike FFVIIR, which took obvious cues from the techniques used in God of War (most prominently).

It just feels irritatingly dull and lifeless coming off of FFVIIR. The towns are also dead. NPCs just stand around, nobody talks. I get it, it's like in the good old days.

Thing is, I don't think it's "good" anymore, just because it used to be that way 20-odd years ago. People were worried that FFVIIR would be a nostalgia fuelled letdown ... having had zero nostaglia for neither FFVII nor Trials, I kinda feel that Trials is much more reliant on nostalgia for sure.

As a quote-unquote modern action-RPG, I don't really see Trails doing much for anyone. It's pretty sad honestly, I mean, I was really in the mood to jump right into the next Square remake for sure, like itching for it and I do think Square hoped people would move straight from FFVIIR to Traisl. That would have worked supremely well, as it was just what I had in mind downloading the demo the very next day, but ... there is an abyss here, that I would have had a rought time navigating before laying a finger on FFVIIR, but after having gone through that tour-de-france of audio-visual events and truly engaging combat (even if it was really quite a bit to easy in the end, it never felt to entertain) that is not gonna happen for me.

Oh and just to clarify, I'm not generally opposed to traditional design. Instead of Trails, I started playing Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology on my 3DS. Which as it turns out it, is an absolutely fantastic game, with engaging turn-based combat (of all things), an interesting story, a well thought-out timetravel mechanic and - of all things - subjectively better voice-work than 90s-afternoon-shonen'esque delivery of Trials, which I found painful, like actively so - it IS 2020 after all.

That said, the music in Trials was pretty darn sweet. Didn't take me in the same way as FFVIIR, but still something I appreciated right from the starting screen.

I'm very, very, very interested to see the next few weeks and how the different fandoms as well as newcomers react to these very, very, very different games, despite both being remakes of classic Square games, featuring action-combat, released in the same month I wonder how other people will feel coming off FFVIIR going potentially also directly into this.

Last but not least, it also made me realize how deeply I appreciate FFVII not directly going all-out Hero-On-A-Journey on me as a player, throwing an archetypical idealistic good-boy/gal-on-a-quest character at my face. Not every game needs set the same mood as FFVII, but alas, most jRPGs don't anyways, so it IS deeply appreciated. Just another stark contrast, but one I cannot blame the Remake of Trails for at least.

@NintendoByNature idk about your local walmart but mine won't be stocking new game releases to avoid unnecessary crowds. They already did it for resident evil 3 and final fantasy 7 remakes

Looking forward to this remake I loved that they added extra interactions for when characters are in a town or city.

Demo is fantastic and will preorder!

@peanutbuttercup I guess it probably depends on the area. I was at Wal-Mart the other week and saw both re3 and ff7r on the shelf and discounted. If I stroll in and its not there I'll prob just pay full price on Amazon

This is truly just in my own personal opinion, but I am not in any way a fan of the Dragon Quest art style, especially for the 3D models, and Trials of Mana screams the same art style in my eyes. This has honestly held me back from trying Dragon Quest XI.

@Ralek85
I have to agree about the voice work. I just don't understand why every Western gamer clamors for voiceovers; 9 times out of 10 it sounds hokey and cheesy, and I would rather just read dialogue bubbles than sit through disinterested English voices phoning it in.

Not to mention the fact that the vast majority of English voiceovers sound so obviously recorded in an empty, isolated recording studio with no context to the situation within the game. Very rarely does dialogue sound natural and conversational; instead it sounds declaratory and stiff.

This, of course, all stems from the fact that the West's long history of looney toons and outlandish cartoons has built up entrenched disrespect toward any sort of animated work, no matter how mature or artistic it may be. This general outlook bleeds especially into video games.

@Ulysses I hear you on the art style but if you like turn based RPGs you should still get DQ11. Fantastic game. I'm not sure about this one... I have the collection and played SoM but it felt really dated and hasn't aged particularly well. Is Trials a lot better than Secret of Mana?

@Tasuki nope. There always was 2p co-op in Seiken Densetsu 3/Trials of Mana. There was a fanpatch to make it 3p co-op though

Preordered day 0. Just waiting or This classic to launch....

@Tasuki the original game was two players. The patch made it three players. The remake is one player.

@peanutbuttercup That's kinda B.S....so your Walmart doesn't want increased software sales...??

@Ralek85
They should have used their talents making a new game insteadof a remake.

i think sword of mana is the only part of the mana series i've even played thus far, i'd be tempted to get this if not for the bills eating away at my money... R.I.P the 115$ i had put aside

@Ulysses Well, if done right, I think voice acting can ADD a lot to a game's ability to draw you in and bring it's characters to live. I really appreciated the voice acting they added to Radiant Historia, as I mentioned. While not always 100% perfect (which VO-track ever was, no matter the medium), it enhanced the characters personality and added - in my view - significant value to the remake.

Same goes for FFVII Remake. There were a small number of characters, I felt the voice acting was a bit of with, but overall most on them were on point. In fact, all of the main cast was just flawless to me, particularly Tifa, Aerith and Jessie. I cannot imagine having enjoyed this game half as much without the outstanding voice work to be brutally frank.

There is another thing to consider: Voice acting allows gameplay AND narrative to occur simulanteously. So you can run around, do quests even fight (to some degree), while banter happens and sometimes actual narrative dialogue unfolds. That is also a much more natural way for content to be delivered than just cutting gameplay off entirely for everyone to stand around and talk at each other.

In fact, this is what made the dull sidequests in FFVIIR work for me to be tolerable. There was always another character with me, and there was always someone talking. It just felt alive and a quip or something by Aerith or Tifa, that made me smile or laugh, was never more than mere moment away.

It also made the sheer act of running along those corridors the world is build out of a less tedious task. So .. that's my view on this at last.

Thing is, jRPGs in particular have a horrible track record mit Voice Acting. As a big jRPG player, that has always bothered me, more so now than 20 years ago of course, when the fact that VO existed was a feat in and off itself. I remember Baten Kaitos Origins, a game I really revere, being one of those featuring in part downright horrific VO. I still love the game, but as you imply at times the VO was sadly hurting the experience.

Again, though, if done right, and I was pleasently surprised with the Radiant Historia remaster here, it can really bring alot of gains to the table. I could never really care for much of FF, not even FFVII, but the remake drew me in good. The voice work was absolutely crucial to that end, of that I am 100% sure. Having had only textboxes (that again would have killed the game's incredible momentum und mostly tight pacing), it would have made for a different, vastly inferior experience.

@Wavey84 Haha fair enough, I mean, if jRPGs are not your jam typically, I can totally see how Trials would definitely bore you to tears and then some. It is guilty of several of the major sins so many jRPGs tend to fall victim to, like you mentioned already. I also really feel the whole glacial-pace-beginning-it'll-get-exciting-10-hours-in is hurting these games pretty bad. I can normally stomach that (just look at Persona), but FFVII Remake really made me feel like more jRGPs need to hit the ground running in the future. None of that b*s* we're you have played 30mins to an hour before you run into a battle.

I also wanna give a shout out to Lost Odyssey which is definitely my favourite Final Fantasy. I noticed that LO does two things the same way FFVII does: It starts with a mood-setting cutscene, then almost seemingly (the FFVIIR at least) transitioning to gameplay, while having you engage in a battle RIGHT AWAY, with exactly zero delay. It's the way to start an epic adventure, as you are instantly getting the sense, that stuff is happening, things matter and your actions have meaning. That is not the case, if the game has you meandering around for an hour - worst of all, spending that hour telling you, that you need to do stuff, because the fate of the world demands it .... right.

Definitely getting this one, I feel this would be a better remake than Final Fantasy VII Remake.

@Priceless_Spork Kinda glad to hear someone else feeling this way to be honest. I know FFVIIR is getting and going to get alot of flake for it's changes, it'S ending (which is already controversial according to the internetZ), but I think the game add value to invest more time into the same world this way, beyond being just pretty as hell. It's going to garner even more outrage going forward, as big changes are up ahead - I mean the game literally tells you, the journey forward will be UNKNOWN - but that makes me excited. Can't wait to see what happens next.

And maybe even more importantly, the gameplay is shaken up so significantly and modernized in such smart and engaging ways (90% of it actually works thankfully), that it feels less like a remake of an almost quarter century old game, and more like the next Final Fantasy.

Maybe they just should have called it XVI, but then again, the marketing power of FFVII is probably too sweet a seduction to ignore. Still, to me, this is just the better version in almost every way.

Thing is, given the action roots of Trials, I can totally see how they could have done something similar here, be it VASTLY more ambitious reimaging or an entirely new game. It's cheaper to do the reimanging part, as you can rely on established characters, plot points and most importantly marketing nostalgia.

@retro_player_77 I'd say so, as far as the literaly "remaking" goes, based on the demo, I'd also say though, that Final Fantasy VII Remake is the technical superior game, vastly better voice acting and pacing, much, much stronger beginning and alot more engaging combat. And while I might catch flak for that, FFVII Remake seems mostly geared to it's audience from the late 90s, as far as demographic goes, while trials still feels to target teens to be quite frank. Which is fine, it probably did back then, and as a faithful remake, it has not much choice in the matter, but as a no-longer-teen - who has since devoured dozens up dozens of jRPGs as well as animes and mangas that have the exact same tone and narrative beats as well as structure - I found myself bored to tears by it.

FFVIIR has the benefit of having young adult characters, inhabitating a uniquely designed jRPG world, not intitally pitting you against some ancient evil or evil empire. It feels like a breath off fresh air almost in that regard. All of this is not entirely unique of course, but it IS definitely on the rare spectrum for the media, as for every FFVII, Lost Odyssey or Resonance of Fate, you get to play about 50 teenage boys on a mythical Hero's Journey to defeat the most evil dragon XYZ about to devour the land. Just saying!

@the_beaver Legend of Mana probably won't have a remake cause it's only a spinoff and as we know spinoff often don't had remakes unless it really sells or had a huge fanbase for it.

@Ralek85 The only reason I didn't enjoy the Final Fantasy VII remake is that it just doesn't had that remake feel to the original. The real time action combat is okay but the more I play it the more it feels like Kingdom Hearts or FFXV, I think I would had enjoy it had it stay turn based even if the story isn't going to be the same as the original. There's a reason why I still love Fire Emblem but not Shining Force anymore and one not staying true to their root is the reason, same thing applies to why I still love Dragon Quest games but is mix on Final Fantasy cause that series is just so mess up with its gameplay it's crazy.

@retro_player_77 I said it because of this:
Oyamada: It goes without saying that I would like to make a sequel, but at the same time I would also like to make it so people can continue playing the series past titles such as Legend of Mana.

So it wouldn't be that weird, I think hehe

@retro_player_77 Hmm, I'm honestly not sure that is a good reason, as the original still exists. What would be the point of it playing the same way?

I haven't really ever played Kingdom Hearts, as it's just too ... I dunno, like abstract for me? I watched a couple of reviews and gameplay moments, but it all just feels weirdly throwing together to me, without much rhyme or reason, plus unncessarily convoluted starting with the very names of different entries

Mostly though, I do not feel the setting, like not at all. It's just my cup of tea I guess, which is fine. The combat was actually the one thing that looked kinda entertaining, at least a first glance.

Since FFVII Remake and KH share the same director, it would only make sense for them to have a strong semblance.

As for FFXV ... I have to strongly disagree. There is very little those two titles have in common, besides them both featuring action-based combat. The combat in FFXV is broken, like complet and utterly broken. It basically consists of three things: holding down square, holding down circle and spamming heal potions, which have zero opportunity cost and are dirt cheap. Hell there are entirely battles that look amazing, but feature no input beyond pressing down square. Magic is also broken, with little reason to use. You are often fighting groups, that make it impossible to tell when to phase-evade and not, with just a jungle of limbs flailing all around you. There are attacks that cannot be phase-evaded, but must be dodge-roll-evaded ... sadly the game does not give you any clear visual clue as to what attacks that may be (unlike say Arkham or Sekiro with clear visual indicators poping up).

All of this is meaningless so, as taking damage has zero bearing on your success. There is no ATB gauge, there is zero just (besides like 100 gil) associated with healing, you have unlimited access to even elixirs (up to 99 per fight ....) ....

Buffs or Debuffs, timing, positioning, spell "equipment", none of this matters one single lick. Summons are also broken.

The whole combat exists for one purpose: too look cool. You as the player have virtually zero agency in it. Hell, for the most part of the game's existence you could even only control Noct.

This extends to the other mechanics as well. Though mechanics is a lie. Take link attacks. Since you have zero control over positioning in this game, link attacks happen almost exclusively at random (you influence your own position to a degree of course).

It's the worst combat I've ever played, in fact, it was so bad, that it baffled me enough to put the controller away 3 or 4 hours into the game to read up on it ... I mean, I was 100% CERTAIN I was just missing something crucial. I was not missing a single thing though.

So, while the combat in Final Fantasy VII Remake is up to one's taste, I really cannot accept the comparison drawn to XV. Nothing about VIIR is broken. The camera is often an issue in narrow spaces, sure, like many 3rd person action games, and some of the mechanics like Limitbreakers, summons, debuffs, etc. fall apart with all the short & easy battles in the game ... yeah granted, the combat is best when fighting one - three single powerful enemies over a long period, but that just means it is not perfectly suited to each and every scenario.

Personally, I loved the combat and if Dragon Quest XI had had a similar combat, I would have been eagerly spend a 100 hours playing it. Alas, it stuck to the stare-down-duel-style of traditional turn-based combat, we've got to enjoy the last 30 odd years. I'm kinda done with that. I'm fine with turn-based combat, if it's done like in say Resonance of Fate, with crucial elements to positioning and foresight involved while feeling and looking like a John-Woo-flick, but this nonsense ... thanks but not thanks.

Fire Emblem also offers crucial elements, like (optional) flashy battle animations and of course positioning as a crucial element. I can digg that, hell I can even digg the turn-based combat in games like Persona/Tokyo Mirage Sessions, because it is so well put together.

Other games so like DQ? It is soooooooooooo static. There is this movie: The men who stare at goats. I always think of it when playing something like DQXI. It's more like "adventures staring at Slimes".

Important to me is engagement and feelz. The combat has to offer meaningful choices for me to take, the more over a given period of time, the better. It also has to feel like ... COMBAT. Combat tends to be an energetic, visceral affair - or like a battlefield form the view of a commander, which tends to be a hectic, yet cerebreal affair, which is all about adapting to changing circumstances, and having the foresight to be prepared to those.

I can digg both scenarios. FF VII Remake, I feel, got pretty darn close of offering both of these engagement triggers. There is viscearl action, with some fantastic presentation going on, but there are also ways to just pause everything and carefully consider your next moves, plan ahead and prepare to adapt for your enemies next move.

Like say, you expect Leviathan to throw up a tidal wave anytime soon, so you get your hp up or buffs going. Or, another example, you are getting close to feeling your enemies stagger gauge, so you carefully consider your ATB stock, to be ready to unleash devastation in a few moments across three characters.

I absolutely loved that and while the game was rather easy, I never had to grind one single second in this entire game and I still only died like four times on Normal when all was said and done. The game was decently balanced and rewarded you for being aware of what was happening on the battlefield.

To me, so far, it was the best mixed of action- and turn-based combat I have yet played and I hope it will become a model for more jRPGs going forward. Not for everyone, mind you, Fire Emblem is mechanically mostly fine for instance, but for something like DQ for sure. It won't happen, because DQ seems at this point specifically designed to pretend that we are still bound by the same limitations that we had in the PS2 era, but oh well, for other series then.

I feel I would have alot more symphaty for your point, if traditional turn-based combat had really become a rarity of sorts, even given the fact, that hundreds and hundreds of classic games in it's vein still exist. But there are so many jRPGs that still stick to their roots, as you put it, and have done so for 2+ decades, that it feels like a crucial part of the story, that is the decline of jRPGs in popularity.

Other genres have become really god in providing the kind of high-stakes, deeply personal, dramatic, character-driven story-telling that jRPGs have led for 20 years. The reason to play these games are slowly but steadily diminsing. I feel like Persona found a way to counteract it, but outside of that ... there are the traditionalist series, who are struggling to find broad appeal among new fans, which means their are on a dying track long term and then there is, as you point out, stuff like Final Fantasy, that is willing to experiment with each new entry to various success.

I think it paid off here big time: When FFXV was broken, as I said, FFVII was resounding success. I feel they nailed 90% of it. A few minor changes here and there, mostly to the encounter design, rather than the system itself, and they will have a recipe for success going forward for at least another 2 console generations.

That's the really good news here. This is a big jRPG that is not just run on nostaliga or narrative prowess or world building, but also technical achievement and mechanical appeal on top of that. Good news for the industry, which felt borderling on the brink of disappearing in the PS3 era, with failed projects like FFXII and the 10 year odyssey of FFXV ending in desaster (it has indeed been 10 years between 2006 and 2016, more actually given that the game was in development before 2006).

Edit: Oh yeah, that fact that Square has mastered Unreal Engine 4 is also frigging huge. They done great with for a coupel of games now, but FFVII is their crowning achievement. This used of established middleware, that is not abadoned and rebuild from scratch for each game, will dramatically lower turn-around time for developments and thus lower cost and thus lower risk. It has been a long time coming, but I think this will eventualyl catch on with other japanese Developers. Esp. for the new generation, I expect dramatic gains here. Just a sidenote of course, but another thing that feels me not just with hope for the future of the genre, which looked so very bleak for many years, but actual exitement. I wanna see where FFVIIR goes next on PS5, but I also want to see where Square takes their other IPs. I might actaully be excited for the 1st time in my life, for a new mainline Final Fantasy Game.

Also: I want badly for them to remake FFVI in this fashion. The game's world and narrative and setting has so much appeal, like VII's, it would be ashme not to see it brought to life in such splendid fashion as VIIR!

I would kill for a Legend of Mana Switch port, actually.

I've had this one pre-ordered since it was announced. I'm very familiar with the original, and from what I've seen in the demo I like 99% of the changes. My only big questions are did they fix the flaw in Angela's spell acquisition that could cause you to miss out on her 6th Magician spell and is the Black Rabite still around (Not to mention, how do you encounter it and does it still require exploiting the hell out of an in-game bug to be able to beat it?). Based on what I saw in the demo, and having Charlotte and Angela learn their 1st spell in it, I'm fairly hopeful that they fixed that flaw with Angela, though now I'm worried that they've potentially introduced a new flaw to her that will make it take an outrageous number of levels to get the training points needed to learn all of her spells, as they've changed the requirements for learning hers at least, and probably most spells/abilities. Still, if you can't miss learning any of them anymore it'll only be a moderate nuisance, rather than a straight up flaw like in the original.

As for upcoming remakes in the series.........Adventures of Mana was only better than Secret of Mana by virtue of just how badly its original has aged, so as long as they don't back slide with this series the rest should be great. I'd certainly enjoy seeing a Legend of Mana remake, though the original game was great as it was, and interestingly all of the Western released games that triggered special unlocks if you had save data for them have either been ported to the Switch or have a sequel on it.........so intriguing. What I'd really like to see though is a Sword of Mana remake (even if it was technically just a remake of Seiken Densetsu 1, personally I think it is the best version of that portion of the saga), especially if they re-work it to incorporate many of the changes added to the Trials of Mana remake, after all Trials is the game the classes in Sword were based on.

I am very intrigued by what they mentioned regarding new post-game content, including an additional class change. In particular do you get to take your entire team to that next class or just your main hero? And do you still have a Light vs. Dark choice with it? Damn, 12 save slots might not be enough to have a save with each of the final classes, and to think originally I thought they were being generous with save slots (as it only takes 8 to set up teams to have all of the 3rd classes amongst them, including having someone who learns Healing Light in each).

Oh, and to those who are trying to compare FFVIIR to Trials of Mana..............just how big of idiots are you? The reason both games are releasing in the same month is that they have entirely separate development teams working on each. Also, you've been complaining about how much worse the DEMO of Trials looks. IT'S A DEMO, it is perfectly reasonable to think the final game will actually look better. Yes, the demo covers the beginning of the game up through the first boss fight, and you can carry the save over to the full game, but that just means they won't be making any changes to the core game engine or game mechanics. It doesn't mean that those are the final graphics, although as it is a multi-platform title that is also releasing on Switch, which has notably lower graphics capabilities, and the game is going to be less than a 7th the size I say it is unrealistic to expect them to look that similar. Oh, and Akira Toriyama, the creator of DragonBall, is who does the character and monster designs for Dragon Quest, but if memory serves he doesn't do the Seiken Densetsu, sorry Mana series, designs. They're not THAT similar. Finally, Seiken Densetsu is meant to appeal to a rather different audience than nearly any Final Fantasy title. In fact, I'm fairly certain that I'm in the minority as I'm a fan of both (as well as Dragon Quest, Breath of Fire, Star Ocean, Xenosaga, Shadow Hearts, Kingdom Hearts, and really most JRPGs for that matter).

@Ralek85 I disagree with this notion that voice acting improves on the experience while in-game. In fact, I think it does the opposite. I think it distracts from the action and forces the player to stop and pay attention to the dialogue.

If it were a slow-paced point-and-click adventure game, it's okay to have intrusive dialogue midway through the action. Buy on a faster-paced game like Breath of the Wild or a platformer it would feel distracting.

I was playing the Mickey Mouse Castle of Illusion remake and just couldn't concentrate on the tight platforming with the narrator droning on and on about Mickey's adventure.

Personally, I feel Breath of the Wild did it best. Kept the voiceover work to the cutscenes. While cutscenes where you don't have any control can be kind of a drag, you only need to view them once if you're worried about pacing. Having an optional cutscene skip button is the best solution for me in this case.

@Ralek85
I think you might actually have the single best thought out response regarding FFVIIR in the comments so far. I do also like a lot of what you have to say regarding the JRPG market in general, though I don't fully agree with you. First, the Tales of series has always had action oriented combat, where player skill mattered just as much as stats. Star Ocean isn't as far into the player skill end of the spectrum, but it still matters there, and it is an Enix original IP, and thus now a SquareEnix IP. Yes, there are still a lot of games utilizing the tried-and-true classic turn based system, but as I've studied computer programming I can tell you that from a programming side of things it is both easier to create, and utilizes much less in the way of system resources (although these days the latter doesn't really matter anymore).

You do have one thing slightly off though, DQXI has actually changed up the combat system from DQIX (since DQX never came state-side I'm not familiar with it). First, once you have a character who can use a Boomerang, or other group hitting weapon, you can actually select which enemy is hit first, which does notably impact the usefulness of such weapons over the course of the game (as well as some other strategies). Second, they have shifted from the classic turn based system to what I call an active turn based system. The difference is fairly simple, but very pronounced.

In a classic turn based system all enemies and allies get a turn (nominally, DQII introduced enemies that can get two actions back to back, and BoFIII introduced EX Turns for speedy characters, while both series have long had equipment weight affect character speed in battle) before anyone gets a second turn. In this system there isn't any point in being an faster than fast enough to act before most, if not all, enemies, and having a near 0 agility/speed doesn't significantly hinder a character (unless it affects hit/evade, but still being slow isn't a notable problem even then).

In what I call an active turn based system turns happen on a single-combatant-at-a-time basis, just like Grandia (I, II, Xtreme, and III, and they are one of the best examples of this as well as characters move around the battle field, and even have a stat affecting how far they can move in a single turn), Legend of Dragoon, or even some Final Fantasy titles (Tactics, and X namely). The biggest difference here is that a character who has twice the speed of another character actually gets twice as many turns, thus until you end up sacrificing on ALL of the other combat useful stats there really isn't a practical upper limit to agility/speed until you hit the games cap for the stat, and having a really low agility/speed significantly hinders you and requires your characters to have a certain minimum agility/speed to be useful in combat, no matter how high their other stats might be.

Personally, I'd love to see more games use a combat system akin to either Grandia (I love the combat system there, even if I strongly dislike how you learn and power-up moves and spells in II, and am still mixed about how new spells are acquired and strengthened in Xtreme and III) or one of the many action combat systems. Yes, the one used in FFVIIR is really good, but so is the how the system has evolved in the Tales of series, and the one used in .hack//G.U. isn't bad either, nor the one in Phantasy Star Universe: Ambition of the Illuminous. Some of those systems are more stat-reliant than others, and honestly the system in FFVIIR and the demo for Trials of Mana is kinda pushing the limits of my skills as an action player (I've never been particularly good at action games, which is probably a big part of the reason why I still enjoy even classic turn-based systems, my failings in the action arena don't matter there). Yes, I also love Metroid, though I never got into Castlevania all that much, and have managed to at least clear every single Metroid title in at least one version (basically starting with Metroid III: Super Metroid and since, the first two I never quite managed to beat until they got their remakes), but in those you get upgrades that boost stats, as well as many enemies having some very obvious tells or rather simple patterns to learn, that helps to compensate for my weak action-gaming skills. And really, it is people like me, who can't do well in the heavily action-oriented games, that are a fair portion of the target market for games like Dragon Quest, Mary Skelter: Nightmares, Demon Gaze, Omega Quintet, Etrian Odyssey, Bravely Default, Pokemon, Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth, Digimon Survive, Stella Glow, Disgaea, Legend of Legacy, Monster Hunter Stories, Criminal Girls, Wild Arms, Shin Megami Tensei, Mugen Souls, Metal Max, Conception PLUS: Maidens of the Twelve Stars, Jade Cocoon, MS Saga, Ar Tonelico, Blue Dragon, Digimon World, Suikoden, and many, many, many, more. Oh, and all of those examples examples are taken from my personal game library, and is little more than a glorified sampling of my personal game library at that.

I will mention that against a single opponent the combat system of Trials does seem rather easy though. Seriously, I've done six saves in the demo, all up through the Full Metal Hugger fight, and in four of them I beat him and got the No Damage Taken bonus, on normal difficulty. I could go through and get that bonus in the other two, and fairly easily really, though I'd have to play through them from the beginning, but honestly it is so easy to get that bonus most fights, especially once you have allies, and the amount of experience it takes to get from level 6 to 7 that honestly it doesn't feel like sacrificing that 120 EXP is even going to matter by the time I'm trying to find the hidden dwarf village. I've been holding off on starting my final two saves, for the eight saves that will get me all of the Tier 3 classes across them, until I knew if the Black Rabite was still around, what the requirements for encountering him were, and if there were any special requirements to be able to beat him. In the original you had to have Angela in your part to defeat that intentionally broken hidden boss, and you could only get to him from the Duran/Angela final dungeon.

For those of you who haven't looked him up yet, the Black Rabite had an uber-cheap ability that he uses roughly every 30 seconds of combat time that fully healed him, and it didn't list any recovery numbers so code-wise it probably just reset his current HP to equal his max HP. Oh, and without exploiting the hell out of an in-game bug, and it had to be done in a certain manner, it was impossible to deal enough damage, with ANY team combination, to kill him between rounds of his healing. You had to have Angela, casting Tier 1 spells, and utilize the in-game bug of opening and closing the ring menu to trigger the instant completion of casting a spell to deal enough damage fast enough. You had to use the Tier 1 spells because they don't fully disrupt combat, and instead prevent a target from doing anything while the spell is hitting it, but Angela can start casting the next spell while the first is hitting its target. By utilizing the bug to essentially insta-chain-cast those spells she could fully lock-down a target, preventing it from doing anything. It still takes more than 30 seconds of combat time to kill the Black Rabite, but the lock-down prevents it from using its full-heal move (oh, and that move isn't blocked by any abnormal status, just the lock-down affect of continuous spell damage). As I said, he was intentionally broken and explicitly required heavily exploiting an in-game bug to be able to defeat him. If he's still around, but beatable without that bug, and can be encountered by any team combination I am going to change who my main hero/ine for those two teams is before I start them, or if he's gone from the game. Of course, that bug doesn't exist anymore because of how they've changed the combat system, so if he's still around he should theoretically be beatable with any team combination, so then it just comes down to who's story paths does he appear in if he's still around. Yes, he's mostly bragging rights to beat him, as despite being a boss he's worth a lot less EXP than any other enemy in the final dungeon, but he is the ultimate challenge, and being able to best that ultimate challenge is always a reward in its own right. Well, he doesn't hit as hard as any of the final bosses, but none of them have his uber-cheap full-heal move either, which ultimately makes them less of a challenge.

@dudujencarelli
Really? You get distracted by the voiceovers? It is very rare I have anything interactive going on that requires enough of my focus to even have to choose which to focus on, action or dialog, although the rare times it does happen I default to tuning out the dialog and end up missing chunks of it, no matter how important it was. The main reason I pause whatever show I'm half watching while I'm playing when I do boss fights, although not all games have boss fights that are that challenging.

Hmmmmm.......I wonder if something like that could be used as a test to determine which people are more heavily impacted by trying to drive while talking on their phone? I've always had problems believing that the claims that talking on a phone impairs ALL drivers equally, mostly because the majority of my own family are demonstrably better drivers while on a call than many people are while focusing on driving, and if it impaired all drivers equally then that would imply that my family would be better drivers after a bear or two than those people are stone cold sober, and that definitely sounds wrong. A lot of that difference comes down to the person's mental prioritization of course, but part of it also comes down to how much external stimulus can they process simultaneously before it starts to overwhelm their mind.

Still, I will say that voiceovers, and how they are implemented, are viewed differently by different people. I've just been gaming for enough decades that unless they are really good (Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete, they might be heavily dramatized, but they fit their scenes perfectly) or really bad (Lunar: Silver Star Harmony, they re-did all of the voiceovers from L:SSSC with ones so bad even Baten Kaitos Origins seems good in comparison, I honestly hadn't thought it was possible to do voiceovers that bad until I played L:SSH) I just don't care much if they are or are not implemented. It is convenient to have them for the long stretches of exposition, especially if I can turn auto-progression on (Bravely Default is a prime example of this situation), as then I can stop and have a couple of bites to eat while just listening to the dialog instead of having to constantly glance over to read it, but then again some days I'm reading a book or watching a subbed anime while I eat, so it is merely a convenience and nothing more.

@dudujencarelli Never played Castle of Illusion, but I do think I know what you mean. Basically, you get meaningful dialogue, likely exposition dumped on you during "normal" gameplay, and that causes issues with SFX and well, just your ability to concentrate on it.

That's pretty poorly done, granted, but that is not what I mean. FFVII R also did not do that. 1st of all, the banter I was talking about, was not essential exposition or character building of any sorts, that what the game uses cutscenes for, but just pieces, mostly rather humurous or mundane, to flesh out the world or characters a tiny bit. It also did not delivers them almost exclusively when you are pretty much just running or walking around. One could argue, that these moments should be cut entirely, no pointless travel time (there is a quick travel option later on), but then again, some people are already apparently angry as it is.

I would also suggest that FFVII is going for a different objective here than Castle of Illusion (or any platformer I guess) entirely: It sets out to create a believe world, fantastical sure, but not that personal level of the characters and their interactions and their good old feelz.

Yes, let me put it clear as day, for that to really succeed you need strong voice acting. I could imagine a scenario, where really on-point art, framing&direciton and music might be able to deliver an emotional punch and a level of relateability compareable to strong voice acting, but that is mostly academic.

Plus, it would still pose the problem, that you pretty much have to stop all player engagement and pretty much just deliver a cutscene, because relaying emotion without voice acting and facial animation ... gee, that is a task that will fail miserably 99% of the time.

One thing I can think of, that worked for me personally, were the "A Thousand Years Dream" in Lost Odyssey. Those packed an incredibly punch, but that was due to really good choices in music, proper framing within the games grander narrative and handsdown, without even a smidge of doubt THE BEST writing I've ever come across in a jRPG, maybe in a game at all.

Shook me to the core, even if it was as basic as it gets from a visual standpoint and there was literally not human emotion on display neither visually nor accustically.

Hell, I did go back and booted FFVII up on my vita, the original PSX version. I wanted to feel it, the humor, the sadness, just the humanity of the characters if you will, and not too sound to pretentious here, but I am sorry, neither the chibi'Esque cutscenes, nor the stilted text within the artificial textboxes was doing anything for me.

I have zero doubt, that like 20 years ago, in a different time, and much younger me, would have been deeply impacted by what I saw and read. Here, now and today, I am not though. This kind of stuff is in my view NOT actually "forever".

The Divine Comedy is forever. The art direction in Dante's Inferno is rather incredible, but it's not like anyone ever even entertained the thought of it like 'replacing' the Divine Comedy. That is not going to happen. That art form is pretty much unchanged. Sure, new styles and formats have emergered, but the fundamentales are the same.

This is decidely not true for videogames. The fundamentals are very much not the same now, as they have been in 1997. Hell, I remembered being AMAZED by Metal Gear Solid back then, pretty much around the same time really, when I first booted it up. As soon as I heard David Hayter I was like ... what is this? He sounds gruff, like ... like a badass mercenary gruff. I was hooked right then and there, on the game itself, but also Hayter as a voice actor, and really just the concept of voice acting in general.

It's not something that meant anything to me before MGS1 on the PSX. It certainly did after. It made MGS the experience it was, not by it's lonesome, but it played a friggin huge role in it.

Voice Acting was not entirely new at this point, but to me, I would argue, it kinda was at least at that scale and in this quality. I didn't understand what "cinematic" meant back then, but I sure as hell FELT it. Snake, Meryl, Naomi, Psycho Mantis .... Sniper Wolf ... gee, after all this time I still choke up here.

The voice acting was far from perfect or the best ever, but back then, it was certainly felt that way and put the whole experience on a completely different level for me. I hadn't really actively noticed the PSX audio capabilities until the opening moments of MGS ...

I will say this, just looking before that point, let's say Resident Evil, and also what Square did with FF after VII, I can see how many folks never really placed high value on voice acting, or really much cared for it. There was more horrendously bad voice acting being produced, particularly for jRPGs in the west (with no option for the original VO more often than not), that a certain irritation or even disregard is highly understandable. I mean, this is kind true to this very day.

I don't think it's true for FFVIIR though. I personally found tifa, JEssie and Aerith in particular to be absolutely outstanding, and really carrying these characters, like making me care for crying out loud, not 20 hours in, but even 2 hours in (later with AErith obviously). Also Barret ... a bit over the top for sure, but a couple of hours in, I did not longer care, because I had become a believer. There was conviction in his voice and all his theatrics were just part of his personality, a personality build around loyality and honesty and an insurmountable drive to see justice done.

Nothing conveyed that part of his nature stronger to me than his voice performance, nothing. It was integral to really sell me on this at heart super goofy character. An obvious racial stereotype -sorry, but the angry-black-guy-stereotype was just an unavoidable assocation- with a mini-gun for a hand ... is not exactly an easy sell, and the original just can't do it for me.

To each their own though, but I do agree that voice work should be delivered in a way, that the player can pay attention to it, without having to stand still and create their own cutscenes. Many games tend to this constantly, I know, but that is just bad design. Many games have parts of their level desgined for no other purpose than to mask loading times. These are ideal areas for that kind of VO banter to pass the time, just one example really.

@Razmoudah I did not mean to imply that there were no jRPGs using anything other than turn-based combat (did it come across that way?), in fact, I do not even have a problem with turn-based combat itself.

For me, like I tried to lay out, it matters most if a) the game feels turn-based, meaning that often times, my actual experience is just paused and on-hold and b) does it offer player engagement in terms of meaningful decision above and beyond what could be done in real-time, without overtaxing the player (not everyone is a pro player with 250 actions-per-minute after all ^^).

While you are obviously well versed in the minutae of many a jRPG turn-based system (incidentially, I kinda liked the combat in FFX quite a bit, of the bit I have played so far, without ever thinking to much about why that may be so), I think the problem with FFXI is not the mechanical refinements, but that the presentation.

On a very basic level, I enjoy the combat in SMT games for instance. Without getting into the nuts and botls of it, I think there is a striking difference in my expereince of SMT III vs SMTIV/A and esp. vs Persona 5 and Tokyo Mirage Session: animations.

Simply out, the 3DS ones do not let you see the action play out. It's just literally bunch of 2D art pieces (which are gorgeous) shaking a bit on screen and some fire effect or whatever being thrown up the screen. It's supremely static.

Pretty much the exact same type of combat feels entirely different if you compare it to the other games mentioend. Particularly TMS#FE head so much going on visually, that watching it felt exciting. I mean, I don't do streaming, but I imagine a stream of SMTIV would be nauseating beyond belief. I mean, do love the game, there is brilliance to it, but the combat felt about as engaging as watching slow-mo replay of 20 year old chess tournament.

As for Tales, I do appreciate the combat, and I LOVED Symphonia on the Gamecube, but beyond that, I could never really get into the series, just as with Star OCean, for reason utterly unrelated to combat. Just could not stand the characters. Star OCean Last Hope had actual combat. Played back then on the 360, but the art direction was super uninspired, the music so-and-so, and for the life of me, I did not care for anyone in my party. It just felt very generic and cookie-cutter jRPG stuff.

I will say, that one of my favourite jRPGs of all time remains Eternal Sonata. It had the Tales system, with some clever twist like the dark/light mechanic, but mostly, it was the unique setting centered around the life of Chopin and the OUTSTANDING interpretation of his music, that captured me entirely. I even got the OST, because I totally dug the Nocturnes interpretation most of all.

I do agree with your sentiment about shake ups to established turn-based tropes. The basic party one turn, party two turn, rinse and repeat is not just the most mechanical unengaging, but also the most artificial and sterile one to look at. It feels like a battle from the early days of infantry combat. Just lines standing there, shooting at each other. Utter madness in it's own way, for a purpose sure, but looking back: utter madness.

There is nothing about that I can relate to, that can pull me. And yeah, I agree about Grandia as well, at least III as I don't recall actually playing any other, and Dragoon for sure.

Hell, I currently in the process of playing Operation Darkness on X360, one of Atlus' most obscure releases I think, and I really like how there Turn-Order and number of actions is determined not just by speed but also by weight: Thus if you bring more, say bazooka rockets, to a fight, you pack a lot of destructive punch, but the flip-side is, that some of your characters will get to act 3 times as often as others. It's something you have to weight, because you might actually face a scenario, were you are killed off, before you can do ****.

In that regard, I also like what Radiant Historia did: You get to determine the turn-order, linking many characters together for repeated terms in a row, grants devastating combos, which are essential for winning, but this comes at the cost of putting your characters in a vulernable state, where there are almost certain to receive critical hits.

Basically, if you swap place with an enemy at a later turn, but whos turn comes within the rest of your chain, thus breaking it, you will get a longer combo, but your swapping character will also likely be crit'ed, even by the enemy you swapped up.

The other DQ I really played was DQVIII, which stil think highly off all in all, so no, I do not really notice those changes playing the demo at least. I gotta say though, I was more looking forward to the option to freely move while in combat. Sadly ... yeah, this does nothing ultimately, not even for the general sensation of the ebb and flow of the combat. It does not make it feel any more dynamic.

On that note, thinking backt to FFX, I'm not postive here, as it's been a very long time, but I vaguely remember the game having a pretty decent camera, that dynamically framed the characters movement and actions. I do think that is probably part of why FFX clicked more with me than any previous FF I had laid hands on - not all of it, but part of it.

That is alos something absent from DQXI, it's so static, it almost seems entirely purpusefully. Like movement is kept to a minimum. It's odd to, because it has this colorful cartoonish vibe and one thing cartoons tend not to be: is static.

I said this on the comments for the DQXI review back then, I do not need the game to play as action'y like FFVIIR for instance. But I DO NEED to be presented as excited as something as TMS#FE or Peronsa 5, even Lost Odyssey, or preferably Resonance of Fate

That is still my favourite turn-based system fo all time, if go by both criteria, engagement and presentation - just as a sidenote. There are deeper systems, that I enjoy more mechanically, but only a handful, but still the combination of position, decent 3D visuals and music, paried with John-Woo-style acrobatics made even the grind-hell that was RoF mostly tolerable

As for the whole problem of personal skill ceiling. I hear you on that. I am not like a god tier player myself, but I can definitely handle any action in any jRPG I've seen yet, plus most of what Soulsborne can throw it me, incl. Nioh, though Sekiro pushed me to my breaking point many times over, with no little frustration involved. FFVIIR then though, felt entirely "fine". Like I said, I did like 4-5 times on normal playing roughly 48h hours to the point almost. The "normal" fights, which lasted like 20 seconds, I doubt those gave anyone any trouble. Some of the bosses were no push-overs, but it was still - in my book - more about management skills than about relfexes or timing.

It's not like active parrying or doging was a big deal in FFVIIR. As a rule of thumb, you want to maximize all your characters meaning that ideally, you were never on any of your characters for more than 3-4 actions really. They would wander of doing crazy stuff, or pointlessly standing there, so it was your job to keep in the game and in the right spot. It was actually pretty hectic.

Thing here is, I might have enjoyed like top-down version, with pause function as well. Like being able to navigate these characters around, giving them act orders and such, while being able to jump into anyone of them at any time, as AI was just flat out bad. Hell, I would have prefered such an option to be honest, and I feel that would it also make it more accesible still to less action oriented players.

Having said that, there is classic mode. Plus, and that is my main concern here, all these other series, like EQ for instance, which you mentioned as well, are NOT going anywhere. Atlus is never going to throw millios nand millions at a series like EQ to create anything akin to EQ. They would never take that risk and the money is unlikey to be made back for sure.

Trials of Mana the demo was a good example though, of how "action combat" is not a cure-all by itself, not by a long shot. Personally, like I laid out, I did not like it at all. The way the game went along with me just hammering Square-Button was an unpleasant reminder of FFXV, which just played itself, as you are probably ware. Sure it picked up with later, with one encounter in particular, but it was still pretty darn basic.

Sad part is, the button smasher feeling is one thing, but even back on the PS2, games like God of War nailed that formula to perfection. Trials has nothing on those games, as fluidity goes, combat animation, impact of hits, frange of movement, variety of enemies, attack patterns, speed ... it's like granny version of GoW drenched in the Disney-color-palette. It was an odd experience to be honest, as I had to wonder: who is this for?

I felt Star Ocean last Hope on the 360, as I mentioned, had about 100 times more engaging feedbackloops going on that this and that was back in 2009 ... like wtf party people?

Like, the way the Blinding Siding was animated, really gave it a decent feeling of momentum, if you will. I still feel it was too unreliable an just going for a normal dogde the better option, but the visual feedback was pretty good and actual incentive to pull it off, more so in view than the free hit. Strange ... I know, but a game this grindy makes you imho think about these things

The problem I see in the whole action-combat appraoch we are talking about here, like with Trials, is the point of reference. The combat invites, as I did above and in my original comment, comparison to games from an entirely different genre. I do not mean necessarily in terms of mechanics (like DMC combos or whatever, parrying windows, i-frames and such), but certainly presentation.

I think that is fair, and given that this 2020, I do think any comparion should be to the gold standart here and this remains GoW (2018). That is also unfortunate, because there is no apt comparison to be made here. I imagine that is also one reason, some developers shy away from this for sure, as producing a system, that is is engaging and also looks the part (and sounds frankly, the SFX are also an issue in Trials for me) takes time and is expensive, for many projects prohibitevly though.

On the upside, as I said, it is pretty much a guarantee that you will never round out of EQ or Demon Gaze'like games. I mean, EQ is alos a prime example of a game, where the combat presentation killed an experience, that I found otherwise rather engrossing. I own all of them except V and Nexus on 3DS, but never really got toooo deep into either one. I have the same problem with it as with SMTIV, which I finished though: it's once more mind-numbingly static. Having a bunch of 3D modells doing their thing on screen would have done wonders for me. (No, I am not the type for text adventures, certainly not anymore ^^).

Persona Q works actually much better for me in that regard. Some small subtle changes made a world of difference there. Funny, I know, but that is just the way it is. I do feel justified in expecting a game to entertain my senses as well as my intellect.

Hell, XCom had it's own like fancy slow-down killcam. Did not make the game any less deep or iron man any less taxing, just all-around more engaging to play.

Thanks for the write-up about the Black Rabite, I had like no idea as someone really not invisted in the Mana series at all. That's kinda the stuff, that can become like a myth if you experience it as a kid. Made me laugh out with joy! ^^

Edit: I forgot to say, I do feel like FFVIIR is the culmination of Square's work in their quest for a flashy, yet tactial combat system, that I feel started with X. FF XIII and FFXV are both parts of that progression and so seems is Kingdom Hearts. It's an interesting journey in and off itself, and I feel they've kinda gotten there now, and this then made worth in retrospective the mess that was XIII, the only one I really finished though for some reason, and the broken, broken, oh so very broken game, that was Versus XIII aka XV.

Think about that! That is an almost 20 year journey for them, starting at the turn of the millenium to now. They pushed out Advent Children in like 2005. 15 years later, they have a game that looks as good, sometimes better, but more crucial it captures the game's flashy action without loosing VII original variety and depth (not that it was ever theee most deepest system out there).

That is just ... I dunno, that just feels mythical in it's own way. I imagne it must have been a relieve for them, when they shipped VII and it was received by and large this well. 15-20 years is a long time trying to refining a system ...

Trials Of Mana Remaking A Classic 16-Bit RPG

---A new Book by, @Razmoudah and @Ralek85

Sheesh guys
So like, is it good?

@Ralek85
You did come across a bit as if nearly all JRPGs did the turn-based thing, and it is very common, but there are plenty that don't do it. Oh, and since you're on this site I'm guessing you have a Switch as well? Last fall Grandia Collection released digitally on it, which is Grandia I and II in a single game. Just to warn you, the voiceovers in II can be a bit stale at times, except for combat ones for some reason ("Deep friiieeeed goodness!"). You'll get that quote within a couple of hours of starting Grandia II, and probably get a good laugh out of it.

Hmmmm.......I wonder, is the biggest problem I'm having with FFVIIR not dodging attacks that should be blocked and blocking attacks that should be dodged (I have a serious problem with that at times in games where you can do both, but in FFVIIR it can kill you, at least on normal difficulty and easy is such a snooze fest I refuse to play it) but instead focusing on mostly using one character and trusting the AI too much for basic combat for the others? That is something to think on. I've certainly noticed that the character I'm controlling does typically fill up the ATB gauge much faster than the others.

As for just pounding the attack button in the Trials remake.........I like the 10% bonus EXP for not taking any damage far, far, far too much to do that. I've taken to heavily utilizing a Hit and Run approach to combat, and specifically dodge-rolling past an enemy to lure them into taking a swing and missing to create the opening for the hit, so I can get that bonus as much as possible. In fact, making good use of such strategies to get that bonus as much as possible, as well as using strong attacks semi-frequently for CS gems to use them somewhat frequently, is making this remake require less grinding for experience and levels than the original. Pair that with the massive prevalence of Item Seeds and it even has a lower grinding requirement for cash for equipment upgrades as well, since by the time you get to Wendel you basically never need to buy recovery items. Oh, and if you're getting that No Damage bonus you also don't use any recovery items/magic, and you would need them a LOT in the original as Hit and Run didn't work worth crap in it (unlike Secret, Legend, and Sword), mostly do to how long it took to attack and you couldn't trick enemies into hitting air. Of course, that's probably also the reason why the remake has dropped the Dexterity stat, and as a consequence the Hit and Evade stats that were heavily influenced by it.

Yeah, I hear you on the heavily static combat games like EO have, although V and Nexus do have an increased amount of animation than the previous entries have in combat it still isn't a lot. Although interesting combat does help, there is a reason I've taken to watching shows while playing most games. There's enough miscellaneous dialog going on in FFVIIR that I don't do that with it, but it is definitely one of the exceptions to that for me (and multi-tasking my games and anime like that does wonders for ameliorating boring combat so I can enjoy a great story that is held down by dull combat).

Hmmmmm.......so you're old enough to remember the advent of voiceovers in console games? Or at least, voiceovers being used to help tell the story of the game? It does sound like you aren't nearly as into JRPGs as I am though, so I'll let you in on something. Squaresoft, and consequently Square Japan, was actually taking a fair bit of flack in the later 90's for the lack of voiceovers in their games. Seriously, I can actually count on one hand the number of games Square made for the PS-X that had voiceovers for more than just a couple of songs, all three of them if memory serves. Considering they had roughly 2 dozen games on that platform, and every other major developer had several games with voiceovers it wasn't that surprising. On the flip side, nearly every Enix title (remember, Square and Enix were originally two separate companies, they merged around 2003-2004) on the PS-X had voiceovers, some used them more than others, and some were better than others, but they still used them heavily. It's a big part of the reason why FFX making heavy use of voiceovers was such a big thing when it released, Square had finally 'caught up' with the rest of the industry in their usage, and then over took it. Say, you should also be old enough to remember that the reason we have the FMV cutscene today (that's Full Motion Video, for those who don't know) is partially because of Square. Sony said the PS-X wasn't capable of doing it, but Square did it anyhow with FFVII and FFT, and ended up making them a standard for major cutscenes.

Now, you mentioned that you rather like the combat of FFX, even if you weren't totally sure why. I can name three things that when you think on it will probably have you pin it down. 1: Character speed matters. Yes, it has mattered to some extent ever since FFIV introduced us to the ATB system, but in FFX a character who is twice as fast actually reliably gets twice as many turns (as you don't lose turn build-up time to inputting a command for them). 2: Character roles. Each character has a distinctive role. Well, all except Khimari. Pair that with being able to swap your team practically on the fly so you always have the characters whose roles are best suited to the enemies you are currently fighting and it both makes the combat more engaging and gives it a better flow, while allowing characters to be more heavily specialized. 3: A good dynamic camera. As the visual appeal of the combat heavily matters to you the fact that the dynamic camera of FFX doesn't have two or three randomly chosen patterns for showing what is happening, but instead is nearly constantly moving around and shifting focus, both near and far, to follow the action gives the combat in it a significantly higher degree of visual appeal. The third definitely matters for you, but I bet without the other two you wouldn't enjoy it nearly as much.

Now, I've been a Star Ocean fan since The Second Story, on PS-X (ported to PSP as Second Evolution), and honestly that's probably the main reason I remained a fan after the mess that was The Last Hope. Which is actually translated differently for the PS3 and PS4 version than it was for the Xbox 360 version, you can thank Microsoft for most of that (part of the reason Square didn't finally acknowledge that FFVIIR was in the works until after the release of FF Type-0 HD), but its character development and presentation was weaker than previous titles, Integrity and Faithlessness makes an effort to get back to the storytelling roots.

Resonance of Fate/End of Eternity (and yes, there is an in-game reference to its correct title, even with shirts that have a special logo based on the English acronym of EoE for the characters) does have a rather fun combat system, but if you bother to look closely it's actually just a heavily modified classic turn-based combat system. The modifications just allow you to massively mess with the turn order and with the right amount of grinding make it possible to clear most basic fights before the enemy gets a chance to act, and with a lot of grinding only bosses get the chance to really pound on you. The arena helps a lot with the grinding, especially if you remember to correctly cycle around weapons on characters (though leveling grenades is a pain in the earlier portions of the game, but if you've put in some time grinding the other weapons they catch up real fast once they appear in shops).

Now, you've mentioned repeatedly that you strongly dislike the action combat of the Trials remake, have you ever played the original? Even once? I can tell you flat out that what is in the remake is significantly better than what was in the original. It is more engaging, it can be far more strategic (depending on how much you push for certain bonuses), it is actually somewhat faster paced, and the characters themselves are better balanced out for combat. Duran is no longer a slug who is half worthless at attacking because of being to slow to recover, despite having the highest Strength cap of the 6. Angela and Charlotte are able to kill things without having to sacrifice potential stat growth for their coming spells, and Angela even has some survivability to speak of (she might still be the easiest to kill, but she still takes hits leagues better than she did in the original, both in direct comparison to the original and a relative comparison against the other characters between the original and the remake). Riesz is finally able to make her bland and averaged stats not be a burden for the early game (yes, that three-part combo is NEW to the remake, and it has that big of an effect). Finally, Kevin and Hawk no longer charge up the CS gauge at twice the speed of any other character, enabling them to unleash their Tier 1 CS skill in nearly every battle despite the fact that you had to refill it from nothing each battle. In fact, that last is another notable improvement. Because the CS gauge is able to charge up, and keep its charge level, between battles you can actually enter a boss fight with a fully charged CS gauge, or save it for if things take a turn for the worse in a normal enemy encounter (a very serious hazard in the original), which will also make the Tier 2 and Tier 3 CSs both more useful and easier to effectively utilize. Heck, just going over this part alone has me saying that you can't really accurately judge just how much of a repetitive button mashing disaster the remake will be until you actually play it, and have saved 6 of the 8 Spirits, as the early combat in the original was horribly repetitively dull until your levels were near level 10 (then it was mostly trying to manage both the stat development of your characters to keep them combat viable while allowing Angela, if you had her, to learn her Magician spells and your item usage so you wouldn't go broke buying recovery items and combat items), with a significant spike in complexity after you got your Tier 2 classes, as you get new Moves/Spells for EVERYONE (and for most the stat boosts you got from the class change DID NOT let them learn very many of them, so managing stat growth becomes a LOT more complex at that point, with only 1 point to spread between 6 stats each level and now ALL of the stats matter to some extent). I say 6 of the Spirits rescued as if they kept the original difficulty spectrum and enemy levels you'll hit level 18 either from the boss fight to rescue the 5th Spirit or very shortly afterwards, and so you can typically hit level 19 or even 20 by the time you rescue the 6th Spirit and with the exceptions of Angela (who needs the 6th Spirit rescued before she can learn her 6th Magician spell, and can't learn it after the class change) and potentially Hawkeye (as the Spells he gets on Light Path are all Moon and Tree spells, so Spirits 7 and 8, though he can learn other Moves by then) you should have characters learning new Moves/Spells from their new class and creating new combat options for that boss fight that you may still be adapting to utilizing. Simply put, the combat in the original Trials of Mana underwent a gradual evolution over the course of the game. Yes, becoming the Tier 3 classes, and learning THEIR new Moves/Spells further alters how you utilize the characters and how combat is going to flow, for EVERYONE and every possible team combination (heck some teams have it change without changing members just just by choosing different classes instead), and while you're in the middle of hunting down the B*******s so you can get back into the M***********y (Sorry about the asterisks, I'm trying to avoid too many spoilers here, though that's a lot of jobs wasted for just two terms.........). Heck, from what I've seen of the screenshots and videos released so far they are even going to change up the character models for the class changes, instead of just doing palette swaps. It won't affect the combat any, but it is still a nice upgrade, especially considering that the original FFV, which is older, actually gave each character a unique set of sprites for EVERY job, and thus required more sprites for any one character in it than the original Trials of Mana required for all 6 of its potential heroes, despite having fewer animations per sprite.

Oh, and in addition to the changes to the combat flow that will come just from class changes, and Angela and Charlotte learning their early game spells, the Ability system is also new, and I expect that once we get to see what Abilities, as well as stat boosts, characters can train for beyond what was in the demo it'll open the door for even more changes and alterations to the combat flow even before the first class change. Really, this demo is little more than a light sampling of what is to come in the full game, and for the most part is more meaningful and significant to people like me who are almost overly familiar with the original than to people who are new to the title, such as yourself. I mean, in the original it didn't really matter how you boosted Angela's stats, she was never going to be a melee combatant while a Magician, and only get marginally better in her higher Tier classes. Of course, that's partially because in the original every character had a 'key' stat that limited how far you could raise the other stats until it was increased. This stat usually coincided with the stat that had the highest cap in their Tier 1 class, and for Angela it was Intellect. In fact, here's the full list of them for you. Duran's was Strength, Kevin's was Constitution, Charlotte's was Spirit, Hawkeye's was Dexterity, and Riesz's was also Dexterity, though I might be a little off and one of the last two had Luck instead (probably Hawkeye, his Dexterity and Luck tied for highest stat in his Tier 1 class, and I tended to split him between the two). I am absolutely positive regarding the other four, mostly because of the ease of training them in those stats and the pain-in-the-ass it is to train them in any other stats. In the demo you can actually spend Angela's training points in such a manner as to actually make her give Duran a run for his money as a melee fighter. She won't be quite as good, but close enough that if you pair those two, and don't train Duran or your third for it, she quite solidly becomes the second best at it, regardless of who the third is, and Kevin, Hawkeye, and Riesz aren't exactly bad at it either. Considering just how much more HP you have at the same levels in comparison to the original, as well as the ratio of damage dealt to damage received, it implies there is a LOT of room for modifying how the characters fulfill their roles versus the original. I expect the Abilities we haven't seen yet to make the ones we have seen seem nearly pathetic in comparison, with the higher Tier classes unlocking even better ones that will have an even more pronounced impact on combat.

Now, as I said before, I doubt Trials is for everyone. In fact, I'm fairly certain it was said somewhere else that the Trials of Mana remake is intended partly as an effort to give old fans a new look at it without drastically changing it (or at least, not as drastic as FFVIIR) as well as appeal to a new, younger audience. Sadly for us, the original target audience would be closer to the age of any kids we might have, assuming we had kids shortly out of high school, than our generation. Well, I'm assuming you're possibly within 5 years of my age, you might be younger but you reference a few things in a manner that makes me think you aren't.

Also, you referenced Trials as being just another tale about a kid setting out on a Hero's Journey to save the world, except it kinda isn't. At the start of the game three of the potential heroes initially set off to meet the Priest of Light in Wendel for the purpose of trying to save a loved one, without any specific concern for the state of the world as a whole. One is trying to return to Wendel to meet the Priest of Light to get help trying to save her loved one. One is journeying to Wendel to meet the Priest of Light for advice about how to get stronger to defeat a powerful enemy who is threatening his homeland. The last is hoping the Priest of Light can give her some advice on how to awaken her latent magic in an effort to both free herself from her past and honor her heritage (yeah, Angela's motivations go all over the place, for the entire game). The only reason one of them gets chosen by the Fairy, who is the one who is actually out on a journey to save the world, is because of quite literally being the only person around for the Fairy to choose as a host so she can finish journeying to Wendel to meet the Priest of Light herself. Said 'chosen' hero doesn't even know about needing to journey to save the world until the Fairy mentions it to the Priest of Light once they are in Wendel meeting him, and there are only two reasons they even agree to the journey to save the world. 1: The only way to free them from being Fairy's host is to die or have the Mana Goddess do it. 2: The Mana Goddess, or else the Sword of Mana itself, can grant them what they desire, in some manner (Kevin can't get his exact wish, but the others can, and they are told as much) so journeying to save the world quite literally becomes the single best method of achieving their own goals. Heck, Duran and Angela in particular almost need to be bribed into it, probably because they aren't journeying to save a loved one. Though Kevin's journey ends up becoming one of revenge, with the best means of getting it being setting off to save the world, since the one he wants revenge against is one of the ones threatening the world. Yes, by the time you get to the first boss it is a Hero's Journey, and in fact you fight that boss because it has become a Hero's Journey, but it doesn't start that way, so it isn't exactly fair to compare it to something like DQI through DQV, which ALL start as a Hero's Journey. God, kinda depressing noticing just how long it took DQ to grow out of that and let the hero start to stumble into the quest to save the world instead of starting of on the journey from the start, even if in DQXI the one hero is still a Chosen Hero and thus the reason they will be able to save the world. I do really prefer something like Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete where it takes nearly half the game before the hero ends up on the journey to save the world and is for the most part just a regular person. Actually, one of the pop-culture references Working Design put in L:SSSC is that after Alex becomes the Dragon Master one of the kids in his hometown actually says he's eating his Wheaties so he can grow up to be like Alex. That was literally in there just to emphasize how much of an 'Average Joe' Alex was supposed to be at the start of the game and was still essentially viewed as by the people who knew him before he started his journey.

Sadly, I'm not that familiar with FFXV, despite owning it myself. Mainly because the game doesn't just not click with me, something about it (and not just the combat) actively repels me. I can't get more than a couple of hours in before I'm absolutely sick of the game. Really, I think it's just about everything about it, from characters that I find barely tolerable at best, and as a group borderline repugnant, the 'flow' of the story (not even sure it HAS a flow to it for that matter, I can't stand to play it long enough to find out), to even some of the less-than-quasi-believable setting elements (I mean, they don't even make sense in relation to the setting itself, which is extremely unusual for Square and rather odd for anything above a bargain-basement budget JRPG since the 90's). Seriously, nothing about that game appeals to me and many aspects of it would only be tolerable if not paired with the rest, all grouped together it's an even blacker sheep in the Final Fantasy family than Tales of Legendia was in the Tales of family. It's really only the much, much longer history and well established previous standards of Final Fantasy that I'd even be willing to give FFXVI a chance, whenever it happens. I actually rented Tales of the Abyss before buying it, Legendia was just that severe of an outlier for the series. Legendia wasn't bad, per se, just so far outside what I expected of a Tales of game that I wasn't sure the series was going in a direction I wanted to unconditionally support anymore, thankfully the Abyss brought it back in line and it has stabilized since. If FFXVI isn't significantly better than FFXV was together they will break my faith in Final Fantasy to a similar extent. FFVIIR is at least showing there might be cause for some hope though.

@Priceless_Spork
It releases worldwide on Friday. If I actually get to be home Friday and Saturday, instead of on the road for work, I'll let you know Saturday evening/night. By then I should be to the first class change at least, maybe even the first visit to the M***********y, depending on whether or not it maintains the same pacing as the original. To me, it will require AT LEAST that far to fully tell just how well they did with it, mostly because of how much things start to change after that first class change.

@Ralek85 Well imagine playing Super Mario Bros. 3 as a side-scrolling platformer. Then let's say Nintendo remake that game with better graphics but now it plays like Super Mario Run. Yeah that's how I feel about the Final Fantasy VII Remake. I enjoy Super Mario Bros. 3 cause I could be in control of the character, I could choose to beat the level as fast or slow as I want, take my time with what I do. Remaking it to be like Super Mario Run would destroy that experience, now the character will constantly move on their own, getting a power-ups would take literally minutes instead of seconds, etc.

Final Fantasy VII starts out as a turn based RPG, that's what makes it FFVII and that is what I associate that game with. Even if the FFVII remake story goes a different direction, at least I am confident the gameplay won't disappoint me. Now with the FFVII Remake with its action based combat, you had terrible framerate to worry about at time, input lags suddenly happen, and hit boxes that sometime you thought you hit but for some reason didn't register. The original FFVII wasn't a real time action game so you don't had to worry about missing hit boxes and input lags. That's why I didn't enjoy the Final Fantasy VII remake cause it does had problems, it had problems the original never had.

Also would you play a new Street Fighter if all of a sudden it starts playing like Mortal Kombat? I sure won't. It's not going to feel the same way even if I try to get use to it.

@Priceless_Spork Depends, personally, I did not like it. It felt like a new coat of paint (that might be a bit to harsh but still) for a game that might not really have aged incredibly well, despite the combat being ahead of it's time - back then I wager.

If you don't mind the fairtale'esque setting, shonen-inspired characters, comically bad voice acting, glacial pace, sterile towns and environments, and everything else we stereotypically associate with generic jRPGs, then you might still find a highly enjoyable game here.

Music is great, the graphics are pretty nice and set the mood and tone effectively, and the combat I probably only disliked because I came straight of 48 hours of Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Just don't expect anything with the amibiton of said FFVIIR or the quality of that game in it's individual parts (visuals, voice acting, animation, art direction, combat, etc.).

I hope that was more digestible and concise enough Full disclosure, I have no attachement to the original or to the series as a whole. If you are an established fan, this might be EXACTLY what you were looking for. If you are looking for another "modern" jRPG Remake coming off FFVIIR like me ... this is not it, not at all.

@retro_player_77 Interesting perspective, first off, which system did you play on? I played on PS4 pro, and aside from the texture loading issue/pop-in I had zero technical issues. It might have dropped a frame here and there, but I certainly never noticed it. I'm susceptible to it, but not overly so in general I say. Digital Foundry also found the game to be an almost perfect performer. I'm extremely susceptible to input lag, as I've been playing on Gamemode consistently for 10 years now, first on Panasonic Plasmas now on LG OLEDs, and I definitely did not notice that either, like not at all.

Plus, this is hardly Dark Souls, you can just hold your guard in punisher and will get that parry, it does not matter if you do it a second early or late. So even if there were input lag issues, which again, I did not notice at all, I do not think it would be a big deal at all. I would certainly dislike it, as I feel it creates a disconnect between me and the game, on a very fundamental level, but still, as long as it is consistent (and not spikes, like you mentioned, and it's not an action game per se ...).

I do agree that there are problems. I alluded to quite a couple around here already: The camera is sometimes unable to deal with narrow spaces you fight in particular with bosses, leading to situations of utter confusion. Generally speaking, the game does not deal super well with large group of enemies, particularly fast moving ones. The game desperately needed a jump button (one thing I liked about Trials of Mana here), because otherwise flying enemies becoming an annoying chore.

The game is clearly geared towards prolonged single-enemy encounters, since otherwise neither summons nor limit breaks nor buffs and debuffs make any sense (this ain't FFXIII by a long shot), yet 80% of your encounters are with groups of small, fast moving enemies in tight spaces ...

Still, I refuse to except your Mario Run comparison, like even on it's premise. Mario Run is a severly dumped down version, geared towards a particular input theme, that does not allow for much more interaction that what it actually offers.

The input scheme for FFVIIR is more complex though than with the original, there are more moving parts, things to consider... crucial you make more meaningful decision over a shorter period of time, which I consider more engaging as long as I am not overtaxed. I am never overtaxed though, because I can pause the game at any time and plan my next moves. Crucially, all characters in FFVII remake play entirely differently and serve different purposes (like Barret is strong against flying enemies, see above, Tifa excells at stagger increases, Cloud's parry devastates certain enemy types solo ...). That was not the case in the original and a clear improvement.

So yeah, the changes bring with it new problems, that did not exist before. But they also remove problems (think for instance: random battles, which no one ever liked as far as I can tell, same'y and interchangeable characters etc.) the original had. I will say this clearly: Personally, for me these are changes for the better all-around and I am perfectly confident, that the system will shine much more in the more open areas I fully except to be playable in Episode 2. In fact, I think the system was ironically designed with encounters in these areas in mind, and just had to fit the bill for the 1st episode as well.

Just my thoughts though, I really loved FFVIIR. It was one of the most mechanically engaging jRPGs I have played so far, certainly the most technical accomplished, and yet also one of the most moving and most humanized one.

I can totally understand though, that the story bits are controversial, particularly the ending. I felt the added bits really shined bright and made me care, for instance about Avalanche, in a way I never did before. But that is up to one's personal taste.

The thing is, in the grander scale of things, not knowing at all what is going to happen next, is more exciting to me. Simple as that. I'm looking forward to finding out what is going to happen, is it really and literally an "unknown journey"? I feel that is pretty cool, evne if they are going to continue to hit major story beats. FFVIIR really has a stromg romantic rom-com going, one I finally care about, and just on that level some liberties they might take, might offer a big emotional pay off for me, even if the actual "plot" plays out much the same.

So anyways, in your analogy, I would flip it, and argue that FFVIIR is definitely the richer and more engaging game, different yes, but the original would to me be the simplistic Mario-Run-esque version.

I'm also not entirely sure why everyone expected this to be a faithful 1:1 remake. We've spend half a decade seeing snippets of footage and it was immedtiately obvious, that this was going to be a very different beast than the original - even to me, someone who never in his life cared much about FF as a franchise, with only passing knowledge and interest for the most part.

@Razmoudah Fair enough But yeah, I kinda feel that way, the majority for sure feature some kind of turn-based systems, in fact most franchise I am ware of, rely entriely on it. Truly full on action-combat systems are certainly rare - and again, not in and off itself objectively "better".

I actually have the collection on my wish list, as I only ever played Grandia III and remember kinda liking the combat. Still, the last couple of months or maybe even years have given me pause. I really tried to get into a bunch of jRPGs the same way I used to, but I found all these issues I laid out before - in relation to combat, but also to narrative stereotypes - harder and harder to deal with. I wanted to love DQXI, I really, really did, but I could not look beyond the combat. It is such an integral part of the experience, and even with the changes you described so eloquently to me, it never clicked, I never felt engaged, and more crucially, I also never get that sense of accomplishment and satisfaction out of it, I kinda really do need these days to stick with a game for some odd 60+ hours.

I wonder if it will be different for Grandia. I am still very much willing to try just about everything though to see if it works for me. VOice acting is not a deal breaker for me, despite what I said here for FFVIIR. It is more a thing that can elevate a game beyond it's initial graps, than a thing that drags an otherwise brilliant game down into the mud.

As for FFVIIR, I was consistently blocking, esp. since there are materia, that incentize it, plus on Cloud ... there are a handful of attacks that are better to be dodged though, but like, really only some, I feel, and only on a limited number of enemies. As a rule of thumb, I found blocking to be the way to go if in doubt I also liked how you coul dodge out of Punisher mode. That might have been OP in a way, because it eliminates the implied trade-off movement speed vs damage/parry for the most part, but it still made it super useful and those parries are so damn satisfying to watch

I never tried the game on easy, because as I said, it's not really a mind- and/or finger bender on normal either. I doubt I played any other jRPG for like 48 hours dying LITERALLY less than a handful of times - with 0 seconds of grinding on top of that. That is still surreal to me, having spend hundreds of hours grinding in my life! ^^ That alone might be one thing I will have a hard time coming back from to older games and that is true in particular because I actually deeply enjoyed fighting in FFVIIR. I was never annoyed to enter into a fight even once. Few jRPGs can lay such claim, none with random encounters for instance

Interesting, having no really experience with the Trials demo, I did not pay any attention to it that aspect at all. I was just pushing on to see what else there was to unlock, as I remember many a jRPG unlocking it's full combat potential rather far into the game (cough FFXIII cough).

Haha - oh no! So you're saying the two EO's I do not own do better with combat presentation? Darn ^^ I picked up about every Atlus game on the 3DS, I did not already on, when they were on sale last week. That's also how I ended up with the lovely Radiant Historia, but I skipped on EO V and NExus, because they were still pretty expensive and like I said, EO is one of the series, that I should love, I used to love all those D&D inspired Dungeon Crawling games on PC going back 20+ years as well, but it just was too stale for IN actual combat encounters. Did love the whole 1st party exploration though.

Do you know the "The Quest" and "Orcs & Elves" (on the NDS, and amazingly designed by THE John Carmack)? Two of my favourite games right there, not kidding. I loved the Turn-Based combat in those, as it cover the whole player engagement and applied equal rules for both player and NPCs. Just LOVED them Sadly "Orcs & Elves 2" never made it outside of a java mobile release .... still hoping to see some "remasters" for Switch for example some day. I would instantly grab those day one. They were also pretty challenging games honestly. The Quest would also be an amazing game for the Switch, even though I already own it on Steam and Android.

I do remember those days quite well indeed. I can definitely tell, that you are much more deeply versed in the genre than myself. I've always had a rather ecclectic games in general, with little adherence to one particular genre (actually that goes for all media). But I am well aware of Square's efforts, because two of my best friends were and still are pretty much die hard fans. They were playing FF games, while I was pretty much doing stuff like Vagrant Story, Shadow Hearts, Xenogears/Xenosaga, Nocturne and everything else SMT, particuarly Digital Devil Saga later on, and such.

In short, I liked the games with a more somber cast and atmosphere, the less kids I played the better, and a stronger reliance on philosophical themes than just ... drama, be it romantic or apocalyptic.

I also really only came to the genre as something I favoured in the PS2 era, not before. Before that I was much more invested in western RPGs. I always say, that what FFVII was to many of my friends, Incubation was to me (and also MGS1) - the kind of formative experience, you get as a kid I loved tactical games, with a strong puzzle'esque nature and punishing difficulty ever since, I also always loved Scifi more than Fantasy.

I think in many regards, Square did play a pivotal role to drag the industry forward, particularly in their golden years on PSX. From what I understand, they were pretty much struggling to recreate FFVII going forward until Kingdom Hearts showed up, also basically open the door for the merger with Enix, after having lost tons of money on failed projects like The Spirits Within. And yeah, I hear you on both their role on FMVs (which to be fair, were always a thing on PC, just think like Diablo, which released in the same year as FFVII as well, plus a year later on PSX.

As for FFX, you are absolutely right! I forgot about the character swapping, Funnily enough, I just laid for @retro_player_77 above, how much I enjoyed that every character in FFVIIRemake played differently and thus mattered from a MECHANICAL standpoint (and also how you never had more than 3 characters anyways, so "neglecting" a bunch, was a non-issue from a narrative point as well). So yeah, absoutely, point well taken.

I will definitely have to try to get into Star Ocean. I got First Departure R on Switch, and I'll make sure to give that fair shake. I also have Tilll The End of Time on PS4.

How did you fell about Integrity and Faithlessness then, if I may ask? Most reviewers seemed to hate it apparently, and since I did not particularly love Last Hope outside of combat, I steered clear.

Haha, oh man, you are like the first person I can recall, that ever brought this up. I HATED how they changed the name, like seriously: Resonance of Fate sounds more generic, these namechanges are 9/10 entirely pointless anyways, be it movies or games, and in a narrative sense, End of Eternity did make SENSE in the game's actual context ... Resonance of Fate did not, well Fate plays a crucial role for sure, with some characters resigning themselves to theirs and others not, but the Resonance Of ... I could never quite make heads or trails of that. Still most people have never heard of RoF, so End of Eternity would just cause utter confusion ...

I do think they changed it up quite a bit: Positioning is key in this game, but not just that, but also "Sightlines", meaning that actual 3D enviroments matter ALOT in this game. Also, the way you expend the same ressource for action as ressembles your "lifebar", means that there always trade-offs involved, which is just a basic premise I always appreciate. Like, do I kill the adds for the boss first ... normally, that is what you do, because these tend to be high dps, low hp enemies, plus they often offer up debuffs and interrupt combos etc.

In RoF though, that is not necessarily the way to go, as you can "break" them to regain your bezels, or more to the point: you will probably NEED them as a bezel-kind-of resservoir. This combined with the fact, that an enemy, any enemey, was a PHYSICAL object within in the combat space impeding movement and sightlines as far as I recall, made any such decision 10x more meaningful than in any other turn-based jRPG I can remember.

The whole question of: Will not-having-that-enemy-alive hurt me a couple of turns from now ... I dunno, but that is not a question I can quite recall ever asking myself outside of RoF.

Also, I loved the setting, like LOVED. The simple fact, that we were playing young adults really, in a mature, non-fantasy world, with GUNS instead of swords&sorcery, was such a piece of fresh air, and yeah, obviously the sheer presentation on the combat is still the best in class, like so much dynamic movement and intrinsically linked to combat, like how jumping above an enemy is actually flashy, but also serves a mechanical purpose ...

I still think that the game's combat had several genuine moments of brilliance, and I keep coming back to time and time again. Sadly, even the 4K remaster did little for people to notice it, hence we will probably not ever see anything like that ever again

So as for Trials, no I haven't played the original or any previous Mana game at all. But yeah, the way you lay it out, it makes me think, that I might have to give the game another look at some point actually. I mean, like I said above, I was hoping for it to get more engaging later on, with a bigger party, a wider selection of skills, less tutorial-esque enemy and so. Thanks for that, also for your point about the narrative structure. That was I guess unfair then on my end, to pass this kind of quick, summary judgement. I wil say this though: Having started out with Duran, it's not really all that important, if he is really a chose one fighting an ancient evil, or just the legacy of great and loyal house, trying to right a wrong done to his kingdom. It's like ... it's hitting the same beats, I feel, like Dragon Quest. Not in the details, but certainly in tone. Duran is not a Joe-Nobody, that is made clear 2 minutes into the game. He is not thrust into that situation by an outside force. In fact, the game pretty much tells you, he was going to be an adventures of sorts, because ... daddy and stuff. It's still rather generic in that regard, at least his origin as far as I can tell based on the game's beginning.

In terms of FFXV, I do think it looks pretty and the combat does LOOK kinda exciting (just google the Leviathan fight for instance). While we established that this matters to me, it does not change that everything you say about it, is utterly true.
Like, not a FF nerd here, but even I noticed how FF had this -intentionally or not- message at heart, that group of diverse people, a ragtag band of inviduals of all races, colors and ages, can band together, can become friends, and make the world a better place.
All FFXV has is 4 DUDES, wearing the SAME CLOTH, having lived their entire LIVE in the SAME city ... it's odd to say the least. Also, the narrative is split off into several other medium. Like you will not understand why these are basically "brothers" unless you watched at least the brotherhood mini-series anime on youtube. Like ... the game tells you they are super close, but never ever how and why. Well, not quite, there are the DLCs that get into it I guess, but those released after the fact and are entirely decoupled from the main game once more.
It's baffling really, like ... I do NOT understand the point of any of this at all.

And yeah, despite the combat looking appeal for sure, it is mechanically broken. I will leave it at that, as I said enough before. It just is ... on so many levels, not at all about the player making choices, it is anti-player-agency in fact.

it's even more baffling to me than the narrative media experiment, because I see no point in a combat system, that is meant NOT TO ENGAGE THE PLAYER. WTF

Hell, I hated much about FFXIII, but looking back to day, the combat was by far it's strongest assest, I actually kinda really liked it in fact. I hated hope, and really msot of the cast, the story was arcane non-sense with so much lore-name-dropping, that a couple of hours of wiki-reading-up, was necessary not to rage quit the world building (in a SquareEnix game, I mind you, consider that fact for a moment if you will) ... but the combat was neat.

I mean, you had to turn off "Auto Battle" in the options menu, but as far as the normal, non-boss encounters game, I will say that I found FFXIII to be the most challenging and demanding game in the series, based on what I have played. The game was also very strong in terms of it's use of buffs and debuffs.Those were integral parts of your tactic ... if they weren't you were in trouble, and this goes beyond haste for sure. Few FF games I can recall, put that much emphasis on those.

The combat was also super-faced, like this ATB-version on steroids. It was not for everyone, but I liked it. It also shared a similar "dynamic presentation" like in FFX, which also worked in it's favour. I did not really like the upgrade systems though, neither for weapons nor for characters.

Anyways, the game had many flaws, but it was a technical achievement, still looks excellent on Xbox One X to this day btw, and the combat was highly enjoyable - if you'd ignroe the auto-battle system. Too bad, the world and characters were actively annoying, not as bad but kinda like in FFXV.

I never had much "faith" in FF to begin with, but FFVII Remake, like this is first time in my life I care about FF I am actually considering giving Tetsuya Nomura's other brainchild, Kingdom Hearts, which never looked appealing to me at all, even as a Disney fan at heart, a shot. I'm not quite there yet, but I think eventually, I will pick up the first remaster, and just take a gander.

I'll also go back and really get into FFX again for sure. Actually, I'm just kinda waiting for Xbox Series X to arrive. FFX was a pretty colorful game with many effects going on through-out. The XBX actually also renders in 4K. Anyways, I have really high hopes for the "Auto-HDR" features announced for Series X. It's the main reason, I plan to pick it up. I think something like FFX will really benefit from this. Kingdom Hearts potentially as well, offensively bright and colorful as it is I found HDR to offer the most visual bang-for-buck and I have a hard time these days, as any SDR games, at least for the first 30 minutes or so, really looks "off" in a fundamental way. Like the first time you put on toned glasses during summer. Everything dulls down in that uncanny way. After a while you stop noticing, but the first time is always very off-putting to me, as the world just looses it's luster. That is what SDR feels like to me: A virtual world, having lost it's luster.

IGNORANCE REALLY IS BLISS, let me tell you ^^

Oh and on Trials again, still, as you say, the fact does not quite change that it is - at least thematically and I'd argue artistically - geared towards a younger audience, or if you will, towards nostalgia of older players. Well, that is unfair, too, there is nothing inherently wrong with a colorful, fairtale esque setting and shonen'inspired idealistic heroes. I just had my fill of it, I guess, at least for now. I do not want to protray my personal preferences in that regard as "superior".

I do enjoy the occasional shonen, for instance I watch Kimetsu no Yaiba, FMA, Hunter X Hunter and definitely Haikyu! with great joy, with the later maybe being my favourite anime of all

I just find that many games hitting those tropes, are just not meant to for me. You pointed out the intricacies of the leveling system in the original, but the thing is, that most of these games are just devoid of the challenge that makes me want to dive that deep, or the combat is just too dull for me to spend any more time with it, than I have to, to see the story through.

Oh, and btw, my age is right in my name

I'm really curious to see how SMT V will shake out. That is one "traditional" jRPG, I am very much looking forward to. I really hope that some, if not all of the lessons they learned going from Persona 4 to Persona 5, will be applied to SMTV. I'm talking like the scene transitions, the small animations that you get for everything (like opening a menu even), the fact that many basic actions are mapped to buttons, keeping menu interactons to a minimum, the dynamic camera, the proper combat animations for just everything and all that. Persona 5 really goes out of this way to obfuscate the rote and archaic nature of it's combat, even accounting for additions like batton pass and and such, and it does so really succesfully.

It's artistical cohessiveness and clarity are really one of the kind, and this time they managed to really translate into all aspects of the game, going way beyond P3 and P4.

I do not want them to hit the same tone as Persona, not at all, but as far as presentation goes, there is ALOT here, that needs to be accounted for in a new 3D SMT Mainline game, running on (somewhat) modern hardware. I'll loose my **** if the game unfolds like Nocturne, which was not so much bad, as a chidl of it's Pre-Persona 5 time

Edit: For some reason, I just keep thinking about Voice acting a bit, since you brought it again, and I feel that 1997/8 must really have been like the pivotal year here in hindsight, because it also gave us Star Fox 64, which ... I mean, has some super cheesy over-the-top voice acting, but delivered so perfectly, fitting the game beyond well, that it really left a strong impression of me and became completely linked to my memory of the game. And I'm not just talking about "Do a barrely roll" (enter that into google though 4fun ^^), but the game's cartoon vibe was really brought to live with the voice acting.

@Bizzyb our Walmart doesn't want people coming in for non-essentials. We can still buy it online and have it delivered to our homes

@Ralek85
Hmmm.......there are people who are upset with the additional story bits in FFVIIR? They actually expected a 1:1 story correlation to the original in a game fragment that only covered up to when they left Midgar for the first time? Hell, in the original it took well under 10 hours to get out of Midgar for the first time. Of course it was going to be a lot bigger now. They said that in numerous press releases AND interviews. I'm only recently having made it to Wall Market in the Sector 6 slums, and haven't really started on the task to get into Don Corneo's mansion to rescue Tifa, so I know that relatively I'm still rather early in the game (especially when I stop and compare against the SP requirements for the next Weapon Level, I'm currently estimating that without the books to boost SP it probably takes level 50 to max out the Weapon Level, assuming the max Weapon Level is 6 and not 5), even though in the original that definitely marked you as being halfway through your initial experiences in Midgar (Wall Market was the last full set of shops you encountered in Midgar in the original, based on how many different weapon designs there are in the artbook I'm fairly certain that I'm probably only 25%-34% of the way through the remake so far). That is a degree of pathetic that makes me question the average degree of intelligence amongst humans, then again there are many things that make me question that. Oh, and I tested out the Command Mode difficulty for FFVIIR in the demo, and found it disastrous at best. Half the fights you could finish faster just taking full control, and frequently with taking less damage, and it uses the toned down difficulty for Easy mode as well.

You're 85 and still playing? Wow, I hope in a few decades I'm doing as well then, and really the Trials remake is definitely geared towards a much, much younger audience than you. And yeah, it's a bit of a Seiken Densetsu series staple that the combat gradually builds up to giving you grand and epic fights. Seriously, the first few bosses it's more impressive that your character(s) stood up and fought than was able to defeat the boss, that's how commoner-norm the heroes typically start out at, and how much the early baddies rely on intimidation and not actually ability. Duran was a bit of a bad character to use to see if narratively Trials does anything different or new. In fact, if you are trying to avoid the more common tropes in the early game I say you desperately need to avoid Duran and Angela. Back in the day their origins were relatively new, but they have been used so much since then that they sound like a weak echo (never mind the fact that both were actually the first of their specific sub-branches of their origin types, they were just too popular and many, many games mimicked their origins). If you want a different type of origin Hawkeye and Charlotte are probably your best bets, though Kevin and Reisz are not on the common end of the spectrums either. Mind you, as I live in the states I was playing around with the Trials demo over a month ago (I have no idea when it released in Europe).

If you do give the Trials demo a second chance there are a few very important things to keep in mind first though. 1: The story is actually split up into 3 grand saga sets, and which one you get is based on who your 'chosen' hero is. The pairings for the sets are Duran+Angel, Kevin+Charlotte, and Hawkeye+Riesz. The grand saga you are on in the original also determine which final dungeon you got and who the final boss was. 2: Whoever you pick as your hero you ABSOLUTELY want to pick the other char in the pair as one of your companions, they get extra dialog together. Though only Duran & Angela get any to make mention of in the demo, but by the time you are finally safely escaped from the Beastman army the other pairings have started to show their extra dialog in the original. Although the extra bit for Duran & Angela in the demo does not transition in very smoothly, I actually winced at the transition. 3: The order I listed the pairings above is also the order for highest plot/character development (second dependent on them being paired together) to lowest plot/character development in the original. They have been stating that that is supposed to have been evened out a fair bit for the remake, and I really, really hope so as the last on that list almost borders on being a deal breaker it was so weak originally (actually weaker than Seiken Densetsu II, errr.....Secret of Mana, I've spent nearly two decades thinking of this one as Seiken Densetsu III...). Oh, and that order also showed the difficulty of getting the brown equipment seeds (hardest to easiest) for getting the ultimate gear for your characters in the original, but with the leveling pot, which affects seed drop rates, and how many shiny spots are seeds I doubt that will be a concern in the remake. 4: Unless Charlotte is your 1st companion you always meet your first companion just before Fairy removes the barrier on the Waterfall Cave for you. 5: Charlotte has a set encounter inside the Waterfall Cave, even if she isn't one of your companions. You ALWAYS get her to join at this point if she is one of your chosen companions, and if she's the 2nd companion this brings your team up to its full 3, otherwise your 2nd companion is the one who gets you out of jail (each of the others have their own way of getting you out as well, entertaining enough in the original it was worth it to play through and do all 5 of them as 3rd companions just for that scene alone, and it's the next scene from where the demo ends going by the original).

If you have the collection I recommend you at least play up to getting to the Dwarven village. It won't get you to level 10 (that'd require getting to the boss fight with the Jewel Eater, next boss at that point), but it gives you a much better idea of what is to come, how much things have changed, and a clearer idea of how the combat gradually ramps up. I will admit that the remake is a LOT easier to play, at least on normal difficulty (I'm planning on making saves 7 & 8, once I know the Black Rabite situation, Hard difficulty only saves), but then again if you encountered those Zombines in the back corner of the Waterfall Cave as you went to fight the Full Metal Hugger, once you're free of the beast man army they are a normal enemy to encounter during the night nearly EVERYWHERE, with their levels based on the area you are in, and by level 10 fighting ones of an equal level to you is considered an EASY fight, barring them having their class change (yes, the 'common' monsters get them too) before you. They were a bit more challenging than most enemies in the demo, as they could shrug off stun effects without being armored (makes sense since they are undead, and you even get a boat full of them at one point in the story...), but they also show the potential for the combat difficulty to scale up, and it becoming important learning how to dodge well. Heck, one of the surprises I got from the collection, as previous I'd only played a fan-translate of it, was that apparently the comment Angela makes about Duran hiding 'dirty magazines' and not wanting the others to find them being the real reason he won't let you enter his house in Forcena was actually original, and not something done by the fan-translater(s) because they could......now if that scene is still in the remake......

I can't recommend you get the Grandia collection enough. Grandia I will be somewhat painful to you as the graphics haven't exactly aged well, even with the effort to bring them up to at least low-end HD standards, but then again it was originally a PS-X title, just like FFVII, FFVIII, and FFIX. It will take a few hours before you start to get to any of the flashy combat (seriously, it's that long until a character with magic joins you), and I highly recommend you hunt down a good FAQ/Walkthrough for the game, as finding all of the Mana Eggs for unlocking magic for characters on your own is a royal pain, some are very well hidden, to the point that where you wonder how people figured out some of them were even there. The story, plot development, usage of voiceovers, and nearly everything else though, that was awesome in Grandia I, to the point that it is definitely one of my all-time top games. Justin might just be a kid, but his sense of wonder and awe at journeying and seeing the world on his adventure will leave you not caring in the slightest. I'm absolutely certain of that because it still hits me that way, over 20 years later, when I replay it and based on what you said earlier despite having different degrees of preference regarding JRPGs we have rather similar tastes regarding the stories in the games we play (actually, because of that I'm now honestly interested in God of War, when originally I had a very 'meh' attitude towards it, and it has solidified me into seeing if I can still manage to get Eternal Sonata, which I couldn't afford when it came out and I've been on the fence about since). I might have a rather broader spectrum of stories I enjoy, but the ones I like the most tend be the more somber ones, much like you, and early in my gaming days that was all I really enjoyed, it was 16 years or so ago, around the release of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness actually, that I learned to enjoy the more light-hearted stories. Actually, I think it was Disgaea that got me to enjoy them for that matter.

As for Grandia II.........they didn't heavily update the character models and such for the collection, so despite being in HD they still show that they were created for the Dreamcast (the game took a LOT of flack when it released for PS2 because it didn't get updated graphics and the PS2 could handle much better graphics), but it uses a full 3D environment for combat, with a decent dynamic camera and some very nice flashy moves/spells available from nearly the beginning. It also has a story that if you give it half a chance will suck you in and not let go from fairly early on as well. The only flaw was how you learned and powered up your moves and spells, otherwise I'd consider it one of the best games on the PS2 (certainly the best the Dreamcast got before Sega dropped out of the console competition), even against titles like Shadow Hearts (Covenant and From the New World), Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, Final Fantasy (X, X-2, and XII), Dragon Quest VIII, Xenosaga, Kingdom Hearts, .hack//G.U., Tales of the Abyss, MS Saga, Metal Saga, Ar Tonelico, and Wild Arms. It wasn't the graphical best, and the voiceovers were lacking at times (not as much as you think at first after learning just how jaded a couple of the characters are), but aside from the one flaw in game design everything it did it did to just about the best it could be done. Seriously, I felt that Grandia III was actually a back-slide in the story telling for that series, and if you liked it you'll at least like Grandia II (and if you can keep from holding the somewhat dated graphics and that flaw I mentioned against it, you'll even love it).

Now, I need to finish getting ready to take off. I have a mutli-day task for work where it won't be practical to take my laptop with me so I'll be back sometime Thursday to read the next 'chapter' in our 'book'.

@Razmoudah Think along the lines of dates, not years ... obviously

I think most people that were offended (which is the right word, I guess) were more concerend with the ending, as well as the whole arbiter-of-fade entities showing up all the time, screwing with events. And I haven't bothered with anything other than Normal myself. I'll keep hard for my second playthrough down the line. I hope the PS5 can address the texture loading issue, as I found it to be most annoying technical issue with the game for sure, and would very much like to play it once more without that ^^

But yeah, in general I am not sure that a 1:1 to remake, even as far as the basic plot goes, was ever promised. Looking back now, I do feel the title itself was a clever subversion. I alway wondered why it was not named Episode 1 or something like that. Now we know why, it's not really Remake the noun, but more like: Final Fantasy 7: remake! - the verb ^^

Jim Sterling made a good point there I think: whether you consider the ending and changes in general false advertisement/"a betrayel" or a clever subversion, is really subjective and hinges on whether the game is bad, then it's former, or good, than it is the latter.

I'm firmly in the camp of clever subversion, well, I would be, if I knew how the original unfolded going forward. I'm in the camp of: I hope Part 2 will be just as fun to play, I do not care about their faithfulness to the original, like not one bit. In fact, my personal experience with FF leads me to believe, that I would prefer a game that heavily deviates from their usual fare. I know, that might be harsh to hear for a long-time fan, but ... ah well, it's just the truth.

Given your experience with Trials then, which character would you suggest to take for a spin? I figured that Duran might have been an unlucky pick on my end, but then again, just going by the visual design of each character, I was not confident, that I would really fare THAT much better with one of the others ^^

I'm definitely not down for Charlotte to be honest. Not a fan of the design, and the voice ... no, just not for me, no offense

I hear you on the Grandia Collection. I wager I'll pick it up during it's next sale! The thing with graphic is like, earlier today I started playing a bit of Vagrant Story once more (the game is just one of those titles, that really sticks me like few other media ot there) and while it's probably one of the very best looking fully polygonal-rendered PSX games out there, with incredibly strong architecture and general art direction and character design (Akihiko Yoshida is a genius in my book, I pretty much only played Bravely Default due to him being involved ^^), it's not always a joy too look at these days. It works pretty well on Vita though. Running it on my 4K TV would be ill advised though, even at a higher native resolution.

Anyways, sprite-based games, as well as games with hand-drawn backgrounds, do fare better still I feel, better than early days 3D rendered ones that is. I still feel that Baldurs Gate II looks grand, not the characters, but all the backgrounds. Just beautiful art, that never really gets old. Some of the sprite works on like Suikoden 1 and 2 also stands the test of time pretty okay, I feel. In short, the more artistic the original approach and the less technical, the better PSX games hold up in my view.

Vagrant Story is nevertheless brilliant of course - back then, and still today (Speaking of Vagrant Story, have you ever tried Crimson Shroud on 3DS? It's like 5 hours long, but also by Matsuno, and I really enjoyed it alot - not sure if I mentioned it before). Therefore, I do not think that visuals really deter me by themselves.

Grandia III was pretty much carried by the combat for me. I honestly don't remember much about it outside of that I'm curious to see how the others will click with me. It is really great to have these games conveniently available on the Switch like that (and legal on top of that). I wish we'd also get games like Valkyrie Profile 1&2 for instance.

Eternal Sonata, I can definitely recommend, I tried almost all Tales of ... games, and that one, even if not part of the official series, is by far my favourite. It's a few unique quirks compared to the others, that can be hit and miss, and Tales of Symphonia and Vesperia have their own strong appeal, with Graces probably featuring the best combat, but Sonata packed the most punch, as it just featured the most humane story of the bunch by far, and everything else was also solid, like the combat, or really great, like the music -even if the music lacked a bit of range, as it was obviously very Chopin-centric.

Are you talking about God of War for the PS4 or the original series? I mean, I can recommend both, but I'd consider the PS4 reboot to be a most play. Do NOT play it starting with the PS4 one. I mean, I wouldn't. Kratos will feel like a very one dimensional character if you go down that route. If you start with the original games, it's not something that will initially bother you, but it very well might coming off of the reboot.

If you want to try just one game from the original series, that also kinda works as a standalone game, I would suggest Ghost of Sparta. It was probably my favourite of the bunch incl. God of War III; but that one heavily relies on existing knowledge of previous stuff to really make any sense and give you a sense of closure.

I cannot recommend Ascension, it's the only game in the series I never got through. Part of it is that the series had run it's course for me then, but part of it is also that it's just an entry that nobody asked for, devoid of anything to add to an epic saga, that had reached it's climax already.

Well, then I hope you have a couple of successful work days, and ... do stay safe out there!

@peanutbuttercup Yea, I hear you...but they're still missing out on a ton of sales...smh

@Ralek85
Well, I'm going to start with going over some Star Ocean stuff, since I ran myself short on time before I left.

Star Ocean: First Departure R on the Switch is the best version of Star Ocean 1 I've played, and I've played the original SNES, PSP, and Switch versions. They've cleaned up the combat a fair bit, added in alternate new character designs (like what was done with Langrisser I & II), and added in a LOT of voice overs (which weren't in any previous version). The voice overs are well done, and the voices themselves mesh well with the characters (unlike Piros/Piros the 3rd shudder those just don't fit their char, even if they are more 'realistic' for the setting). Of course, you can just turn the voice overs off and read the text yourself, since they all just overlapped with preexisting dialog boxes. I do recommend you check out some basic FAQs regarding the skill system and character recruitment before trying to heavily play First Departure R. You have 4 set characters, and can only recruit another 4 out of the 9 recruitable characters, with many having special requirements (some are easily missed in fact) and not every combination is valid. Also, you do need to plan on doing some special preparations regarding the skill system, unless you plan on trying to hit around level 150 just for maxing out skills on chars (not that you won't probably do that anyhow for taking on the final boss, just that it's very helpful to have most skills maxed well before then, and certain ones make it a lot easier to get there).

You asked about Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness. I can definitely recommend it. It builds on the game systems of The Last Hope, but without the disruptive elements being as disruptive (the side dash slow down now gives you a larger input window for a strike that either gets a damage bonus or is a guaranteed critical hit, I can't remember which without playing it again some). It also saves the more sci-fi elements for secondary things or late game, focusing more on being a fantasy style setting (more Renaissance than Medieval), and goes back to focusing a LOT more on the story. I think you mentioned you played Till the End of Time? Integrity and Faithlessness relies on its storytelling even more than Till the End of Time does, and with even better combat gameplay than The Last Hope had. Oh, and I agree that The Last Hope's combat just didn't feel right, I always have a rough time transitioning back into playing it.

Now, as for FFVIIR.....aside from the fact that I'm still a long ways from the ending of it, I have yet to have any texture loading issues. I'm using an older PS4, with only a 500GB internal HDD, which was the largest available when I got it (thus my 4TB external HDD hooked up to it). I have no idea why you're having problems.

And no, they never once promised a 1:1 remake of the Midgar portion of FFVII. In fact, as soon as they announced it would be a 3-part game they explicitly stated that the first part would be just Midgar so that they could expand on it and allow you to explore a lot more of the city. That is about as far from promising a 1:1 experience with the original as you can get without giving us a full plot outline to give away everything.

A disagree with both notions regarding the title. When SquareEnix originally announced they were actually working on the remake they just announced it as Final Fantasy VII Remake, with nothing more. That's what they got copyright protections on and everything, BEFORE the decision to split it into 3-parts, that would each be released as their own game. Personally, with just how massive this first part is I'd rather see the later parts be done more as add-ons, with increased level-caps and refined game system elements (like what MMORPGs get, such as FFXI or FFXIV), rather than distinct titles in their own rights.

Personally, from what I have played so far I'm hopeful that they will retain the same degree of faithfulness to the original story, although there are quite a few things that originally were given away much later in the original that were given away in Cloud's vision in the remake. I'd love to see some changes and tweaks, while still hitting the same, or very similar, major story elements, which is almost exactly what they did with the remake so far, and that's really when I enjoy a remake the most, rather than when it tries to remain perfectly faithful (just don't replace a nearly perfectly done element with one that is utter crap, I've seen that and don't care to go there again).

Hmmmm.....a Trials char to attempt again with. I can understand not wanting to do Charlotte. She very much acts her apparent age, which means she spends most of the game being a little brat that you just want to turn over your knee when she gets more than 2 lines of dialog. Sadly, from what I've seen of the demo she won't be much better in the remake, but she's the best healer amongst the choices (well, only two of the others can be a healer, and they have to go light path at the first class change to do so, so her role is fairly well locked down for her), and does have some rather interesting possibilities for final classes (especially if she goes dark path at the first class change). Now, as for who I think you might enjoy doing instead...........since Charlotte is such a huge negative for you I can't recommend Kevin. His dialog is improved significantly in the remake, helping to make him a much more interesting char to have around, but Charlotte is his 'story partner', so he needs her along as a companion for most of his character development over the course of the game. Of course, Hawkeye is really one of the top two for a different type of beginning to the story (right alongside Charlotte), and his 'story partner' is Riesz. Although her origin type has been explored by other games it isn't done very often from what I've seen, but those two do have the least amount of plot and character development over the course of their stories in the original. However, throw Kevin in for your second companion, and have him go light path at the first class change, and you'll have three fairly interesting prologues you can choose to play through (you have to play the prologue of your chosen hero, you get to choose to play through the prologues of your companions in place of them telling you their origins in the remake) along with a decently balanced team that has a healer in it. Since Charlotte rubs you the wrong way so badly that is probably the best team for you for making a second attempt at the trial. Hawkeye as your hero with Riesz and Kevin as your companions, I haven't done that specific combination before (in my Hawkeye/Riesz saves I have either Charlotte or Duran along as my healer), but it would be an entertaining team, especially with how Kevin gets you out of jail before joining your team.........

I remember Vagrant Story, it was a very interesting game, and I hear you on PS-X era 3D graphics. Some were tolerable, some were horrendous, and for the most part these days I prefer the sprite-based games from that era more for very similar reasons (though there are a couple of exceptions, but it's more a case of I make it a point to tolerate the graphics to enjoy the story). I also remember Vanguard Bandits and Arc the Lad (I, II, Monster Arena, and III).

Yeah, the combat was probably the best part of Grandia III, and it was only moderately better than the previous Grandia titles. The others were all much better on the story. In fact, I personally found both the story of, and storytelling in, Grandia III to be a huge let down from the earlier titles in the series, and suspect that's the biggest reason we haven't seen a Grandia IV. Similar to Final Fantasy each title is set in its own distinct world, with only a similar game system, and item/spell names, to link them. Grandia I uses sprites for characters, but 3D models for environments. It gives it a bit of a strange look at times, but personally I liked how it blended the two.

I appreciate the heads-up regarding God of War. I didn't even know they were rebooting it with the one that released on PS4. Might take me a while to be able to get the originals to attempt to play them.

Staying safe was the easy part, staying on schedule was more difficult. I was supposed to leave Phoenix Tuesday morning, it was around noon before we had the paperwork snafu straightened out enough to take off. And of course my boss added some additional work to it, so instead of getting home somewhere between midday and early evening today I wasn't home till well past 2000. In addition that truck I had to go and fetch didn't have an arm rest for my right arm and my right shoulder is killing me now. Just trying to lift a 2L bottle of pop up to counter height with that arm hurts like hell now. I'm off to give that shoulder a good soak, and then some Tiger Balm for it and my neck before I go to bed. Tomorrow I get to go and pick-up my Trials of Mana full game to finally see more of what they did with the remake. I'll admit that there's a fair bit of nostalgia in it for me, but there are a lot of changes, including some fleshing out of the story, and I really want to see all of them.

@Razmoudah @Razmoudah I'll keept that in mind about First Departure R. Generally, I strongly dislike reading any kind of guide before I start playing a game. Particularly with RPGs, I very much enjoy the process of uncovering the game's mechanics for myself - with the help of some tutorials of course - which is kinda undone with guides. Of course, if it's about some obscure conditions for e.g. recruiting characters, that the game itself never makes clear ... yeah well ^^

You sound rather positive about Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness. I just dismissed it because the critical reaction was so overwhelming negative. Maybe I'll take another look then.

I'm surprised to hear you seem to have no texture loading issues. I've seen reports from people using various PS4 kits, and all pretty much report the same issue. Hell, even users with SSD report them, just with faster pop-in times. It's also not a issue in every region to the same degree in my experience. Still, it's not even as bad as the fact that some texture seem completely missing or incredibly low-res.

I'm not sure where they are going with FF Remake. I feel the whole setup with those arbiter of fate and the ending, without any spoilers, points to the possibility, that future games will involve actual decision making. I'm also not sure whether it'll end up being a trilogy, it seemed likely, but given how little ground has been covered over those 40h+, I'm rather sceptical now.

I definitely think so, that this will be more like Kingdom hearts, meaning that future entries will be just $60 sequels. I think that was at least partially the point here. They do want to make money after all

"Hawkeye as your hero with Riesz and Kevin as your companions, I haven't done that specific combination before (in my Hawkeye/Riesz saves I have either Charlotte or Duran along as my healer), but it would be an entertaining team, especially with how Kevin gets you out of jail before joining your team........." Sounds interesting!!

With these older games, so much is reliant on art direction and actual cinematography. Both are excellent in Vagrant Story. I'd go so far, as do say, that Vagrant Story is up to the highest standarts of even today in that regard. Replaying it now, it really brings into focus just how much of gem it was, ahead of it's time in so many ways. Pretty much the Demon Souls of the PSX era to be honest

Since I don't really remember much about Grandia III's story, I imagine you could be right on the money about the story. How's the difficulty in I and II btw?

Yeah, God of War is pretty much reboot in every mechanical sense. There is also no real need to have any insight into the story before that point. It probably helps though, to watch a youtube video about the characters of Kratos. There is not much to him, but it helps knowing here he came from basically, to really appreciate what they've done with the reboot, just the magnitude of the undertaking, if you will.

Like I said, both takes on God of War are legitimate, and I really loved several of the previous GoW titles as well, but GoW (2018) just takes everything I loved about GoW, fundamentally reshapes it and then takes it to a whole new level. The combat was fun and challenging in the previous games, totally, but now it is fun, challenging, but also gorgeous, (more) complex, really visceral, way-way-way more varied and thus utterly compelling. This applies to just about every aspect of the game.

Really pretty much like FFVIIR. GoW also has some pretty good writing going on imho and strong voice acting ("Boy!"-memes aside ^^). There is also an audio book even, which I enjoy. It's fittingly voiced by Alastair Duncan, which voices Mimir in God of War (basically, your 'Grimoire Weiss' in terms of Nier, and while he is not THAT brilliant, he still is brilliant. He also voiced Nihlus in ME fyi.

Sorry to hear that you had a rough going of it the last couple of days. At least you're back safe & (mostly ^^) sound now. Enjoy your copy of Trials!

@Ralek85
First Departure R gives you absolutely no clues regarding character recruitment, or that there are extremely valuable skills that you want to save up most of your SP for. Determination, it's a skill in one of the Tier 3 sets, so it takes a while to get to a shop with it, but it lowers the cost of ALL other skills. Some even get dropped down to less than 20 total SP to master (which you earn in a single level by that point, and unless you do a LOT of grinding your levels will only be in the low 20's) where before they would cost upwards of 50 total SP to master, and some have the cost difference end up in the hundreds. Determination is also a skill needed to earn two of the most valuable Specialty Skills (which are learned by leveling regular skills with SP), as they combine to give you a Super Specialty Skill (similar to Specialty Skills, except these are a full party effort) named Effort that can increase how many SP you get per level. If you save up most of your SP (get a few ranks in Herboloby, it's both needed for Effort AND boosts recovery from berry-type items, so it isn't much of a waste to get it to level 3 or 5 right away) you can potentially master Effort as soon as Determination becomes available (it's the last of the skills needed for the Specialty Skills that unlocks Effort), and once Effort reaches level 5 you'll never get less than your normal amount of SP per level (a risk before then, though a small one) and can potentially see more than double the SP per level. At level 10 Effort always gives you more SP than you'd gain without it, frequently near the doubled mark. That's the second reason a Skill FAQ for the game is recommended. A full walkthrough isn't for everyone, and I wasn't explicitly suggesting one, though it would have all of that information in a single source, as I feel that is strictly a personal choice.

The Critical Reaction system in The Last Hope was a disaster. I can manage to get it with some practice, but not often enough for it to be useful against an unfamiliar enemy. They eased up some on the difficulty of utilizing the advanced action aspects of the combat system in Integrity and Faithlessness, as well as making things like Critical Reaction more useful (and easy enough I can actually pull it off the vast majority of the time, enough to be useful in a boss fight in fact). They did a great job or rebalancing and tweaking the combat system to both make it more engaging and less frustrating.

The biggest problem I see with them doing the remaining parts of FFVIIR as sequels, instead of expansions, is that it will start to cause a notable break in character development from the original. After all, how do you explain characters suddenly being weaker than they were just a few in-game days ago? Kingdom Hearts at least manages to pull a decent reason for a short-term massive loss of power, with long passages of not fighting leading to an obvious loss of ability and skill.

Grandia I and II aren't that difficult, for the most part. I requires some grinding at certain points, though it does require a massive amount of grinding near the end after the final boss is finally revealed, but then again most of the monsters in the world get a massive power boost, so it doesn't feel that much like grinding for the sake of grinding but rather struggling to become strong enough again to resume the journey. In II, so long as you make it a point to hunt down every enemy on every map you rarely ever need to repeat a map. I think I typically only repeat maps 3 or 4 times, mostly in the relatively early game, and then mostly for money to get ALL of the new gear upgrades. Realistically you can get by with staggering you gear upgrades instead.

And you mentioned the 85 in your name is dates, not years. If that means dates as in going out with someone you have a romantic interest in.............if I exclude dating sims it'll take me a couple of centuries, or more, to catch up with where you currently are. If they are included then it /might/ drop down to only a decade or so, assuming I had the time to work the dating sims I'm interested in really, really heavily. Of course, if you meant dates as in a year, then I actually have a couple of years on you, roughly.

@Razmoudah I gotta say, the Skill System for Departure R sounds really deep and interesting! I had no idea! In an ideal world, the game itself provides all the information you need to succeed and gives you enough hints and room for experimentation to figure out the rest on your own, if you want to take the deep dive. It's alright with me, if a game is build in such a way, that areas or items can get by you, if you don't quite know what you are doing esp. in your 1st run, but for a skill system that is kind of problematic of course. Well, then again, we used to have handbooks back in the day, which are not a thing anymore, so all of this is actually more complicated now in that sense. The best handbooks were like ingame items, just physically, companion pieces if you will. That's also a valid approach, even though one no longer practical.

I agree about The Last Hope. From what I played, it was fairly unreliable and thus of very limited usefulness, esp. in moments were you might have need it most. The risk vs reward balance was not on point imho.

I've thought about that issue for FFVIIR as well. RIght now, I would assume that there is no progression between titles. I would kind of hate that, because progression is one, if not the, center piece of any RPG. The thing is though, that the sequels will be released on a different console, so "addons" would be curious, even if the "old" game will also run on the same system. Hell, with the magnitude they are shooting here for, I have to wonder if they'll be able to finish the whole thing within the PS5 generation, since as I said, I am not quite sure this is a three-and-done deal. It's definitely not, if other parts of the game will be expanded upon (and in some instances padded), like Midgard.

Then there is the fact, that it will take more time to create the open-world areas of the game than it did to create Midgard. Given how much of an effort the 1st game obviously took .. it's going to be a while. After all, these areas do not hold up, I feel, and are in a need for a serious overhaul. That is going to take alot of time, to the point, where I am sceptical, that more than two games can be done during next-gen. Which ... yeah, it either has to be trilogy, with seems doubtful to me, or it has to go on well into the PS6 generation.

Sounds like Grandia has some good old fashioned difficulty spikes towards the end. I don't really mind these fortunately. Well, at least as long as they are still within reason that is Plenty of jRPG had that, it's in a way not ideal of course, as a consistent difficulty curve is more rewarding than: steamrolling -> boss aka brick wall -> grinding -> steamrolling ...

And yeah, I was born in 1985. That's why I do not have the deepest attachement to SNES and PSX. I never even had an SNES of my own, but my best friend at the time had one. I only had a used PSX for a while, before I got a PS2. Hence, I am nore attached to the PSX than the SNES and more attached to the N64 and PS2 -where I really feel in love with jRPGs- than even the PSX.

I've actually had very little exposure to jRPGs on the PSX. It was more like Resident Evil, Armored Core, Metal Gear Solid and such. Hell, even Vagrant Story is not really a "jRPG", if we are frank about it. It's neither set in an anime setting, nor does it share in any of the trappings that really make up the genre. Like I said before, it's basically the Demon Souls of the PSX era. I know that is technically Kings Field, but I never played those until much, much later, and then I was not really impressed. Anyways, booting up Demon Souls did not and still does not scream: jRPG. PErsona 5 does, in a good way of course (for the most part), but DeS and VS did not - for good reason.

I'm thinking of picking uf Faithlessnes. It's like $10 during the current Golden Week sale on PSN. I already picked up The Last Remnant. That's a game I always wanted to play. It shares the same aesthetic as Final Fantasy XII, which in turn, is set in the same universe as Vagrant Stoy basically. It's my kind of jam

I only played for 10 mins last night, but I gotta say, at least visually, the game looks INCREDIBLE. Apparently, they ported it to Unreal Engine 4. It's a huge step-up from the 360. More importantly though, it ran like s**t on 360, which is why I never got deeper into it back then, it was just obnoxious. Still, the Remastered plays really smoothly. I am kinda iffed that just like the other former 360 centric jRPGs, neither Resonance of Fate 4K, The Last Hope 4k nor The Last Remanant saw a X1 release. I think that is uncalled for an probably means, that neither of those games will ever be seen in HDR, given that neither is backwards compatible either.

That's a big middle finger to anyone, who feel in love with these games on the 360, like me. In fact, as far as jRPGs goes, the 360 was superior to the PS3, there I said it, but it is true. There more of them, they came out earlier before being ported (shoddily at times), and the best ones were only on 360, aka Lost Odyssey. There were other really good exclusives as well, like Blue Dragon and Infinite Undiscovery, and unique ones like Operation Darkness.

It's odd that Square would pretend that part of their history never happened. Maybe they are still sour about Sakaguchi and the whole Mist Walker chapter? I dunno, but it seems REALLY petty and also bad business. Who is to say that the PS5 will dominate next-gen? They might need the good will of the wider Xbox audience going forward. I do not understand, it since porting from PS4 to Xbox One should be rather trivial, much more so than 360 to PS3 for sure.

Anyways, I'm excited to try out The Last Remnant when I can find the time. The game really starts on a strong note, just as FFVII(R) and Lost Odyssey. In fact, it reminded SO MUCH of Lost Odyssey, since it also throws you right into a large scale battle, with issuing a battle command being the 1st thing you ever do, even before you can so much as run around. Obviously, the game's color palette and art direction are also similar, since LO took more than one queue from the likes of Vagrant Story.

The thing that also came up for me with booting it up, is how poorly received The Last Remnant was back on the 360 just like .... Resonance of Fate. Thinking back today it is obvious, that many western "game journalists" just could not figure out the combat system. That's not to say both games are perfect. RoF certainly wasn't, but it was much, much, much better than reviews made it out to be, many of which I suspect never actually beat the last boss in fact. Plus, if you "got" the combat, it played and still plays like NOTHING ELSE out there. I have a feeling, and high hopes, that the same is true for The Last Remnant, which kinda makes me excited

Oh and btw, The Last Remnant Remastered on PS4 is also only currently like $10, jut like all the Star Ocean games. Considering it's a massive game by all accounts, which like I said looks gorgeous on Unreal Engine 4, I feel that price is a steal.

Edit: Oh, and I also took a look at the original Trials of Mana. I gotta say, I like the sprite based visuals more. They look more charming and less ... honestly? Cheap! I also think the original had a bit more a darker edge to it, visually, than the Trials remake. It's hard to compare, but the whole Disney-vibe I got from the Remake, did not come across the same way in the footage of the original. Still, I also saw a fair bit of the recent remake of the 1st one and that looks ugly as **** and was obviously made on the super cheap. It also features even worse voice acting than Trials - like horrendously bad to the point you'd want to mute it for sure Oo

@Priceless_Spork
Ok, I've managed to get to the first class change. In some respects normal difficulty is easier than the original game (you can dodge attacks, instead of relying on an evade stat, and all stats increase each level so Angela's 'glass cannon' syndrome is much less pronounced), and in some respects it is harder (if you don't pay attention to those 'attack zones' when a strong attack is coming relatively it hurts a lot more, makes sense since they made it possible to dodge those attacks now where in the original most of them were flat out guaranteed hits). Although the third boss is able to pull out a move that has an 'attack zone' that covers the entire battlefield. When fighting the fourth boss I saw it try to pull a similar move, but there was a purple gauge that appeared above the bosses head, and if you did enough damage fast enough you could stun the boss and interrupt the move (which is a new feature), leading me to believe the same happened with the third boss, but it is big enough that with fighting it in a cave the camera makes it hard to see above it. Combat definitely becomes far more engaging than in the original.

Now for things that threw me a little off. Even in the full game you can't put more than 6 TP in a stat until after the first class change. This left me rather concerned at first, as Angela only had 3 of her 6 Magician spells listed. Good news, after the first class change you can go up to 15 TP in a stat, though you only gain 3 new tiers of bonuses per stat. All of Angela's missing spells were in the expanded area, along with the spells she is supposed to be able to learn in her 2nd class. Mysticist only gets a Tier 2 spell for one element, but that's because there are two different advanced spells for fire, water, wind, and earth, and one of the Tier 3 classes off of Mysticist gets the alternate spells, thus why Sorceress gets 4 more new spells than Mysticist. Actually, the class that gets the alternate advanced spells gets 3 Dark element spells, and is the only class for Angela that exclusively learns single element spirit spells (there is a spell one of the other classes learns that is powered by four elementals, with one getting an actual non-elemental spell and one getting a special skill). Now, some of the new abilities that get learned in a Tier 2 class are the same for an individual character regardless of class chosen (and some characters, if they go in the right directions, can even learn the same abilities as each other), but many are different, reflecting the fact that the classes are meant to be worked with differently.

Now, the biggest reason I'd been concerned about the lack of spells listed for Angela is because I'm used to the first class change happening around the 7th or 8th boss, which gets you to the 5th Spirit, not third like I was seeing. In the remake you level faster, enough so that even without trying to do any extra monster hunting for experience I was level 19 by the time I reached the 4th boss, and you do get your first view of a Mana Stone (specifically the Wind Stone) just before that boss fight. The fight was actually somewhat easier than in the original, what with being in Tier 2 classes, and I'd even forgotten to make use of the 2 new ability slots I had to equip more abilities before the boss fight. However, I still went through 3 Cups of Wishes (used to revive defeated allies) in that fight, and yes I consider this easier than the original. Honestly, I think Hard difficulty could be a serious challenge at this point, requiring real action gaming skills to manage to survive and do well.

One rather interesting change is that when you examine a Mana Stone and choose a character to undergo a class change you actually get a 'class map' on screen, so they make it rather blatantly clear there are 4 different 3rd Tier classes, and you have to follow a specific path to get to each. Also, there was an option to Reset Class, though I didn't have the experience or item needed for that so I only have a guess what that will do, which is allow you to return to a previous class to choose the other class instead.

Now, with how much earlier the first class change happens I feel they've made it blatantly clear that you'll have to build to much higher levels to beat the original's final boss than what you needed in the original, and thus they've had to change when you start to find the special seeds for the class change items. I'm a tad mixed about this change as it notably shifts the flow of certain portions of the game, but since you can't miss learning anything for your chars anymore (tested and verified, part of the reason I was making a Duran/Angela save my first foray through the remake) it shouldn't create too severe of a disruption to the flow of the game (especially with the TP requirements to learn the new bonuses in higher tier classes, you'll need the extra levels, even with getting more TP starting at level 21). Overall, it feels like a fairly solid game. It isn't a AAA title, like FFVIIR, but it's still a fairly enjoyable title, and I can definitely say that if they remake Sword of Mana in a similar vein I'll be excited to see it (even if for me it's partially just nostalgia fueling that). I'd be a bit mixed about a Legend of Mana remake in a similar vein, but that's mostly because Legend of Mana has managed to age well, so a direct port could do nearly as well as a remake, especially if they update it to support HD resolutions, for the 'better graphics is a necessity' people (personally, I'm fine with 32-bit sprite based graphics with pre-rendered backgrounds).

@Ralek85
Well, to be fair, if you save up most of your SP for Determination, and getting Effort as early as possible, you'll quite realistically max out all of your skills, and possibly even have 999 unused SP (First Departure's cap, shared with First Departure R), by the time you fight the final boss. Heck, even without that bit of advice it is realistically possible to max most, if not all, skills by the time you fight the final boss. It's just that there are certainly Specialty Skills, and Super Specialty Skills, that makes adventuring easier in the game, as well as being necessary to get the majority of the ultimate gear (there is a LOT of crafting available, and it is the only means of getting it), as well as helping to speed up the leveling process (actually making it possible to be over-powered when you fight a boss without doing a mind-numbing amount of grinding first). The advice isn't necessary to make it through, and probably enjoy it, but the little bit I gave you was with the intent of avoiding any of the 'banging your head against a wall because you wish you new it in advance' frustration that could run rampant with the game. Oh, and none of the Western released companion materials that came with the game told you about any of that, you literally had to figure it out for yourself in every version released in the west. Or try to find an online guide instead.

Yeah, that problem with The Last Hope was very thoroughly fixed in Integrity and Faithlessness.

I find it a tad doubtful that the FFVIIR sequels will extend all the way into the PS6 generation. I don't know if you've noticed or not, but each successive Playstation console has actually had a longer life-span before retirement than the previous one had. In fact, rough estimates for the PS4 say it will see a 12, or possibly 13, year life-span. Maybe even more with the degree of overlap the series has seen and the PS5 still isn't out. That also means that the PS5 may edge right up to a 15 year life-span (assuming that computer tech doesn't hit an effective 'wall' in progression and it becomes part of a 'long development generation', meaning it could take 20 years to develop the tech for a meaningful increase and thus a new console, yes there are signs we're close to hitting such a wall). Yes, they've taken a VERY long time with the first part of FFVIIR, but because of just how long-lived the Playstation consoles are, and the fact that a fair portion of the base game engine development for the rest of FFVIIR is done (all they really need to do is some refinements and expansions upon it) each successive part should be able to be released with only a fraction of the development time (depending on how much they expand or pad things, as you did point out). Realistically I could see them turn it into a 4 parter and still easily release all of the remaining parts before needing to go to PS6, maybe even get 1 more part in as well.

Grandia I only has a single notable difficulty spike, and it is literally just before the final dungeon. Also, if you are steamrolling the enemies in an area in Grandia I the boss of that area (if it has one) will barely be a challenge. In fact, most of the difficulty spikes in it are tied to areas where you have either recently lost a party member, or recently gained a party member, and it's more the player adapting to the change in party tactics needed than the actual increase in the strength of the enemies. Grandia I just has your party size change quite a few times before you are finally prepping to enter the final dungeon, unlike Grandia III where there was only one time you ever had the size of your part decrease and you only ever got enough party members to max out your combat party. Heck, Grandia II was a bit gentler even than Grandia III in that regard. In many respects it was Grandia Xtreme that was the worst of the bunch for difficulty spikes, and even it is much gentler than most JRPGs released since it, and nearly all released before it.

Actually, the 360 has a smaller library of JRPGs than the PS3. The difference is that Microsoft managed to con a lot of the Japanese developers into supporting the 360 early on, and then Microsoft proceeded to screw them over and they abandoned ship. Yes, there is a Middle Finger going on, but it is quite explicitly directed at Microsoft. Heck, you remember FFXIII? Do you want to know the real reason there is a FFXIII-2? It is because of all of the content Square had to cut that was either only partially developed, or planned but hadn't entered development yet, because Microsoft didn't want such a massive game on the 360. Hell, Microsoft complained about how many discs FFXIII was when it finally did release, and they only got a 720p resolution edition (instead of the PS3's 1080p resolution edition, which required roughly double the data space for just the graphics data) just so that Square could keep as much of the planned content as possible within the disc limit Microsoft forced on them. The Last Hope is literally translated differently for the 360 version as it got for the PS3 version, again because Microsoft forced them to mis-translate portions of it. After Final Fantasy Type-0 released they did a press release and give a laundry list of the crap Microsoft did, and how Microsoft had been interfering with the development of games. Heck, Microsoft wouldn't even let Square decide which games would be on a Microsoft platform (though Microsoft did let Square make those games mutli-platform, the only reason the PS3 even got the FFXIII trilogy), instead the contract they had with Microsoft gave that control to Microsoft. That's why FFVIIR is a PS4 exclusive at present, without even any credible rumors out of Square that it might be on anything other than the PS5. Do not go and blame Square, or the other Japanese developers, for the sins of Microsoft. And as for Hironobu Sakaguchi and Mist Walker Studios.....they had three games planned for the 360. Only two released (Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey), the third was canceled in development. After the third was canceled Sakaguchi himself did a press release announcing that he refused to do business any further with Microsoft, and that there was absolutely no chance of reconciliation (there is still a chance of reconciliation with Sony, but the Sony disagreement is whey he left Square). After he made that announcement the 360 barely got any additional exclusives, instead everything shifted to being multi-platform, and those Japanese developers that could abandoned the 360 like it was the Hindenburg coming down in flames. He never gave details as to why, no one did until Square aired their grievances after the release of Final Fantasy Type-0. Oh, and before you think Sakaguchi doesn't matter, he's the guy who came up with the first Final Fantasy, and before you ask Square titled it Final Fantasy because at the time they were going broke and it was to be their final game before they closed their doors, way back in the early-mid 80's. He was producer, and main creative force, behind Final Fantasy I through X, Chrono Trigger (which had the same major talents as Blue Dragon), and a smattering of Square's other major hits on the NES, SNES, and PS-X. Square has had other talented individuals, though the only person who really compared well against Sakaguchi originally worked for Enix, and he created Dragon Quest. Square themselves have shown no sign of being embarrassed about Sakaguchi creating a rival company (heck, one of their other strong talents left to create Monolith Soft and the Xenosaga trilogy, which is literally in the same grand setting as Xenogears), just about not being able to keep his talents around.

Now, as for the Xbox series consoles having a large market base............depends on what market you look at. They are dead in Japan. To the point it is nearly impossible to give them away. This started shortly after Sakaguchi's little press release about being unwilling to work with Microsoft any further and preferring to pay the penalties for Breach of Contract (yes, he actually said that, though not in those exact words). This is the single biggest reason why you don't see a single exclusive JRPG for the Xbox One. Actually, you don't see any exclusive titles for it by any Japanese Developer, not just the ones that do JRPGs. The Xbox is really only strong in the US (well, NTSC region in general) and Europe, and even in Europe the market penetration for the Xbox One, relative to when it released, isn't very strong. After all, if you were a game developer would you prefer to develop a game for a console that has less than 1% market penetration in your home market region, or one that everyone from street bums to CEO's knows of, and if they haven't played it themselves knows someone who has one. That's also why nearly every good JRPG for the 360 that was an exclusive has seen a port to another console. Blue Dragon and Magna Carta 2 are the only 2 I know of for it left exclusive to it. Now, I need to stop this rant before I have an entire book about it alone.

Hmmmmm.......that is tempting, though first I want to check to see if it is on sale on Switch first. As an over-the-road trucker my PS4 usually stays at home, while I'm gone for 2-3 weeks straight. My Switch travels with me. In fact, that's what I'm about to do right now, before going back to Trials. At least I'm getting 2 TP per level now, instead of only 1. I'd thought I'd have to fight to get back to Beiser to the Night Market just to reset my TP so that I could work on getting the abilities I wanted my team to focus on training for. Although Angela needs to work all 5 stats for all of her spells, at least with the increase in TP per level it's possible to learn all of them by level 40 (unless it increases again after level 30, though that seems iffy), as if she goes Sorceress it actually costs a total of 60 TP just to learn her spells, although you do get the vast majority of her good abilities along the way. Then again, even if those spells are not learned before the next class change with the higher levels you can still have the basic spells by the same point in the story as the original, and since the class change will happen earlier that negates most of the insane TP requirement problems (though not all, as she can have a lot of spells to learn in her 3rd Tier class, and the save I'm working is aiming for her achieving that class..........this could actually suck now that I think about it some).

Well, even if you were born in 85 you've still probably been on more dates than me, and it'd take decades, if not over a century, to overcome the gap. Mostly because my 'type' isn't interested in me, and the ones who are are the types that mothers would take up arms and actively hunt down to protect their sons from, instead of just warning their sons.

@Razmoudah
Ah, yes, I think I see now .

@Razmoudah Well, if you put it that way, it's more about optimization and having a better time with it, than sheer necessity or missing out on major pieces of relevant content without outside help, which seems fair to me. I mean, it's not a dealbreaker either way with games from that era to me. I said I love Vagrant Story, and I do, and there is ALOT about this game, that you'll have to figure out for yourself, even if you read the in-game manual, that is not always really presented to you in any fair manner. The game is not hard, it's just hard if you don't fully grasp it's mechanics, and those mechanics are only partially explained or hinted at. Matsuno said in an interview, that this was an intentional choice to let the player figure out stuff themselves by EXPERIMENTATION - thus in part the Demon Souls comparison. I think that is legitimate, although I wish the game had then used a "save" system like the Souls games, instead of the classic saving it does, which just looses your progress if your experiment fails

It's a small flaw on a gem of the game (like the too long spell animations, the lack of a quick access to weapon selection, the too short buff duration, the necessity to save every time you leave the itembox and a bunch more). But I guess just like with Star Ocean, these games were still children of their time, and thus some flaws must be forgiven.

Even speaking about remasters or full-on remakes, I would hope that while the things I listed above would be fixed for sure, as they are just hurting the experience by dragging out play time and killing momentum at times. While the whole experimentation angle is part of what makes the game so compelling.

Sure, the story and world, excellent writing/localization, amazing art direction, perferct cutscene direction, brilliant atmosphere would survive, but the game would feel mechanically less engaging, if all mechanics were just put into a tutorial. Vagrant Story is a hard game to learn, it's not a hard game to execute what you learned. It's like the opposite of Sekiro, where you know pretty quickly how is done "correctly" ... it's just the doing that is rather hard, with those tiny i-frames and parry windows and combat animations purposefully delayed to trick you into triggering those just mere frames to early

Star Ocean in that regard seems comparable to Vagrant Story from what you described. You can brute force much of the game,but it will take waaaayyyy longer and be waaaaayyyyy less rewarding.

As for the PS5, no I don't quite see it that way. First of all, a new console is only in part dictated by technology progress. Part of the equation, the most important one, is still market saturation. If you sold through a majority of available market at the optimal price, it is time to move on. You better hope that by that time you have recovered the initial cost of investment and then some, to be able to invest into the next cycle. That is also why rapid cycles are destructive. Sega figured that out way to late, killing themselves of with rapid iteration, confusing consumers ... sure, their hand was forced by the competition, but that is just how it goes.

Secondly, technology will continue to progress. We actually see major jumps pretty soon if we finally manage to move from silicon into graphite, but I dunno if and when this will actually be realized. Even if we don't though, there is always room to improve on optimization. In fact, I am confident that the largest long-term gains in visuals and performance on the next-gen devices, will not stem primarly from "more horsepower", but much smarter technology like VRS for example. Smart memory management will be a huge factor in general and will effectively multiply the actual memory developers can make use of, plus PS5 might actually pull of enough datathroughput to get pretty close to utterly breaking that barrier that has plagued game design for decades (there is a fascinating interview with some of the Square staff on Vagrant Story, where they in painstakingly detail reveal, how they made the best looking PSX full-polygonal game, even having little to zero experience with that technology - it's fascinating stuff, how they went over scenes again and again and again, to really nail down the precise polygon count they could deliver on the system down to a 't' and tailoring their textures precisely to the PS4 memory).

I'm very curious to see how long the PS5 will last. PS3 was bascially 7 years, which is always considered the rule of thumb for a generation. The last one or two of which were really rough so, strechting things to the breaking point in my view. PS4 will also make it effectively to 7 years, but ... frankly, only by cheating. In fact, I would argue, that with the launch of the PS4 Pro only 3 years after the original PS4, they admitted defeat. To this day, the CPU remain woefully underpowered even on the Pro. IF the Pro had not come to market, the PS4 would not have made it longer than 2018 at best in my view, clocking in at best at a 5 year cycle, which I feel is also a fair assessment.

In that regard, I would argue, they cycle has gotten shorter.

So about FFVIIR, the big upside here is the use of Unreal Engine. This should make iteration and jump to next-gen significantly easier than what they had to deal with with previous engines like say the Crystal Tools for the XIII games. Still, FFVIIR has it's issues as it stands, we already talked about the texture resolution and streaming have even severe issues. Generall speaking, the density and quality of assessts really drops tangibly after the first two or so hours in and around the reactor.

This tells me, that Square has still not come 100% to grips with the UE development and given that future chapters kind of demand huge (semi-)open spaces to remain faithful, I am sceptical, that they will be able to do this with a 2 year turn-around time. I might be wrong though. Things is, who is to say they are even going to do that after Final Fantasy XV? They might see the light and go back to an abstraction, be it the overworld map we've seen in FFVII and so many other games of it times, or the "region"-abstraction seen in FFXII to simulate - aka give the illusion of - a vast open world. I alway prefer the abstraction, as actually vast open worlds are just empty spaces that waste your time and kill any sense of density of realism (Skyrim is supposed to be a big part of an entire continent, still you can WALK across it in roughly two hours or a 15 minute drive, if you had a car handy - it's positively TINY by any real-life-continent-comparison and still, much of it is empty despite their best efforts).

Therefore I think much will depend on whether the PS5 generation will see a mid-gen upgrade and how long the turn-around time on each of the Episodes will be (and if we are looking at like 3-4 more episode here or just 2 obviously).

But frankly, I do expect a) a mid-gen upgrade 3-4 years down the line once more, b) I think 3 years turn-around is much more likely than 2 years, which c) would limit them to a trilogy on PS5, as I really do not forsee something close to 15 years or a decade.

Like, for instance, full global ray-traced illumination is not going to be a thing on PS5, not on 1080p and definitely not on 4K or 8K, no matter if you are shooting for 30fps, 60fps or 120 fps. Even today, that is one of those things that are in the pipeline, but that will not be realized on any next-gen console. Things might be different for Minecraft to some degree, as tech demos have suggested, but that is hardly the baseline for visual fidelity people are looking for here - ray tracing or not

Well, yes and know. If you count every single game, that is part of the genre, like say, all the Neptunia games, then yes, the PS3 build a big library. I'll be harsh here. That is the same calculus by which the Wii had a vast library. Every week there were dozens of releases, but a the vast majority of it was shuffleware, plain and simple. Quality games were far and few between.

The jRPGs that I feel deserve recognization last generation, were almost all either X360 exclusives or timed-exclusives. Also, my point was that the middle finger goes to players/consumers which did support Square on the 360. I have no doubt about Microsoft meddling, they have a long and storied history in that regard, and that history continued into the current gen (just ask Platinum ^^).

Anyways, I do think that is a one-sided tale. First off all, Lost Odyssey released on 4 (!) discs. I'm not sure why they would be okay with Sakaguchi doing that on LO, but not with his former employer doing that on FFXIII. Obviously though, the DVD format was a restriction on 360, that PS3 not shared, true enough, some concession had to be made and Microsoft had a vested interest in coming out of those looking as good as possible. It's not pretty, but understandable in my book.

As for the sequelSS, there were two after all, I think you are leaving out an important part of the story here: the aforementioned Sakaguchi. From what I read, Sakaguchi was OBSESSED with worldbuilding, to the point that he insisted that each entry to the FF-series had to be set in it's own unique world.

With the development of these worlds for 3D HD systems, that approach became apparently untenable for Square, esp. given the fact, that they were in the horrible habit of not only ditchting the worlds they had created, but also the engine and development tools that came with it, mor or less starting from scratch.

I still think the whole idea of Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy is in large part to adress that issue: It gave them room to massively reuse assets and development tools for multiple consecutive releases, plus it had the added benefit of not having to reinvent the world either at every turn, and it gave them an excuse to expand deeply into the cheap and quick-turn-around side of the mobile games business, all under one convenient roof.

The time with Sakaguchi leaving the same year, the conception of Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy was completed is ... well, it's hard to believe that any of this is any sort of coincidence. And sure enough, Sakaguchi went on to Mistwalkers and continued his massive undertaking of relentlessly building massive, unique and completely original worlds.

I'm not saying that Microsoft is any sort of angle, but neither is Square. According to interviews I read, the struggle about the direction of FF came to ahead as early as FFX-2 and had been going on probaly since 8 or 9 where some in Square felt a sequel to VII had been called for much more pressing. It is relevant I think because Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus and also Advent Children were all realised within like 3 years after Sakaguchi had left.

Again, Microsoft meddled? Sure, but to blame all those change son them is bonkers. Spirits Within was a huge bomb, even threatening the merger with Enix at the time. A course correction was necessary and that included a successfuly jump to 3D production with X, decidely not starting from scratch to bring cost and turn-around time down evident with X-2 and really changing the company's scope, which Nomura did with Kingdom Hearts, as a key part of the puzzle. Nomura is also incidently the Director behind Advent Children and given that ever since FFX or X-2 for that matter, Square was on an unyielding quest to make combat that looked as flashy as it would in Advent Children (that vision being finally realized under Nomura in FFVIIRemake of course, as we now know), it seems obvious that there were was ALOT of stuff going on that is not at all related to Microsoft. The whole 2000s were a big shake up for Square. I am not saying Microsoft was not a part of it, but who knows how much they made off of Microsoft? To pretend that Microsoft did not BUY those meddling rights after some fashion strikes me as ludicrous.

Same goes for Mistwalker. I really love their work, but what did they do after Lost Odyssey? What?

First, they shifted to handeld development, which is cheaper, than to Wii development, which is definitely cheaper than 360 was an then ... they went to mobile, which is the cheapest for sure and they NEVER went back. They would have been free to develop for PS3 when they made The Last STory. The could have developed for PS4 when they made Terra Battle. Microsoft had no hand in those decisions. They got burned by making a big, expensive AAA traditional FF game, that did not really work commercially. I would argue, that this game would have never been made without Microsoft in the 1st place. They did what Square said shouldn't be done anymore, because it was a prohibitively risky venture. They did it anyway. It did not quite pan out. I mean it was an amazing game, my favourite in that particular subgenre for sure, and it sold well, just not enough to continue down that fraught path. It's easy and cheap to blame Microsoft, but the game would most likly not exist without them, so it's also pretty hypocritical of them, at least in my view.

But yeah, there is no doubt that the strategy of Microsoft failed. It's odd though to really phrase it that way. Lost Odyssey, The Last Hope, Resonance of Fate, Eternal Sonata, Infinite History, Blue Dragon, Enchanted Arms and Tales of Vesperia were good games, some of them even great games, and more so unique ones among them as well, and definitely my favourites of the entire generation, some of them like LO and RoF, as I said sevearl times, I count as my two of my hands-down favourite experiences in the entire genre. IF games are what matters here, then Microsoft did anything other than fail, the furthest from it. They helped bring to life some of the best the genre had to offer, and still has.

I'll put it another way: I take Eternal Sonata over 50 Neptunia games. These ports, they were the saving grace of the PS3 in terms of jRPGs. All the Ps3 really did if you ask me, was to add Valkyria Chronciles, The Legend of Heroes and Ni No Kuni to the stack. Depending on one's taste, sure enough good stuff, but if I had to pick between exclusives for both, I still go with the 360 every time. If those games mentioend above had not been ported, I don't think we would have need to discuss whether platform was the "jRPG machine" of the last generation. There simply had not been any contest. Microsoft was pulling all stops out, using it's deep pockets to make stuff for the platform happen like Sony never (had to) bother(ed).

Haha, I can see how the Switch might be super-appealing to you in your profession. Must be godsend to finally have a console-level experience on the go!! I still haven't had time to check out Trials again, I'm kinda split between my Vagrant Story rerun now, Radiant History Perfect Chronology on the 3DS and Operation Darkness on 360. All of these a very long, deep and involved RPGs that you could spend weeks on individually! ^^

Dating can be fun, but it can also be really painful. "More" of it is not necessarily a good thing in my book. It depends on who you are. I also envied friends who stuck with their highschool sweetheart (successfully so far). Some may think in terms of "boring" here, but ... yeah, not my view of things.

Literally made an account to mention just how utterly disappointed I was with this game. I played the demo and proceeded to delete it and go back to the original. Imo they should have just remade all the sprites and world in HD and worked out any old bugs and I would've been happy. Also the removal of multiplayer was the last nail in the coffin as that was one of my favorite features from the original. Oh well... Yay 2020.

@Ralek85
Actually, I remember seeing a bit about an interview a year or so ago where one of the Sony executives was talking about how much of a necessity things like Playstation Plus have become because of a console achieving that degree of market saturation well before it is technologically or cost practical to have a successor console. Simply put, although the raw sales can pay back the investment into making the console it may not be possible to make a meaningful successor because of either technological limitations or because said successor would be prohibitively expensive for a massive portion of the target market at the time. Also, the PS3 was retired 11 years after release (I just Googled it to verify) and had a 4 year overlap with the PS4, though it was still a highly relevant console for the first two of those overlap years. Heck, even if the PS4 would've lost relevance by 2018 without the release of the PS4 Pro (which I don't have, I got my PS4 in 2015) it still would've been hitting 5 years old (the traditional console generation-span of the 80's, 90's, and early 2000's). In fact, the main reasons for the PS4 Pro was to support 4K HD graphics, better PSVR, and because the tech hadn't progressed far enough for a true successor (which is about a lot more than just graphics, despite them being the big selling point on the consumer side, they are actually a minor point on the developer side regarding it being a true successor or not, they care more about whether or not it can do significantly more in the backend). Also, the TV I have only supports up to 1080i, not even true 1080p, and I'm enjoying my games just fine. I personally quite literally couldn't care less about the whole 4K argument, partially because I don't really have the space for a 48+" TV, to make sure the text is actually legible at the distances I normally sit from my TV, and some games are a pain as is anyhow, or for the custom sound system just so that I can keep my Audio Balancing feature for when I'm watching streaming video (Netflix is horrid about loud scenes leaving you half deaf while quite scenes are barely audible before having your ear drums assaulted, I wouldn't watch much streaming video from Netflix without it). That's why there has been a lot of talk about expanding on subscription type services like Playstation Plus, to help Sony generate revenue past the point of heavy market saturation while the tech develops to be able to make a successor practical. Heck, why do you think Microsoft released the Xbox One X instead of a successor console? Microsoft easily has the wealth to sell a new console at only half it's production cost for a couple of years without going bankrupt to bring the production cost down to where they stop losing money selling it (which Sony did partially do with the PS3 by the way), but they didn't because the tech wasn't there to justify it. In fact, I play FFXIV, with the latest expansion, on my laptop, which turns 7 this fall, at only slightly below the maxed out graphics settings, and my biggest hang up is either the communication speed with the HDD or the read/write speed of my HDD, not my vid card (which I could've had dual vid card, of the exact same vid card I have, but chose not to because I didn't know the quad-core processor I was looking at was using hyper-threading so despite four physical cores it has eight logical cores and I expected the processor to be inadequate for gaming long before the single vid card, now I wish I'd gotten the dual vid cards after all), well after internet lag of course. Oh, and as for what killed Sega, that wasn't so much trying to develop new consoles too fast (although they did have a tendency to develop a console that was far more capable than was practical for the times). It was because they alienated most of their fan base by forcefully retiring the Saturn far too soon, before the console had truly even hit its stride in fact, and said fan base wasn't interested in taking a chance with the Dreamcast. Why do you think most of the Dreamcast's major titles got ported to other platforms so quickly? In fact, the only major title for it I can name off-hand that didn't get ported was Soul Calibur (which was actually a sequel to the PS-X game Soulblade, and yes I have it and have confirmed the series connection, despite the change of title), though its sequel was a multi-platform release across the three major international consoles of the time, and released around the time most of the other titles had been getting their ports, so that might be the reason why.

Now, as for the PS3 having fewer quality titles.............I'll admit that the Neptunia games are far more light-hearted than most, and if I hadn't learned how to enjoy a light-hearted game instead of just serious games I'd almost be inclined to agree with you, almost, they are well developed full titles however (even if the first could be a bit wonky with some aspects, the second and third are much better, I still need to get my hands on VII however). Also, lets exclude the games that got simultaneous multi-platform releases, such as FFXIII, Resonance of Fate, Dragon's Dogma, Front Mission Evolved (a 3rd person shooter successor to an SRPG Legacy), and Persona 4 Arena (Ultimax). You might not want to call Persona 4 Arena (Ultimax) a JRPG, but they are an official part of the continuing story of Persona 4, just like Persona 4 Dancing All Night, and Ultimax was the second half of the story started in Arena (thakfully the PS3 version at least has the first half's story available as a DLC, although I have it as a digital title anyhow). Much to my surprise Enchanted Arms was a port to PS3, though the port was probably in the works by the time it came state-side on the 360, the Japanese versions were a year apart, while the US ones were only 8 months apart. With your dislike of Neptunia you obviously had no interest in Disgaea 3, 4, or D2 (again, similarly light-hearted, despite being major title releases), though I'm rather surprised you never gave Ar Tonelico a chance, and the third part of that trilogy was Ar Tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel on the PS3 (the entire trilogy was Sony console exclusives), and sadly Ar Nosurge: Ode to an Unborn Star was the middle part of its trilogy, and the first and final parts never came state-side, though if memory serves that entire trilogy was PS3 exclusive (until being ported to PS Vita, well I assume parts 1 & 3 got ported as well). And Tales of Graces was originally a Wii title before being ported to the PS3 as Tales of Graces f (and now I wish I could do italics, as that f is italicized on the game case), though in the states we only got the PS3 port, so that one could really go either way. Not to mention that Tales of Symphonia Chronicles is a PS3 exclusive port of the Gamecube exclusive Tales of Symphonia and Wii exclusive Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (I have both the port and the originals), so it probably shouldn't be counted either. However, if you are calling Tales of Xillia, and Tales of Xillia 2 just 'shuffleware titles' then we've got a very serious disagreement on our hands here. Each of them can take 80+ hours to beat, have a serious setting (if not as serious as FFVII), and definitely fall into the category of being AAA titles, just like most FF titles. Natural Doctrine is another iffy one, as it got simultaneous multi-platform releases on PS3, PS4, and PS Vita (not the 360 or One though, hint, hint). You did mention Valkyria Chronicles, and interestingly it's sequel was a PSP title, and it has only been ported to PS4 and Switch, despite Revolution and 4 being multi-platfrom and including the One (3 was a PSP exclusive that never left Japan). You also mentioned Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, and it was a great game, even if the gameplay mechanics had a harsh early game learning curve, and one of these days I need to see how the Switch port turned out. Lost Dimension got simultaneous releases on PS3 and PS Vita in 2015 (that's post-launch for the PS4 by the way, but it didn't get released on it, ever), and it's a mess-with-your-head, who's-the-traitor title that can be just as thrilling in the story-telling as any Shin Megami Tensei (Persona or otherwise, I think you mentioned you've played Digital Devil Saga?). Oh and the traitor isn't always the same ally each play-through either (which makes it even harder to figure out, especially with a restricted amount of time to work with if you want the best ending possible). In fact, since I mentioned LD lets also mention Persona 5, simultaneous release for both PS3 and PS4, and the last non-sports game released on PS3 (damn EA and their utter determination to be the last developer to abandon a console), not sure you'd want to consider it though. The Guided Fate Paradox and The Awakened Fate Ultimatum, non-standard SRPGs by the same developer as Disgaea, less light-hearted and with some dating-sim elements included, but still major title releases. Akiba'S'Trip: Undead and Undressed (and that's the way the title is one the box, it was copyrighted under Akiba's Trip), not a JRPG, so it is not being counted, but is being mentioned because it still utilizes the same story-telling typical to JRPGs, even if it is an Action Adventure game, and released on PS3 and PS Vita, with a PS4 port a couple of months later (no One port though). Trinity: Souls of Zill O'll is a very non-traditional JPRG (in fact, I hadn't realized it was a JPRG until checking just now, I'd thought it was by an American developer, just like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning), and purely a PS3 exclusive, as well as being a very dark and gritty experience. White Knight Chronicles II (which also included a massively revamped version of I, which is many times more playable) is yet another PS3 exclusive, and arguably 2 games in one (even the original was a PS3 exclusive), sadly it hasn't received any ports. The Witch an the Hundred Knight is an Action-RPG that I am willing to agree is definitely a lesser title, not quite 'shuffleware', but a long ways from being true AAA material (it is a lot of fun though, and it did get a half-remaster half-remake port to PS4). Now Trinity Univers is probably a 'shuffleware' title, it's fun and has an unusual story but ultimately it feels like little more than the video game equivalent of a B movie (almost worse about it in some respects than Secret of Evermore on SNES in fact), so not counting it isn't a major loss even if it was a PS3 exclusive. Mugen Souls, and its sequel, Mugen Souls Z, on the other hand is really in the same boat as Disgaea, not overly serious but still a major title. I still laugh my ass off just thinking about some of the things that happened in Mugen Souls, heroes who from the outside appear like villains, demon lords who have the support of the common people because they care, a demon lord who is in love with the hero who opposes her and wants him to succeed, and getting a 'Moe Kill' on a continent to force it to move to touch another continent so you don't have to take a boat to chase a hero down, very fun times indeed (though all of the DLC costs more than the game did on launch day, not needed but most of it is fun to have, sadly the PS3 and 360 era started that trend, glad to see it starting to fade though), oh and both are pure PS3 exclusives. Fairy Fencer F, another AAA title by Idea Factory (primary developers of the Neptunia games, though this one is a lot more serious than the Neptunia series), and originally a PS3 exclusive, that has only seen a PS4 expanded port that then got ported to Switch. Time and Eternity, a little known gem but a great game, at least A if not AA quality, though not quite AAA, that has remained a PS3 exclusive. Now Cross Edge is a bit of a mixed bag, as it is mostly a cross-over title (though personally I feel it did a great job with both representing the 'borrowed' characters and creating an original story for the game), which actually got ported from PS3 to 360, back in 2009, and is the only game I know of on the 360 that Nippon Ichi Software (the parent company of NISA, or Nippon Ichi Software America, go Japan First (that's what their name translates as ;P )), Idea Factory, or Compile Heart were ever involved with, and it was IF that did the majority of the development work on it (it was released by NISA in the states, or at least the PS3 version was, and at that time NISA did all of the localization work for NIS, IF, Compile Heart, and Gust, IF has since started doing their own localizations while Compile Heart and Gust vary between the two), although Capcom, Namco Bandai, and Gust do have claims on some of the characters (I think Gust does have a couple of dating sim-esque titles on the 360, the other major story-telling genre in Japan, though I have no idea if any of them came stateside, though I doubt it as they mainly used NISA for localizations until IF started doing their own and the list of NISA titles for the 360 is in the single digits). Now, Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland and Atelier Totori: The Adventuer of Arland are both rather questionable, as they are from the time that the Atelier series drifted away from being heavy in RPG mechanics, but they were originally exclusive to PS3 and PS Vita (they have since been ported to the Switch, along with the third game in the Arland Trilogy). Finally I end my list with The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel I & II, which were originally PS3 and PS Vita exclusives, before being ported to the PS4 to help build anticipation for III (also, IV is planned as releasing Q4 2020 on the PS4 at present, so that console will have the entire Trails of Cold Steel saga, while the Switch is currently looking at only having the last two parts, then again there are supposed to be tie ins with many other Legend of Heroes titles, which could be good or bad depending on how badly you need to know those titles for IV to make sense). Now, all of those games I've got in this list are from my personal game library, and is restricted to just the ones that I have physical copies of (there are a few others worth mentioning that I only have as digital copies on my PS3). I admit that the PS3 did get many lack-luster titles, of which I skipped over most of them (unless it was a NISA title, I did everything I reasonably could to get ALL of theirs, even some lack-luster titles, in the hopes of getting them to bring over more of the quality hidden gems they had rights to in Japan), but the PS3 actually has a very extensive library of quality JRPGs, even if you don't want to admit it. In fact, I have 24 quality major titles in that list (though it isn't everything in that list) just for comparisons sake.

Actually, what is the list of quality JRPG exclusives the 360 got again? Blue Dragon, Lost Oddyssey, Tales of Vesperia, Star Ocean: The Last Hope, Magna Carta 2, Eternal Sonata, Infinite Undiscovery, The Last Remnant, and Enchanted Arms (barely). I might be missing a couple, but that's still only 9 of them, but of those listed there the only two that have remained exclusive are Blue Dragon and Magna Carta 2, all of the others got ported (although some did take until after the release of the Switch), and the only ones from that list I don't have are Eternal Sonata and Magna Carta 2 (I do have the first game, Magna Carta: Tears of Blood on PS2 though, which is a big part of the reason I mention it, and you've finally sold me on Eternal Sonata, should check it in the Playstation Store quick like). I'm not sure what the 360 got for digital-only exclusives, but if you've been paying attention the Japanese mainly use that for the B games, or ones that it is uncertain are worth the cost of localizing to the states, even if a major title, until fairly recently (well since the PS3 was retired anyhow).

I won't argue that Sakaguchi's obsession with world building has caused him problems, it certainly has, and ever since the primary transition to 3D games you really have to use any given setting multiple times to justify the cost of doing any truly in-depth world building. Yes, it would be nice if he'd let others play with making stories in the worlds he has created. Of course, it is because he is so good at world building that he became one of the biggest names (of a person anyhow) in the industry and stayed there for so long. Only one person has managed to stay big longer, and you've already commented on the lack of 'progression' in the battle system in Dragon Quest. Although have you ever tried Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below or Dragon Quest Heroes II? I have both, and they actually transition to a fully Action-oriented combat system, more akin to what FFXIV or Phantasy Star Universe has than anything else, although I will admit that both the combat system and skill system of DQHII is much better.

I won't argue that Microsoft made great efforts to get a bunch of JRPGs, and if they could've just let developers develop, and not interfered like they did, the 360 would've definitely kicked the PS3's ass in that department and the One would actually be a relevant console in the Asian markets today. Instead, they pissed off the group of developers they needed the most to truly compete on an equal stage in every way and they are being supported in mostly just two markets, North America and Europe (as they are the two biggest markets for sports games and shooting games), with some smattering of hot spots in some of the other non-Asian markets around the world. That's why they only get mutli-platform games from the Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Indonesian developers, Microsofts consoles just can't perform in those markets, mainly from a lack of local 3rd party developer support, which happened because of how they treated said developers during the 360's high time. And yeah, Sony has never needed to, but that's a combination of the origins of the PS-X (which originally Nintendo contracted Sony to develop a CD based add-on for the SNES for 32-bit games, as a counter to the Sega CD, then partway through development Nintendo canceled project PS-X, but some companies (such as Square) already had games in development for it, so Sony finished development on it as a full standalone console, the Sony Playstation) and the fact that they mostly just stood back and let developers make games and didn't try to tell them what they had to do or couldn't do (heck, there are times they've said the PS-X lacked the hardware capabilities to do something and the developers figured out how to do it anyhow, and Sony only praised them for it). By the time of the Xbox 360 developers were already well familiar with Sony and knew they had brand performance, though the biggest reason they didn't develop much for the PS3 early on was because it was actually one of the most difficulty consoles to develop for that has ever been launched (kinda amazing that it was so hugely successful, though early on that was because of having backwards compatibility with PS2 and PS-X games), otherwise it would've been a far more uphill battle for Microsoft. One final note regarding the JRPG master console debate, the vast majority of the PS3's exclusive JRPG's released AFTER Sakaguchi cut ties with Microsoft, with only ones like the Neptunia titles or Disgaea happening before. In other words games by developers that were trying to move past the PS2 but were unsure about getting close to Microsoft. Actually, now that I think about it have you ever played Cross Edge? Were there any characters that in game are described as being cross-over characters that you didn't recognize? I'm very certain that if you look them up online you'll get a rather drastic surprise. Just don't let Etna get the best of you in the process.

Finally, before you through Zoids Assault (one of the two 360 exclusive Zoids games, though the only one that came state-side) in my face, have you ever played it and are you a Zoids fan? I'm a huge Zoids fan, probably a bigger fan of that anime series than I am of the Tales of games in fact (and if you can't tell I'd rather go hungry than miss a Tales of title, sometimes even if I already have that title, although half the reason for getting Tales of Symphonia Chronicles was so that I could trade in my Wii without sacrificing being able to get the bonuses for having a Sympnohia save in Dawn of the New World) and am extremely familiar with the capabilities of many Zoids and how they work. Zoids Assault used the same movement algorithms for everything. That means they had Shield Ligers, Command Wolves, and even a D.Bison all using the exact same movement algorithm. A D.Bison isn't physically capable of making the same types of rapid changes in direction that a Command Wolf can, it will damage the leg joints and leave it immobile. In addition each of the player Zoids was only utilizing a single back mounted weapon (some were indirect fire at least, although some of those weapons were exclusive for a freaking Shield Liger, which is a high performance assault Zoid, think a storm trooper that can rush you and has a regenerating forward hemisphere shield), and completely ignored the melee capabilities of the respective Zoids. Heck, a Shield Liger actually has four hard points for mounting weapons, although some of the back mounted weapons do need to connect to the side hard points for additional energy feeds, in addition to having a fairly powerful melee range shield bash attack. The D.Bison is capable of utilizing a special 21-gun mount (yes, that's 21 separate barrels that can be group fired, sequentially fired, and even have a small amount of independent aim capability for better area saturation, though they are an indirect fire mounting when used, which is really the best role for a D.Bison anyhow) that mounts primarily on the 'hump' around the shoulders and upper back, and why the hell they had direct fire 'rifles' as a primary weapon for a D.Bison when that would massively reduce its effective fire power, not to mention the shape and design of the Zoid makes it nearly impossible for it to even remotely realistically utilize them against near targets instead just further proves my point that despite the title and setting it isn't a Zoids game. It also has a pair of hard points on the side of the head that can be used for twinned 8-rack missile launchers (and is the default armament mounted there, though there are other options, and those launchers get multiple shots per rack and can be ripple fired, cluster fired, or just individually fired) and a minor hard point on the lower back that can essentially be used as a 'tail' gun when fleeing pursuers (and packs enough of a punch to be a serious threat to small Zoids as well as a useful deterrent for even a Shield Liger, though it is doubtful the chase would last long enough to knock down the shield if it isn't already weakened). And don't forget that the D.Bison has the single nastiest melee attack for any Zoid of its size range, actually capable of tearing through unblemished armor on many of the heavily armored Zoids in a single attack (though being that close is a very bad idea for a D.Bison normally), and more than capable of effectively one hitting most Zoids around its size or smaller, which is why Command Wolves never go after one solo unless it is already damaged and its mobility is hindered (that tail gun is an appreciable threat to a Command Wolf, if the shots hit), or they are kitted out for long-range direct fire (Command Wolves are equally suited for close-in high speed harassment or long range direct fire, they even have a couple of sniper rifle options). Instead of trying to incorporate all of that the SRPG that was Zoids Assault had you utilize the Zoids as if they were over-sized single weapon tanks. The story might have been very well set within one part of the Zoids setting (there are a LOT of sub-parts and spin-offs to that setting, almost as bad as Gundam actually), the gameplay has absolutely nothing to do with what makes Zoids, Zoids. If you want to count it as one of the exclusives go right ahead (which arguably brings the 360 up to 9 exclusive quality JRPGs in this post), but it is by no means a quality game, even if it did get the production budget of a AA title. Honestly, if they just put it in a different setting, without the Zoids, and had you utilizing some sort of quadrupedal tank (think Tachikoma from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, or really the 'big brother' to the Tachikoma you get to see in one episode) I'd actually love the game, as it does an excellent job on every other aspect, it's just the crappy use of the Zoids setting that turns me off of it.

Hmmmm.....I think of "more" dating being a good thing if it means going on more than one date with someone whom you intend to form a long-term relationship with, or going out with someone you are in a long-term relationship with (including after marrying them). Just going on a bunch of standalone dates is fairly meaningless to me. Also, I have nothing against someone who marries their high school sweetheart. In fact, if they manage to make a go of it I'm more jealous of the relationship they have than anything else. My problem is finding anyone worth attempting to date. I encounter maybe one gal like that about every 5 or 6 years, and usually glance down to notice she's already engaged or married. And online dating isn't worth the time or money for me. I'm far more useful as a means of finding bots, scammers, and those trying to cheat on their current significant other than anything else. Actually, if I could sell my services for doing that to the dating services I could probably make a fairly good living for a few years, that's just how rare I encounter a gal actually legitimately looking for someone on them.

@GearSG
Too each their own, though I do understand you regarding the multi-player. If I had someone to play with the loss of it would seriously matter to me as well (especially since the game would greatly benefit form mutli-player with how things have been changed, spell casting is far more action oriented in the remake than the original). Still, at least you are getting to enjoy the originally legally, instead of having to play a fan-translate ROM image on a SNES emulator or import a Japanese SNES and the game cartridge, like the west was restricted to for over 20 years.

@Razmoudah

Well, that is their official line, and it does make sense, whether PS+ is a necessity though is probably a different story. When it launched in 2010 it was in the midst of whole "It's $599"-shellshock-aftermath so to speak. Sony also failed to provide an adquate service, in my view, even to this day - at least compared to Xbox Live.

The PS4 and X1 were in part outdated when they launchend. Like 4K was not something, no one saw coming, esp. not Sony, which still makes TV, well Sony Corp. did at least. The CPUs were also woefully underpowered even at launch and remain a bottleneck to this day.

I do think developers care about that, sure the capabilities are important, but they also care very much about their experiences and tools continuing to remain relevant. They are after all heavily invested in those skills and tools.

So a mid-gen upgrade, that creates fresh revenue, keeps the system relevant and does not bother developers too much, because it's basically the same architecture, just beefier makes sense.

PSVR was most likely supposed to drive PS4Pro sales as well for sure. Just as PS4Pro was meant to drive 4K TV set sales

I think there are so many considerations that go into this: You already pointed out that Sony tends to sell their systems at a loss initially, unlike Nintendo aims to do. Microsoft is as you stated very much correctly a whole different beast. They could sell an entire generation at a loss, and as far as their bottom line goes, it would hardly make a dent. They are giant company (going by market capitalization), Sony is ... just a mid-tier Entertainment company. As things stand Azure revenue can easily offset anything the Xbox division i doing - or failing to do ^^

Generally, there is an incentive to ride console generations for as long as possible, but yeah, I do think, if one factor is probably most decisive, it's saturation and with that: attach rate. As long as your attach rate is consistently good, you could probably due with sales dropping severely. Rarely are these two factors independent of each other though, for many reasons.

The technology for a "proper" upgrade over the base consoles is available and has been for years. Adressing the CPU and memory bottlenecks were not really technological decisions, but economic ones. Sony was not going to have that "It's $599"- moment again after all.

I would not recommend a 4K TV to anyone btw, on the merit of 4K. It's barely a merit at all. If you look at diagonals and adquate view distance on an average 4K set, you will find that in practive, that the actual different to a small 1080p TV is not that pronounced even on native 4K content. It's more viable for games than movies, but in general, it is a loosing proposition.

That said, there are huge gains to be had from 4K sets, like live changing ones. I absolutely adore my OLED TV. I was running Pansonic Plasmas for a while (Panasonics Kuro was conidered THE state of the art set in terms of blackpoint performance for years) and even that felt like magic to me initially. But compared to my LG OLED, my trusty old Pana has only one benefit and that is motion resolution. For everything else, he gets utterly crushed by OLED.

I'll put it this way, once you have seen true black, actual true black, and the resulting STATIC contrast, you will not want to go back. One you pair that with some really good HDR content and let the TV flex it's muscle, you cannot go back. It's like going from (1080p) to 480p, just much, much worse. Standart Dynamic Range gaming feels like gaming with sunglasses in a dark room. Everything is just super dark, dull and lifeless - worst of all the image suddenly appears so flat, that you wonder what "3D" actually meant all those years.

I'm glad LG is finally doing a 48" TV for their new line. This will make the jump to OLED HDR that much more affordable for many people, plus actually possible to realize, since not everyone can go for 55" or even 65".

As for Sega, well, I'm not sure we are disagreeing there. They did not retire the Saturn out of Spite. They were in financial straits, the system was from their view not competitive and though they pushed for a hail mary. Whether the Dreamcase came to soon, or the Saturn was retired to early is kinda the same thing, is it not? Just a matter of perspective.

So you are still playing FFXIV? That is interesting, just today I was once again thinking of picking that game up. I am really hearing greating things about the latest addon and like I already laid out, I am a huge fan of Yasumi Matsuno's work, so I am more than curious to see his work on Shadowbringer and the previous addon as well. I've had sworn myself to never bother with an MMORPG ever again, and I managed to stick with for many years now, but alas, that part about FFXIV has me tingly

Care to share your view? How good is the content, esp. story wise? Worth getting into 14 for those scenarios? I'm a pretty veteran MMORPG player from the haydays of the beta for Dark Age of Camelot, so I do get the gist of the MMO trappings, thus asking specifically for that story content! ^^

The thing that bothers me about Neptunia, and all those, let's say, non-AAA jRPGs is not really so much the tone, in terms of lightheartedness. While I already admitted to having a weak point for darker, more mature (dangerous term to use) and just more somberly built games, I am not opposed to lighthearted content.

Hell, no one would really call Persona 4 dark, mature and somber

What really bothers me about Neptunia is the lack of ambition and an identity. If you strip Persona of it's style, like the amazing art direction for Persona/Demons, the visual theme, the gorgeous menus and scene transitions, the music by Shoji Meguro, the strong characterization and writing in that regard (though not all dialogues are gold of course), you are left with a pretty mediocre run of the mill jRPG.

If you further strip out the deeper themes of the series, rooted in different primarly philisophical conceps and others, like the very prominently featured Jungian into which Persona 3 and 5 in particular really lean deeepp into for a mere videogame, then all you have left is a mechnical stale if competent shell of a game.

IF you then fill that void with fanservice and really all-that-is-wrong-with-anime-cliches, like promiscous loli characters at worst ^^, then you get to that kind of content we're talking about.

Now, not all games go that far, some are actually not at all interest in fan service and shota characters or whatever, like YS for example. Still, even though I like YS, I can hardly deny, that the game is pretty much a one trick pony, and without the combat, I would not care for it. I'm not a sucker for the music, I would never buy an art book for it, and I'll wouldn't play an Etrian Odyssey spin-off featuring any of it's cast.

There is just no comparing even the character design from purely a visual standpoint between these series. I never got the appeal of all these series. I remember trying Conception once, and Magna Carta (which was actually a rather "somber" game), which both lacked any sense of consistent style or cohesive theme. The games were just cheap.

Ar Tonelico I have never tried as far as I can recall, neither did I ever play an Atelier game. I've seen reviews though and uncut gameplay. It's not like I don't care about anything outside of mainstream games. Hell, my favourite jRPGs are hardly mainstream, who besides me and 10 other people on the planet has actually played, enjoyed and finished Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, Contact, Knights in the Knightmare and Yggdra Union - hell, most people haven't even played Resonance of Fate or Vagrant Story, despite their very-much-AAA-production-values at the time.

The thing is, like take Knights in the Nightmare: The game is incredible, like truly. I LOVE the Art Direction. Somewhere I still have that Artbook that came with the preorder or whatever, had to get it second hand but toally worth it. We are talking a Nintendo DS game (later ported to Vita) here. Really, one - if not the most dense and complex and multi-layered RPG I've ever played, but just so strong in terms of atmosphere and art direction, that it was blast to really engage with it.

I tried the 1st Neptunia on PS3 on a whime and ... well, just no. It's a bunch of cute anime girls. I could hardly tell them apart, their is no distinct visual language to them, that speaks to their personality, not that I could tell, the colors for the game are all over the place. Combat was interesting, even had some visual flair given that is was fully 3D.

It was not bad or horrible or anything. The thought I always have playing any of these titles is that I could be playing something similar, but very much better. I actually kinda feel like Disgaea is cool, like I do like sRPGs. But it's just a bit too whacky for my taste, and definitely to grindy. I came to sRPGs with Fire Emblem, which - hard to believe these days- prided itself on strategic aspects, like very limited ressources incl. experience. The fact that grind was flat-out impossible, was pretty appealing to me. Hence, I am not all that excited about grinding INSIDE one of my weapons for hours on end, like inside ... omg, so much grind

I mean, Ogre Tactics, once again, has all this political intirgue, you have decisions to make, that affect the story outcome quite drastically, you get the amazing art direction by Akihiko Yoshida (although I freely admit, that it clashes with the battle map art quite hard) .. I just rather play THAT It's harsh, but just how I feel and have felt for a very long time.

Funny you bring up the Trials collection. It's one of the very, very, very few reasons I still have my PS3 around. I do like Symphonia. It's my favourite. Might be because it was my first, played it on the Gamecube (also did some grinding there ^^), and having that on an HD system was and still is cool. Still, I had already played it to the fullest (I actually started over, when I realized I missed requirement for one of the ultimate weapons on some sidepath rather early on in the game - I have only vague memories here, but I remember being pretty annoyed with the game there for a while), hence I never really played deep in to the PS3 version. I just like to have it around in case I get an itch.

I would never call the Xilia games shuffleware. I have no strong feelings about either game. I played both for a bit, but they simply did not stand out ot me personally. I can't say I really felt they did anything that Symphonia had not also delivered on after a fashion. Honestly, I think I tried almost all Tales and that feeling has been 100% consistent. 10 hours or so in, I loose all interest, because I feel that I played this already, just ... better, not every game in every aspect (again Graces in terms of combat stood out to me a bit).

Ultimatley though, not even Symphonia grabbed me as hard as Eternal Sonata. I really liked the Light/Dark mechanic, the whole a-world-drenched-in-music theme was pretty unique and at least in part well executed, the music of course, made me fall in love with the works of Chopin, and from there many others classics, like Liszt and Stravinsky (so I kinda was exposed to the original inspiration, before I got to engage with One-Winged Angle, which is probably a rare occurence ^^) and it actually made me cry a bit once or twice. In that regard, if you count Sonata as Tales games, I would definitely say i love that even more than Symphonia.

Its just a very special experience, like none I had since or before.

Haha, yeah, darn Lost Dimension, jesus! Never even got close to seeing that through, interesting setup though. But also like a posterchild for what I said above. It's pretty much Persona ... adjacent? ... just drained of all the artistic genius.

Many of the titles you listed, I know only by name and having seen some gameplay. I do think I checked up on all PS3 jRPGs, because I spend a fair amount of time actively looking for what people call "niche gems" or "cult classics" or "fan favourites", you know like the games I mentioned above, but at one point in time also: DEMON SOULS - folks are so quick to forget, or for an xbox example: Phantom Dust, which ... are the kind of games, you rarely meet people in real life that have even heard of them, basically you have to go the GameFAQ message board for that game, to talk about it

White Knight Chronicles was a thing that happend. Not gonna lie, it did not lack ambition for once. The execution however ... I only remember disappointment with that game. I was going in like "so cool, this is going to be like vision of escaflowne with me writing the sto..." ... did not quite live up to that expectation, which to be fair, it never claimed it would. Didn't have to be so clunky and ugly though It's if Level 5 decided to make an action-MMORPG, but realized, that it was really hard to do that, so they just kind of made an action-RPG that still kinda feels like an MMO, I guess? But then decided that they definitely DID want to do SOMETHING online and then they tacked a mode unto the game, what was online and .... I dunno, it's just a weird thing that happend.

The Legend of Heros games are pretty unique. Like, they have the same issue in many ways I alluded to above in terms of artistic appeal, but they kinda make up for it with the strong writing and I am really amazed and the scope of the franchise. I do not think that I know of any jRPG series that is doing something similar, like building this vast interconnected world over so many games, accross so many platforms and generations. It's baffling. I only scratched the surface of course, and I do think there are some issues, like decent combat, but little challenge, on top of the "meh" production values, but overall, it's definitely of the games, I'll happily consider worthwhile.

Personally, I would't even count Magna Carta 2 for the Xbox really. But to me, that misses the point. Like how am I going to compare Lost Odyssey and White Knight Chronicles for instance? Like ... I mean, how to I square these two games? Is there like a single element where the latter can even reasonibly compete? I guess, we could argue about combat, sure, things can be said for either one, but outside of that?

And no to be rude, but I think the same could be said for most of these games. Hell, I'm sorry, but I am gonna include even the Xilia games in that. I would take them over White Knight Chronicles any day, but compared to Lost Odyssey, they just lack ... everything. It's the difference between a seasoned craftsman creating a tried and true staple and something else entirely. By the sheer numbers, the PS3 blows the 360 out of the water. I will not argue that, and I don't think I have. But there is no amount of WKCs or games with a comparable ambition, that can make up for that, and WKCs was hardly the least ambitious PS3 jRPG.

It's subjective for sure, but 20 medicore to more or less low-effort-low-cost prodcutions can't replace one thoroughly great experience. I'm not objective here for sure, since I have a deep apprecation for about every aspect of LO: the music by Nobuo Uematsu, the dreams-writing by Kiyoshi Shigematsu (which like I said, to me, still stand as the single best piece of written text I have ever seen in any japanese Videogame ever, no matter the genre), the main character design by Takehiko Inoue, which I found out only later is a very famous mangaka, and whose series "Real" and "Vagabond" I really love and whose amazing Coverart for the LO OST I just adore to this day ... it's an amalgation of things. I have no idea who designed anyone in WKCs, maybe someone famous did, but I cannot really care, since playing it at the time, it did not stand out to me.

LO tried to elevate the genre, while also staying true to it's root. It had ambition and integrity. Most of the jRPGs you brougt up, at least those I can speak to at least in part, had integrity and I don't think much more.

I still think about LO, as one can tell. Until you brought it up, it has been a very long time since I thought about WKCs or even Xilia. I feel bad for being so dismissive. I really do, esp. since I wanted to love quite a few of these games. I bought a PS3 because I thought it was going to be next PS2. But having tried a fair number of the games, and done enough research into almost the entire rest of the PS3 jRPG library,

By the by, I think you forgot to mention "Folklore". I thought that game was pretty cool, in terms of setting, combat and just it's aesthetic. It was definitely not a run of the mill anime jRPG. Not an amazing game, but still something of stand out title for the PS3, among all those Ateliers, Neptunias and Fairy Fencers with their pretty anime teenagers swinging around swords

I have only played the demo for, I think, it was the 1st DQ Heroes games. Did not really strike me as something special, bascially the musou action version of DQ, no more no less? I'm not fond of the genre as such, I did kinda'ish like Hyrule Warriors and Warriors, cos I felt the had some more mechanical and strategic depths, esp. warrior with the triangle and all, and I am attached to many of the characters, but even that could not hold my interest for too long. Sometimes a button smasher like that is nice though.

I have high hopes for the new Persona one, looks like the most ambitious one yet!

I do not believe the Xbox ever had a chance in asia. Consumers do not really care about how Microsoft might or might not have interfered (and I am the first to critize MS for their flatout horrenouds handling or not only their own studiso but esp. outside partners). I'm as positive about that as I can be. Who even reads up on this stuff besides like nerds like us? The games were there, and the Xbox had a strong start, given the PS3's price tag, the fact that few japanse developers were eager or well prepared for the jump to HD (one reason why handhelds were so relevant to the japanese market for soooo long and now mobile, just one though), and yes, the PS3 was reportedly not easy to develop there. Still, point being, like I said, the games were there. It just did not make any difference. Japan is a unique market, that is hard for western companies to penetrate, esp. with products that are this deeply conected to the culture at hand, like videogames. You know, I'm kinda dismissive about the whole "anime"-thing in jRPGs, but I'll grant, that this is my euro-centric perspective speaking and that most of the jRPGs I really loved, where very much build for me, like LO and Vagrant Story, which have thes strong and obvious European medieval influences. But at the same time, amazing things can come out of that culture rift, like all these other games I love, like Persona, SMT in general, basically every Sting game ever made, Shadowhearts and so many more. Who knew that a niche jRPG studio would be able to capture the life of a polish 19th century piano composer with such gusto? No one, totally out of left field!

I had to google Cross Edge, but the cover image right away jugged my memory. I dunno, when ever I hear the name, my mind wanders to project X Zone for some reason

I do know OF Zoids Assault. That is all I can say about sadly. I never played it nor anything else connected with it. It looked really bad to me. Which does not deterr me at all, since Operation Darkness also looked ugly as f*** to me, but looking into a handful of reviews, I did not get the sense, that there was "much there" either. I don't remember which youtuber it was, but yeah, the fact that it had nothing at all to do with the Series as such, not being representative of it all, is something he was very clear about. But yeah, the concepts that could have been realized certainly sound interesting, but the actual game, as you descibred it all, sounds just as bad as I had gathered

As for dates, yeah, I guess, no disagreement from me. Therein lies the rub: finding that seed for a relationship worth bothering with. It's not just something that gets dropped in your lap and it can be pretty rough to even try to go after, to the point where anyone at least for a while wonders, if it's worth it at all. I still fundamentally feel it is, but it's not like it never occured to me, that I am just a hopeless romantic. Then again, I've been told, that this in itself can be an endearing trait. "Gals actually legitimately looking for someone" are not really a lucky occurence. If you want something to happen really badly, you morph yourself into something that you are actually not - I found that women do that just as guys. That inevitable leads to really serious problems down the road in my experience. Nietzsche was famously wrong in that regard (though there probably was never a human being less able to make sense of women than him): What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger ------ NOT!^^

@Ralek85
Huh, now there's an opinion I don't see very often. Most people feel that Sony has for the most part done better with the PS+ than Microsoft did with Xbox Live. Heck, I've even come across Microsoft fanboys (and maybe girls) that feel that way, both in person and online (thus the maybe to fangirls). I'd love to know what parts you feel Microsoft has done better at. Personally, because of how little I play my 360, I never saw much point to Xbox Live, and I had a PS3 long before a 360. I can say I've seen the PS+ service go through a few changes over the past decade (which is about how long I've had my PS3), and they've steadily made it better. The only 'flaw' most people talked about was not being able to change their ID on it, and as I've been using the same handle for online for nearly 20 years now I never had a problem with that myself, but for some people I can understand their point. For others, they are just trying to get away from the trouble they created for themselves, and I have no sympathy for them.

True, the tech was technically there for them to be better at launch, but not at a 'reasonable' price point. My laptop cost me around $3700, and if I'd had the second vid card it would've cost an additional $650 (I think that's what the price was, it could've been $850), but I was getting as close to a bleeding edge machine as it was possible to get in a custom build, without building it myself (I'll do that for a desktop, but laptops have a LOT more compatibility issues for components due to the very limited space in them), for the express hope of having it last this long. As the only two limitations that hinder it to this day (and it runs Windows 7 Ultimate) are that the vid card is starting to get dated enough it doesn't have some of the backend support for some of the newer graphics algorithms (although those are mostly for 4K graphics, which the display can't handle anyhow, it actually has comparable Vid RAM though and would've had double the processing capacity and Vid RAM if I'd gone the dual vid card route) and the bottleneck with the HDD (which I suspect at times might be the HDD trying to fail on me, I can't decide if I should replace just the HDD drive, and add a second as there is an open bay for it, or just replace the laptop so I can have a better vid card setup, of course affording either option isn't exactly easy). And really, that's the point about the tech not being cost effective. Hell, aside from the HDD bottleneck I'm looking at dropping over $3000 just to get something that IS an upgrade, instead of a 10% or less improvement in most specs in a smaller, sleeker package (and I like the size of my current laptop just fine, I don't want a smaller, sleeker one, especially as I like having a true number pad beside the keyboard, although the extra RAM would be nice, my current one can be upgraded to effectively be equal to all but the absolute highest performance replacements I can get custom built today) which is what everything up to around a $2500 price point is. Yeah, if cost wasn't an issue they could launch something that would blow the PS4Pro so out of the water you'd wonder how it ever managed to compete, but who is going to buy a console that costs in the neighborhood of $3000? Oh, and these are all USD prices, I'll let you go about converting them if you feel it is needed. Now, if it was possible to get a degree of performance comparable to what my laptop currently is for something in the neighborhood of a $500-$700 price point we'd see a new console right now. Also, the current console generation is damn near the first time since before the advent of the microchip where the degree of performance relative to cost has increased so little over the course of 7 years. There was a similar lull in the mid-90's, but that one only lasted for about 5 years, and is part of what lead to the PS-X having the longer life it enjoyed. It is also part of what hurt Sega with dropping the Saturn so quickly for going to the Dreamcast, the Saturn was before the breakthrough that ended the lull and the Dreamcast was after it, and it was one of those breakthroughs that quickly came down in its own cost. The PS3 was made utilizing a similar breakthrough, although other production methods were ultimately cheaper it took them a couple of years to catch up in terms of precision and consistency, and almost required the methods of the breakthrough that made the PS3 possible to improve them. In fact, it is this current lull in the performance of computer hardware that is the reason why the Switch is such a powerful, and competitive, system despite its low cost and small size (the only notable improvement over the past half decade is in heat generation and management, which has improved dramatically, just look at the Switch).

So long as my current Sylvania TV keeps working I have absolutely no interest in replacing my nice 32" TV, especially as it is one of the few TVs I've seen with an 'Auto Volume Leveling' feature (well, I haven't looked much the last few years, but for quite a while it was the only one), which makes watching DVDs, Blu-Rays, and streaming video a lot more tolerable (well, not that most animes have bad volume balancing, except for Netflix originals, but Hollywood is horrid about it and has been for many, many years now). I turn the feature off for gaming, and nearly all games are much, much better about the volume balance (and you can usually tweak it yourself in nearly everything since the 16-bit era anyhow). Yeah, when the day comes that I do have to replace my TV I will probably get one that is 4K compatible, but that will be as much because nearly everything in the 32" or larger range will be as anything else.

We mostly agree regarding Sega, but there was a gap, of nearly a year, between when they stopped supporting the Saturn and the launch of the Dreamcast, which is the main thing that hurt them, instead of letting them co-exist. In addition, a lot of analysts agreed later that the Saturn, though a somewhat poor representative for a Sega console of its time, would've most likely started to pick up notably in just another year or two. One of the biggest reasons Sega dropped it is because it wasn't as well designed for doing 3D graphics as either the PS-X or the N64, and it was unusual for Sega to not be pushing the bounds of what was possible harder than Nintendo, but in the end, although the 3D games did matter some there were a LOT of non-3D, or limited 3D (that the Saturn could've handled) titles that still did great, more than enough that even with multi-platform sales and releases the Saturn would've been a fully viable platform, and in most other respects it was actually a better console than the PS-X. Also, don't forget that for the most part the only consoles that do particularly well in their first year or so fall into two distinct categories. They either have some very heavy third party support, or they have backwards compatibility. If Sega had held off on retiring the Saturn until at least a few months after the Dreamcast launched, and the Dreamcast offered backwards compatibility with Saturn games, they might still be a contender in the platform side of things instead of just being a 3rd Party Developer now. Sadly, that pair of decisions don't need hindsight to see they were a bad call.

I play FFXIV sporadically. I don't have anyone to play with online, and sadly most MMORPGs really need a friend or three to group up with to get the full enjoyment out of playing them. I honestly haven't even completed the base release content in it, let alone gotten into any of the expansion content. I can say that they have done some interesting streamlining of the game systems. I'm somewhat mixed regarding some of the changes. When they grouped the classes by 'roles' and moved some of the abilities over to being unlocked based on your highest leveled class in that 'role', but are auto-shared between all classes in that role, it forced them to re-work a lot of abilities, as now you no longer had the passive bonus to 'upgrade' the ability at a later level than the ability was learned so now it starts in its full power state instead (they even did that with abilities that remained class distinctive instead of getting moved to the role), and this causes any class you switch to that is under level-30 to be overpowered. Well, at least with the Disciplines of War and Disciplines of Magic. Thankfully the Disciplines of the Hand and the Disciplines of the Land have mostly just had more abilities added in to reflect the higher level cap. Although they did tweak the success rates for Synthesis and Touch actions for Disciplines of the Hand, making it a LOT easier to craft HQ gear, in the latest expansion. I'm still very undecided about that change. Yes, needing fewer attempts, and being able to hit a 100% chance of making a HQ item with lower specced crafting gear is nice, but it also makes HQ items, and especially gear, rather common. Maybe if they'd added another quality tier, with slightly lower requirements for HQ but having higher requirements for the SQ (Supreme Quality?) than is currently needed for HQ it would feel like it was still properly balanced. As for the story-telling in it............I gladly choose it over FFXIII, and I actually rank FFXIII above I through III, while I rank XV below them. Actually, I rank FFXIV around 5th or 6th in the overall series for story, and considering that most of the games in the top 10 for FF sit in my top 30 of all JRPGs that I've played more than about 5-10 hours of for story it should give you a decent idea of how I rate it. I wouldn't go with more than a basic membership (restricted to just one char per world, and no more than eight total chars, I think) if you haven't played it before and are uncertain about it. In fact, if you've played Star Wars: The Old Republic, in terms of the base games story-telling anyhow, I'd rank it roughly equal. You had decisions that affected your Force Alignment in SW:TOR, though they didn't do more than minorly impact the story beyond some interesting dialog occuring, which you don't have in FFXIV, but the 'rails' in FFXIV are smoother, so the lack of dialog choices doesn't feel like you're being limited as much.

Actually, that's really the only reason to play SW:TOR, as the rest of game is either poorly balanced or has so much Copy&Paste done (thankfully just against itself) that if you've played one class you've played two. Wow, massive worlds to explore, lets spend 10+ minutes riding a speeder to get to a location that when solo will take maybe 30 minutes to do everything at so we can spend 10+ minutes riding a speeder heading back to report in just to do it again, for the next 4+ hours on that planet before you get to go to the next planet, which might be even bigger! Yes, it gets that bad. Oh, and although there is a 'fast travel' type option, it has something like a 1 hour cooldown unless you upgrade it, and you can only use it to go to a limited number of previously visited locations on the planet you are on, which might still leave you with a 5+ minute hike, or even a nearly 10 minute speeder ride, to get to where you need to be to turn in the quests. It doesn't seem like it early one, but the Prologue planets (SW:TORs version of a beginner area) are absolutely puny in comparison to every other world setting in the game. Hell, once you leave the Prologue planet and go to your faction's fleet's 'staging' area and can travel to your faction's capital world you get the option to enter a group area, and the starship you have to fight your way through is nearly half the total 'dungeon' size of the prologue planet you started on by itself, and areas only seem to get bigger as you push on. It has great story-telling in the base game and first expansion (aka, before Disney bought Lucas Arts and acquired the rights to all things Star Wars, the expansions after that have more noticeable rails than even FFXIV and the story-telling is much worse), especially as each class has its own unique story in the greater setting, but that is literally the only thing that was done well, unlike FFXIV where I manage to find the gameplay itself fun and engaging, and travel times are kept short enough to keep it from becoming dull and boring while still leaving most areas large enough for multiple players to be in at a time. Honestly, if I had an online friend to play either game with I'd probably argue with my boss about keeping me with a designated day 'off' every week, even if I'm on the road, just to play it with said friend. Then again, getting a weekly 34-hour reset keeps me with plenty of hours for running hard the rest of the week (within the Hours of Service rules in the US), and depending on the loads I've been running my boss doesn't normally mind me getting a weekly reset in anyhow (actually, aside from running reefer he has almost always gotten me either Saturday or Sunday as a 'reset' day, and once things finally start to pick-up post COVID-19 I'll be running motor oil loads again, so it might not even require an argument to get it).

Sorry about the rant there, but it is very difficult for me to keep from comparing the two against each other, doesn't help that both released in a relatively narrow time frame, and what one 'lacks' at the other excelled at originally. Although as far as base gameplay goes I actually prefer FFXI, and the story isn't bad in it either, but it almost requires having a second computer available for utilizing online references while playing as the in-game references for crafting, finding what you need for quests, and a handle full of other things leaves a LOT to be desired. As a final note though, I recommend either playing FFXIV on a PS4 or getting a game controller for your computer. Unlike FFXI the game is decently playable with just keyboard & mouse, but it plays a lot better 90% of the time with a game controller (now if SW:TOR could offer controller support, it would improve the gameplay a noticeable amount, but they just won't add it).

You think Persona 4 isn't somber? Where if you fail to defeat the boss of the next 'dungeon' by a set deadline someone literally turns up dead? Personally I think Persona 3 has a much more light-hearted story for most of the game. In fact, the point where Persona 3 starts to properly show its SMT roots is the point in Persona 4 where the team starts to get a clue as to just how bad the situation really is, and becomes even more driven to stop the villain (even if they won't find the real villain until shortly before the end). Then again, the week I first played Persona 3 is also the week I first played The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Talk about a cognitive dissonance there. A SMT title whose story 'felt' more like a Zelda title and a Zelda title whose story 'felt' more like a SMT title. At least in the beginnings. It's probably half the reason I'm so fond of Twilight Princess, and might be part of the reason I don't feel Persona 3 has such a somber story (not to say it isn't, just not nearly as much as I was used to for a SMT title at the time, and in some respects still has the least somber beginning of any SMT title, not that it didn't work very well for it).

Still, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree, although I think part of our disagreement has to do with the fact that I seem to identify much better with Japanese culture than you do, which makes some of the things you're complaining about much more tolerable to me. Also, I tend to mostly care about a well-told story, so long as it isn't the same story told in the same way (there are JPRGs that suffer from that problem a lot, which reminds me that some of the story path differences, relative to who your hero is, have been dropped in the Trials of Mana remake, to the point that heroes who are 'story relevant' to a particular scene and are not in your party make guest appearances just for that scene, which DID NOT happen in the original, I do feel like they've lost a little something with that change), though I don't mind similar stories so long as the experience of enjoying the story is different (different game system, characters with different personalities, even a setting that has distinct differences to it which affects how the story can be told is really all it takes for me to get a different experience out of the story, even if it is similar).

Now, I do have a special point to make regarding Neptunia. Yes, the first Neptunia was lacking in a LOT of ways, at first glance. You're partially missing the point though. It was actually a game that was mostly about making fun of the gaming industry, and they emphasized that aspect to the point that yes, a lot of other things fell by the wayside. They made a subtle, but distinct, change in direction with the second game, and improved upon most of the flaws of the first. Also, when they did the PS Vita remakes (yes, they are remakes, not ports) the first one got a massive overhaul, and now all of the characters have distinct personalities, even Neptunia despite her amnesia in the beginning, although they dropped most of how it made fun of the gaming industry in the process. In respects to what kind of game the original was I feel that Re:Birth 1 was a let down, but in respect to it being a solid game in its own right I feel that Re:Birth 1 was a massive improvement. Sadly, you are judging an entire series based on the impressions of quite literally the worst entry in the series, and I suspect without even really knowing what the 'goal' of the first entry was for that matter. Your responses do help me to get a better feel for what it is you 'like' and 'dislike' about certain games, and really what you're looking for are fully distinct experiences, with only the barest minimum of similarities between them. Unfortunately this means that the list of games you'd enjoy, especially with your secondary requirements, is very limited, although going by those standards then yes, the Xbox 360 got more exclusives and timed exclusives than the PS3, however most of the best ones from those exclusives became timed exclusives and ported to other platforms (although I will admit that a couple of them didn't get ported until the Switch, possibly because of the difficulty involved in reworking the game code so it would work on the PS3's architecture).

Ahhhh......that's the type of SRPG you prefer. PLAY VANGUARD BANDITS! It is available in the Playstation Store as a PS1 Classic for both PS3 and PSP (I haven't hit a PS1 Classic that is PSP compatible but not PS Vita compatible as well). Think a sort of blend of Fire Emblem and Vision of Escaflowne, but with multiple endings and the choices you make determine the path you take, the allies available to you, and the endings you can get. Even the strength of your bonds with your allies gives bonuses in combat, and factors into the endings. In fact, if you don't mind getting some PS1 and PS2 classics from the Playstation Store I can recommend a few games to you, as sadly that is when many of the best distinct experiences occurred. I also have quite a few to check on that I happen to still have physical copies of (thus the reason I have a launch model PS3, even if I did have to get a used one and replace the HDD in it with one with a decent amount of capacity), but many of the best JRPGs, both straight up JRPGs as well as JRPG hybrids, from the PS-X era that came state side are available that way. God, you could easily get a 1000+ hour nostalgia fueled gaming fest going from those titles, even if there are a few good ones that I know didn't get added (and a lot that I have physical copies of and never looked to see if they were added or not).

Tactics Ogre is a good series, sadly by the time I could afford to seriously try to go after them the series had nearly stopped coming state side. In fact, I think the last one to come over was the PSP remake of The Knights of Lodis, which was titled Let Us Cling Together. Didn't even notice until I was checking just now, but it was published in the states by Square Enix.

Hmmmm.......yeah, we definitely place a very different degree of importance on the visuals. I honestly don't have a problem with playing a new game that uses 16-bit sprite based graphics (like FFIV, V, and VI, or Chrono Trigger, or Earthbound (Mother 2 in Japan), or Secret of Mana, or Secret of Evermore, or The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past). So long as I don't have to puzzle out what I'm looking at (barring it being a puzzle of course) I'm happy with just about anything on the visuals, so long as it doesn't drop below 16bit sprite based graphics or 32-bit 3D graphics (although some of the later are a bit questionable). I care more about the story than just about anything else. Heck, every now and then I still try to play through Lunar: Dragon Song, despite its horribly broken gameplay that makes the game insanely challenging for all the wrong reasons at times, it has a very interesting story.

Did you play White Knight Chronicles I or II? It matters, a lot. As I said before, WKCII does include the story of WKCI, but with a completely revamped combat system. The differences are almost as extreme as trying to compare Kingdom Hearts (the original on PS2) with FFVIIR. At their most basic they follow the same core concept, and that's it. In fact, I'm fairly certain the reason WKCI is a part of WKCII is because of just how bad the gameplay in WKCI was, but without playing it the story of WKCII makes no sense at all. And that isn't all that was redone. Heck, imagine taking the original Kingdom Hearts, but use the game engine from FFVIIR for EVERYTHING. It is that drastic of an upgrade, and yes, I've tried starting to play the WKCII story without playing through WKCI first, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, bad idea. It is that reliant on WKCI for the story to make any sense at all. Heck, even the tutorial type areas are restricted to WKCI, just for learning the entirely new, and massively better, game engine. I never got it until II, and even then I only bought it because it mentioned it included I. After talking with the guys in the Gamestop I went and found some reviews for I online. And yeah, if anything you have understated just how bad the bad things about I were, and I can tell you from personal experience that even the worst parts of I are better with II's engine than even its best parts were, and even those parts got improved upon with everything being of a consistent quality now.

I can understand loving the music of LO, Nobuo Uematsu is one of the best video game composers to date. Personally, I feel he is almost on par with the greats like Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, and Chopin, and people like that don't come around very often. Then again, how many video game composers can say that they've had groups like the Boston Pops Orchestra actually put on shows featuring their music, and didn't have to bribe them into it first? Especially as he's actually had it happen multiple times now, there are a lot of 'respectable' modern composers who can't make that claim.

Honestly, I had a lot of trouble trying to get into the earlier Legend of Heroes games. Something about them just seemed to repel me, until around the time of Trails in the Sky, then suddenly they start clicking with me, and all of them since it I've loved. Not totally sure what the problem I have with the early ones is, especially as what I hated in one I would frequently love in another. The first three or four of them I found absolutely detestable, and each for a different reason. Honestly, to some extent I think they were actively trying out a lot of different things with them, before combining most of the best aspects of their experiments together into a single game and staying with that general design aspect for the remainder of the series. As I said before though, I really hope that Trails of Cold Steel IV is not heavily reliant on knowing what happened in the early titles, or I'll probably never manage to really get into it.

You clearly never got all that far into the story of Fairy Fencer F, especially Advent: Dark Forces. As you progress through the game you get the choice to force the story to take a darker and darker path, until it starts to compete with a SMT title in that regard. Hell, if you are so inclined it is entirely possible to awaken the Dark God first and enslave the world instead of saving it (and in Advent they actually add in a hidden third 'faction', who takes a darker direction and gives you the option to destroy the world instead). Yes, in many respects it isn't the equal of Lost Odyssey, but then again in most games I'm not looking exclusively for something that is the equal of Lost Odyssey, but something that is fun to play and does a good job of telling an entertaining story.

Regarding Folklore........I do believe I said I was only using games from my personal collection? That doesn't mean I was able to afford every game that caught my interest, or even after renting/playing a demo of I wanted. In addition a few years ago I had to send my PS3 in for repairs, and because I was unable to create a backup of the HDD I lost everything on it, including demos I'd downloaded, liked, and definitely wanted to get the full game of, and since I used the demo as a reminder that it was one I definitely wanted those titles never got added to my Games to Buy list. Oh, and after looking up the developer (to make sure it was a JRPG since I didn't recognize the name of the developer, and SCEA publishers for developers from nearly all regions) I found they did some other noteworthy titles, before closing their doors. Namely Genji: Dawn of the Samurai (PS2), Brave Story: New Traveler (PSP, a rather good JRPG by the way), Dragon Ball: Origins (1 & 2, on NDS, still the best Dragonball RPG I've ever encountered), and the Knights Contract you'd mentioned (though that is amongst my missed titles from the time I just didn't have the money to attempt to keep up, even with GameFly).

Hmmmmm............Yeah, DQH could be considered to be in that vein, to some extent. DQHII relies far more on varying up the inputs to utilize special attacks and/or spells (depending on the currently equipped weapon, and actually has the two main heroes able to change class, with equippable weapons determined by class, though they have fewer skills in each class than the other characters get total, but the stat boost skills do give permanent boosts, so ultimately they are able to become far more powerful). With having a better idea of what it is you like and dislike you might find DQHII an interesting diversion, but it definitely won't make it into your favorites list.

Also, after doing some looking around, even Eternal Sonata got 're-translated' for the PS3 version, to the point that the differences are considered pronounced, as well as the PS3 version also having quite a bit of additional content added (making it a kind of Director's Cut version, much like Star Ocean: The Last Hope).

I do agree that if Microsoft could've not interfered, even if they were helping to provide some of the financing to cover the risk, the 360 would've had a much better showing. Also, as far as those Asian markets go.......the Xbox 360 was actually doing slightly better than the PS3, until Sakaguchi cut ties with Microsoft. If anything your comment goes to show just how little you know about the Japanese culture and mentality. It still took a year or so for total PS3 sales to surpass total 360 sales, but that isn't hard when the rate of sales for one doubles in roughly 6 months while the others sharply and rapidly drains down to almost nothing in the same time frame, and the PS3's rate of sales actually continued to increase for a fair while before leveling out and then declining again. At least, that's how it was going in the Japanese market, I'm not sure regarding the others, though if things could've kept going well for it in Japan it would've managed to break into the others (which was ultimately Microsoft's strategy, and a good one to, if they could've executed it correctly, I seriously think a lifelong career politician could've done a better job). Of course, one of the other things that seriously hurt the 360 was the Red Ring of Death, as that 53.something% failure rate effectively meant that most people who bought an earlier model 360 had to buy two of them so they could keep playing their games while the first went in for repairs. Do you know what caused it? I'm not sure if Microsoft every properly owned up to it, but it was insufficient heat-transfer gel between the CPU and its cooling fins, leading to a critical overheat. This was something that was in the neighborhood of a $1 fix in the manufacturing process and it would've gone away, and they didn't care to attempt to fix it for several years, because "It's Microsoft, people will buy it." Oh, and that quote is from when Bill Gates learned of the problem, before launch, and when he wanted it investigated and fixed found out the hard way he was no longer the majority owner of his company. That's also why he 'retired'. And just one of the many reasons why I greatly dislike Microsoft.

Oh, and before you think that its a cultural barrier keeping Western companies out of Japan (it is, partially, but mainly in how they do business) don't forget that although small Japanese developers (and even big ones to, but especially the small ones) are developing games for smartphones and tablets like crazy the 'smartphone' mostly only exists as we know it today because of Apple. They worked to create the first smartphone, but it was the Japanese who had the hardware to make it a reality. Seriously, back in the early-mid 2000's the US was a year or two behind the Japanese when it came to cellphones. We were quite literally celebrating the wonderful and 'advanced' capabilities of our 'new' models that in reality were being replaced with a newer and better model in Japan. It's only after Apple created the iPhone, and started the smartphone craze, that we actually managed to catch up. Yeah, the iPhone doesn't do great in Japan, though they do have a better degree of market penetration than the Xbox series consoles have as a collective whole, but it is American companies at the firmware core of what makes the smartphone a big deal.

Errrr.....maybe because you could consider Cross Edge an early experiment for Project X Zone? Personally I think Cross Edge is the better one, although Project X Zone borrows the attack command system utilized in Super Robot Taisen: Endless Frontier. CE and SRT:EF are more traditional-ish RPGs, rather than SRPGs, although I dislike just how many chapters of bouncing through other places, meeting new 'allies' (more like people who are trapped in the same dimensional vortex and are willing to work with you to get home), and fighting off swarms of essentially the same goons without the story seeming to really go anywhere that was in PXZ. PXZ2 does a much better job with balancing the story out, unfortunately it is rather reliant on someone at least being familiar with PXZ to make much sense at the start.

Errrrr......Zoids Assault is and isn't a bad game. If you know nothing about Zoids in general it is a great SRPG, in a similar vein to Fire Emblem, although you are restricted to your squad of 5 for the entire game. As a straight forward SRPG, especially one that tells only a part of the tale of a greater war going on, it is easily a 9, and I can't recommend it enough. If you are a Zoids fan I can't warn you away heavily enough, as once you factor in how poorly the Zoids setting is utilized it drops down to a 4. By the way, those ratings are based on the Game Informer 10 point scale. It allows for quarter points, and you can basically think of anything below a 5 giving you a warning about just how bad it is. On a normal 'of 10' scale the Game Informer scale would actually be -10 to 10, in half points. So with that translation a 9 would be an 8, and a 4 would be a -1. And yes, that is just how bad that one aspect affects the game. There is a person who created a guide for it on GameFAQs, and you can tell from reading his guide that he knows little to nothing about Zoids. However, if you avoid areas that have potential spoilers and read what he has there you can tell it is a very solid game, that was very well developed and thought out, but it was put in the wrong setting. Although, after doing some digging I think I have an idea what happened. Back in 2006 Tomy and Takara merged, Tomy was the original creator of Zoids and had the rights to it, thus the new company, Takara-Tomy, still had the rights. I bet that they were very Takara-centric and when they developed Zoids Assault they wanted something in the hugely popular Zoids setting, but forgot to look at the setting details and just screwed things up in the end.

If it wasn't for the fact that I only seem to appeal to the gals that are most definitely not interested in a long-term, let alone life-long, relationship (makes it harder for them to get lots of 'victims'), while seeming to repel the rest by merely existing (seriously, I don't even need to talk to them for them to be very emphatically not interested), I might agree that it is worth trying to find for myself. As it is, life has beat on me to the point that I quite literally wouldn't trust I'd found it, even if it bit me in the ass, unless she spent literal years just 'being friends' for the sole purpose of building up enough trust that after the trust loss of her claiming to be interested I wouldn't kick her out of my life just out of hand. And even then it would definitely hurt the friendship that had been built up and it might just take years to rebuild it (and yes, I'm one of those who feels that if you can't view the person you're in a romantic relationship with as a friend you're doing it wrong). Actually, if you're a Saiyan what doesn't kill you always makes you stronger (the reason Vegeta kills Napa, just to keep him from potentially becoming stronger than Vegeta).

@Razmoudah Well, I would argue objectively: no. First off, PSN Hack! - nuff said basically. But no, that aside, just earlier this month, I tried to play Nioh 2 with 2 friends. No dice on PSN before midnight, at least one of us would definitely drop out of the game and/or PSN party chat randomly. We moved to playing AFTER midnight - it was the only option. No such issues on Xlive, during all those weeks. Things got better last week, but early April, it was broken for us. We are living in the same city and are running 100mbit at the low end and 1Gigabit at the top end as far as connections go ...

It's only the tip of the iceberg though. PSN limits what you can do, e. g. in terms of automatic save-game backups, when your account is not "primary". Xbox does not give a **** about that, or if you even have Gold. It just automatically backs your stuff up, and shares it - no problem - between X360 and X1 and I assume Series X.

To be frank though, I never had anyone argue in good faith, that PSN is better, hell, this clearly extend to the PS OS a well. I love my PS4 for it's games, not for it's super ***** Operating System and "okay"-Network. Anyone who says different: Does not use Xbox, has had really bad luck or is just flat-out lying.

I was installing Last Hope the other day. What do I do to install it? Randomly deletin other stuff, I no longer need, until it downloads. Xbox tells you, that the game is too big, how much space you need, it takes you too a menu, where you can pick stuff and "fill the bar" of storage you need. It even recommends stuff, that takes up a lot of space and is rarely used. It shows you DLC/Addons that are orphaned, due to the "main" application no longer being installed. It let's you remove 4K assests to save space from certain games.

The list just goes on and on. The one thing I really like about PS4 here: SHARE PLAY. RIght off the top of my head, that is the only thing, that I think is really unique and/or works better on PS4. PS4 caught up in some areas, like voice chat does not longer make you sound like voice acting extra for a 90s slasher movie, like it used to, but it's still not better than Xlive.

Laptops are tricky. I am at this point myself, I have a pretty new Dell XPS, but it only has "1060" in it. Back then, I figured that was enough for the stuff I play on Laptop, really only Steam indie games, stuff like Slay the Spire an such. It works okay to that end. My Desktop is 10+ years old, and I have no bothered to update it. It's basically my Datacenter, and that is it. Unfortunately, my mainboard, I pressume, the BIOS chip, is dying. On top of that, I've been fooling around with Machine-Learing stuff for Videoupscaling recently. I really like some of the results, scaling up older anime/cartoon favourites that never went beyond DVD quality (or really poor multipleDVDonOneBluRay releases). The results can be pretty amazing actually. Unfortunately, I can only run that on my laptop and the "1060" hits only the minimal requirement, with each frame taking about 6-8 seconds to render. If you multiplay that by 30p/24p depending on the content and that by 24 minutes per episode ... well, it takes more than a day to render out a single episode. A day where the device is basically occupied.

I am think of either replacing my Desktop, or ... buying an old 1080 ti and an eGPU enclosure. That would dramatically increase the speed of that all to a point where "re-rendering" entire seasons becomes kinda feasible as a long-term project. RIght now, it is just me fooling and experimenting with stuff. Interesting, but without actual usability.

Anyways you say, is pretty true. I do think so, that on the CPU side, there could have been rather signfiicant performance upgrades be done, without blowing the cost out of the water. Especially for PS4 Pro at the time. And yeah, if they had been okay with a $600 machine plus some loss per system, a lot more could have been done with the vanilla system as well. Tech was there, but not at the kind of price Sony was look for!

I barely watch any TV anymore, but the advertisements are always loud and often TOO loud. It is pretty obnoxious. I think many TVs do have similar features though, definitely most Audio-Video-Receivers. If you get a new TV, really make sure you get a "proper" HDR-capable one, not just one that is labeled like that. I can be done with $1000 upwards for a small current-gen device. Less, if it's a last-year device or smaller than 55". There are not many TVs that can deliver "proper" HDR (the kind of contrast that creates a life-like picture) under 55" though. I would personally never ever go back to LCD from OLED. Maybe MicroLED or something one day, but here and now, there is no beating that infinite static contrast radio. Infinite because OLED can provide 0 cd/m pixel, which makes the whole fraction shoot for infinite, no matter what the actual brightness is. The human eye sees in contrasts, which in a nutshell, is why OLED looks so stunning right out of the box. OLED also has the best pixel response time outside of legacy technology like CRT and Plasma.

As for Sega, I think it was just the fact, that they couldn't support it. At least that is my assumption. Pushing out the Dreamcast, preparing to support that, most likely took all their ressources (and them some ^^). I still think that they did not have much of a choice. The N64 and PSX were strong competitors. I remember getting a VHS Demo Reel from a toy store as a kid with stuff like Star Fox 64 footage on it among others. Boy ... oh boy was I blown away. I pestered my parents relentless into getting me one. I doubt I would have had any interest in a Saturn at that point no matter what they had running on it!

I agree about the BWCs there, as major thrid party support was most unlikey in that Saturn scenario at that point in history. Generally, that is a good point to keep in mid. I was thinking about this just yesterday:
So we talked about Final Fanasty XIII on the Xbox360, right? Were you aware, that all the XIII series is running on Xbox One? On XBX you almost get a native 4K picture and a very steady 30fps. That is not the clue here though, Microsoft did sometihng unprecedented. They took the pre-rendered Videos from the PS3 blu-ray version, reencoded them and patched them into the Backwardscompatible release for XIII. They upgraded the core assests of this game A DECADE after release. If anyone thought, that over at Microsoft noone cared about games, or that they simply do not listen ... well, SOMEONE very much seems to care, because that is not normally the stuff you see companies do for COMPLETELY FREE. It's basically a remaster, since they also scaled up the 2D UI elements.
ANyways, meanwhile I am playing Vagrant Story on my Vita and I wonder: Why can my PS4 not play even PSX games? Even PS3 only "plays" them, even if it could easily render them a much higher internal resolution and apply all kind of post-processing filtering to make it look sharper on a modern TV. I do not expect for PS4 to run Cell-Cpu-PS3 games, but PSX and PS2 games.... YES, I did expect them to run at native 1080p no problem. What does Sony do though? They release a couple of dozens of old PS2 games - and sell them to you again, with 00000 legacy support for old cusomters, while also leaving literally 1000s of classic games in the dust.

This baffles me to this day. Sony has one of the richest software libraries of any Platform Holder for anything ever. They just pretend it does not exist. Even Nintendo, NINTENDO!, puts more effort into services like these. How hard could it have been to bring an emulator like PCSX2 to the PS4 after some fashion. They engineers have access to everything .. stuff the rest of us needs to reverse-engineer. That is just such bull**** if you ask me. ANd it hurts my souls, becasue if Vagrant Story looked like a half-way modern game, and it's is COMPLETELY rendered in 3D, so everything can be up-rendered, even though obviously the texturs would still be shoddy, more people would be likely to bother with it even today. But oh well, Sony is doing so good with Ps4, they do not need to bother with anything that happened before.

I'll blow a casket if PS5, a system powerful enough to emulate multiple PS2 games at 4K at the same time, will not feature any kind of legacy features for PSX and PS2 (never mind PS3, I tihnk I established that I could not care any less for a systems library than I do for the PS3).

That's interesting about the changes in FFXIV. I read some stuff, and it seems that people are kind split. I'm not deep enough into it, to really make that much sense of it, or how it really affects particular classes and actual gameplay. As for TOR, I definitely played that, yeah. Good to know, that this is similar in structure. Storytelling, while not perfect given the unique constraints of an MMORPG, was still one of the games strongest suits. Still is, it's still running after all.

Personally, I really enjoyed the PvP in TOR. Like in principle, we had a very active guild in that regard, with some veteran players like myself and it was a good time. Unfortunately, outside of arena pvp the game had massive technical problems to the point of being unplayable. It had balancing problems with drastic what felt like weekly shifts. Arena PvP was brought down by a lack of variation in maps and some mods (like the one with that ball) that people never really clicked with and a bunch of other stuff. Mechanically though and in terms of class synergy (where you could actually use like taunts in PvP as well) it was pretty strong. Good teamplay was not only rewarded but enforced, and there were plenty of things to consider.

It's the only MMORPG where I had upwards of 30 active skills to manage, everyone absolutely necessary for PvP. It took me weeks to find the perfect keyboard/mouse setup to fit all of them within reach. I played Jedi Consular and outside of Rare instances where a Trooper could really go nuts with AoE, I always managed to come out top DPS, even though I was a skilled for single-target burst damage. It was a huge satisfying class for me, with a high skill ceiling and alot of variety (DoT-builds were viable as well, and of course you could also tank ^^). That was despite the fact, that smugglers one-on-one were considered OP for like ... my whole time with the game. My average burst averaged a tad lower I guess, but it was much more sustained.

But before I get completely sidetracked into reminsicing about TOR and how broken Ilum was at launch (a friend of my got banned for two days, because he headed straight for Ilum and farmed the planet right after launch, before ANYONE else was there ^^), I'll stop digressing ^^ What you say about the controller is a relief though. I was planning on picking it up for PS4 if anything, but I was scpetical about playing an MMO with a controller (again, my setup for, I think, in the end it were 35 active keymaps in TOR was insane, but "clicking" would not have been an option in PvP at least).

As for Persona 4, no, well, I think Persona 3 felt darker to me. I mean, you literally shoot yourself in the head, the color grading was much darker as well, with dark blue being the prevalent color theme. The atmosphere was definitely darker. The actual meat of the plot ... I dunno. Of course neither are Nocturne or SMTIV - or Persona 1/2.1/2.2 at that. It might just be nostalgia of sorts, but having played on P4 Golden, I remember a somewhat bright and colorful mood for the most part. Even the characters were more "peepy" for sure in my mind. P4 leaned more into that whole dating sim aspect than 3, I feel.

I think, if you are trying to pull of an interesting, heartfelt and, well, lacking a better term, "relateable" narrative, no matter how weird, you gotta create the right circumstances. I can relate to anime characters. Hell, Made In Abyss really shock me for instance, despite the aesthetic. BUT, that "despite" is crucial, because if you have some kawaii-characters telling a tale that could have also with fit well with GoT-like aesthetic, all other elements have to be on point. Like the animation, color grading, voice acting, music (shout out to Kevin Penkin who did the music on MiA), animation, sound design, and so on and so forth. There is no room for "solid" here, it has to perfect. In fact, I think MiA is one of the most disturbing stories I've seen, but also one with the most kawaii-designs I bothered with and still, it works very well, and inf act, having read the manga up to Volume 8 (I actually bought the books, not just scanlations ^^), I feel it is actaully better than the manga original. Shocking I know! ^^

There are not that many examples however of jRPGs doing that. We already talked about the prevalence of shoody voice acting for instance, but the list of course is longer, way longer. Persona is a good example of how to do traditional mechanics, full-on anime aesthetic and (mostly) serious, disturbing, fantastic and yet relateable story-telling. IT's not perfect, but Persona gets close, esp. 5 which really fixed some flaws from the prequels (like the pseudo-random dungeons, that were just not fun in the long-run).

I can't honestly say whether I realized at the time that Neptunia was supposed to be a parody (if I got that correctly). Parody is a difficult subject though, because just aping something is not parody, you have to exaggerate the effecto the point where it betrays itself for what it is in a very obvious way. Maybe Neptunia did not go far enough then? I don't know, but frankly, the issue might be, that PLENTY of games out there are extreme, peak-"anime" out there and are not meant as parody, not that I can tell at least. They might wink at you while playing, but it is never CLEAR that you are not supposed to take anything serious about them, within the trappings of their own chosen framework, like say all those games that relate to the "harem"-anime genre. Just really going with that, leaning into that deeply, has nothing to do with parody. If you cannot bring out what is inherently so-silly-it's-funny with the source material, then you are just imitating it after all.

That adds well into my point though, IF you want to pull such a tight-rope walk, particularly with a genre so steeped in it's own stereotypes and cliches going back decades, then I'D say perfection is really called for as far as execution goes. "Pretty good" might not really work. The genre is itself often so over-the-top-self-referrential that a single misstep at a crucial point will blur or eradicate any line between supposed commentary and flat out imitation.

I do like almost all SMT games, which are all kinda similar, so similarities are not per se a bad thing. Unless they become, well, too ... I dunno, unless they take on a life of their own, that's also why I refered to many of these games being self-referential. I often felt taht games like Tales had moments, let's say some joke was thrown into your face, and it wasn't really funny, cultural difference aside, but it was kind of setup and the whole scenario, that it referenced a very similar or identical scene in a previous game, that you might have actaully found amusing and charming at some point before. So, you might smile or you might not, but the actual "thing" presented to you, was not funny at all, and it is never clear to the player, or at least me, if that was intentional or not. It's hard to describe. Much of it feels like an ultra-deep level of fanservice and if I had to put up one term, I absolutely abhorre, it is "fanservice". Basically, if a game has it, I am troubled, if a game is actually focused on it, I am out. I do not like being pandered to by way of "we are referencing that thing you know and like" ... even though there is absolutely no point in it. American movies are doing this alot these days as well. Pointless name dropping and cameos and stuff. Marvel in particular has become so self-obsessed that it is sometimes sickening. JRPGs I feel are often very much self-obsessed in the same way.

I actually have Vanguard Bandits on my Vita (with a bunch of other similar PSX games). I have not yet came around to trying it, but with that endorsement, I will definitely make sure I will. I was intrigue enough to buy it of course, on the strength of that first impression, you prett much described already. Looking forward to actually dipping into it, maybe right after finishing up my run on vagrant story! Then I'm already atuned to PSX style visuals after all! ^^

Like I said above, I absolutely agree about these PSX games, I just wish that Sony would care enough to bring them to current and next-gen systems as well. I don't mind playing in my vita, but some of these games can really benefit from some modern tech as well to make them look at least decent on a modern TV. It's just such a waste. It's all the more true for the PS2 era, which was basically all 3D assests and thus scales even better. Again, such a shame on Sony's end.

I do not mind sprites in general, I think I might have mentioned that I looked at the original Seiken Densetsu 3, and I find it visually more charming than Trials to be honest. One of the android games I really enjoy is "wayward souls", really great game with spire visuals. Actually, some of the best sprite-work I've seen in a long time. Sea of Stars on Kickstarter also looks pretty amazing. It's really all about the details here, like I said above. You can do alot here, with subtle lighting, "baked shadows", quality animation.

Graphics matter alot to me, but it is NOT about photorealism at all. In fact, shooting for photorealism is the worst that could happen to games. People fail to realize that no one watches movies that are photorealsitic unless they are documentaries. People hate anything that even approaches photorealsitic movie aesthetic on any level. Be it going beyond 24p and the judder that comes with it, be it dropping the "Hollywood DoP" (which is why, that is my longstanding contention, so many "foreign" films have such a hard time finding a mainstream audience), doing the "proper" color-grading mowrk etc. ...

It's even worse for games. Hell, I would argue that Resident Evil Remake (for the 1st one) is still one of the best looking games ever made. It has some if not the best lighting I've yet seen. It's baked of course, but the way it is setup, is very strong from an artsitic and directorial standpoint. It's in a word: timeless.

And as far as the 360 goes in general, I also feel that Infinite Undiscovery is very much unrated. One of the last Triace proper games and just a very good strong entry into the genre. In fact, I would simply say that for all intends and purpose it the best "Ys" game out there, definitely the most polished one, with some really strong world building and unique ideas. It's also one of the best looking ones of the era, with oh so many particle effects in combat even back then. Thankfully, the games main issue, the frame rate tanking due to all those effects, has largely been fixed on the XBX. Not gonna lie, I am looking forward to playing that game again on Series X. That should iron out all the performance issues once and for all, and with added HDR, the colorful, bright, effects heavy presentation and combat, should look like a proper next-gen experience, esp. if the rumors are true and Series X is gonna render this at 4k natively. The Textures will still look iffy of course, but the rest ... very excited about seeing details, that I never could see before, all in silky smooth performance! ^^

Another one we missed, I think, last time, is operation Darkness. It's a bargin bin, "shuffleware" game of the worst kind when it comes to 3D graphics, boy it's ugly, and the camera is the worst, but outside of that, the game is really decent. Amazing 2D art even, strong voice acting (better than Infinite Undiscovery ^^), decent systems and crucial the sRPG with the coolest setting and premise in all of sRPG'dom. It's basically: Hellsing: The Videogame (I do love me some Hellsing). You are replaying all crucial european battles from WWII, but with several twists, among them Nazi-SS-Vampires and Scotish Werewolfs with bazookas blowing up Tiger Tanks. It's so cool, it makes up for all the visuals shortcomings! Sadly, the camera really still drags it down to just "decent" in my book. It is still one thing not at all: GENERIC, it is not generic. So yeah, in that regard, it is also, as you set, really 'dissimilar' to what else is out there.

I actually met Uematsu once after a concert in Leipzig. Seemed like a real down-to-earth dude, just like Miyamoto. But yeah, really like alot of his stuff, but there are several great composers when it comes to jRPGs (like I said, I really loved the music in Trials as well, very good stuff, best part of the game from the time I spend with it).

WEll, I do not necessarily disagree, like I said, there is a strong anime-genericness with Legend of Heroes as well. But I do appreciate just the scope and ambition of their narrative vision. Most other jRPGs that are similarly generic in many ways they handle everything from cute-nondescript-anime-girl-waifu-material to bland-version0.1-made-it-to-retail-menu design, never bother with that ambition. THey are content to be ... referencing their own past

I am not 100% sure about WKC, I only played a copy from a friend if I recall, for like an afternoon, maybe and some of his save file from later on, I think at least. Might very well have been WKC1!

About Fariy Fencer, so the trouble for me is that many of these games, as mentioned, feel and look very similar to me. I have a really hard time to distinguish between them. So, I could never tell what I particularly disliked between Xilia 1 and Xilia 2 for instance. But really, outside of some particular aspects, like the combat in one game or such, much of that series blurs together.

I can definitely say that i never played the enhanced verison, that much is certain. I only played on PS3, so it can't be. And no, I did not get far into it (assuming I am not mixing it up with something else entirely, which is possible ^^). Well, darker stories I do prefer, but the exection, not the idea, is still kinda the crucial aspect. Do think revisiting it on PS4 or Switch might be worth it? I mean, I am not gonna lie, I just checked it out and just looking purely at the promotional cover art, I am kinda turned off. It is either putting an emphasis on stuff, I do not really care for, or it is really not good promotional material.

That whole anime-girl-in-skimpy-shirt ... well, not really a draw for me. I do not mind, it's not a deal breaker. I always point to Puella Magi Madoka Magica here. Sure, judging it by it's cover, as they say, I should hate it. I did kinda love it, like most of Urobochi's controversial work. It subverted expections, which I always think has some merit, and really executed well on that theme within it's narrative (as the characters themselves have expectations that get severly subverted). It is dark, but with a particular, well defined edge to it. It is not just torture porn, even if one could mistake it for it.

I'm willing to reconsider my position on any thing, if I feel there is real merit in doing that. I too like to be just entertained by games, but that works best for me, if a game just really veers close to what I like. I do not necessarily knwo what exactly I want, I did not know at all that I wanted Death Stranding, but I do know what I like.

When I scroll through the releases of Compile Heart, I do not see anything I tried and really loved, not even Agarest, which was not bad to be fair. Zero I played a bit, I think, and yeah ... did not repel me ^^ Still, cheap and fan service'y are things that keep poping into my mind. Either one is kinda an issue, but the combo is really a problem.

About Folklore, sorry at that point in my textwall, I probably had forgotten that you had limited yourself to your collection! ^^ It was such an exhaustive list ...

Yeah, Eternal Sonata did for sure make it to PS3. I actually have both versions and that is pretty much the case all in all. Either version is great though. I do not specifically remember the added content in the PS3 version.... so I cannot speak to that. Game is fantastic though. Again, it had many jRPG staples and by all accounts should be considered A Tales of .. game, absolutely a spin-off, but it had such a unique tone to it, that I can only describe as: pure melancholia. The game was drenched in that. At it was really decidely not cheap. It was very lovingly crafted. It is clear that tri-crescendo had the deepest of respect for one of the finest artists ever, and wanted to do right by him.That might sound hyperbolic, and it was still "just" a jRPG, but still, I really always felt, that there was a honest attempt on the developers part to do whatever they could to make it a compelling piece of Chopins legacy. The fact that this really drew me in deep enough to care for his music, even read up his biography outside of the game, speaks to me volumes about their success. It just struck a chord me that way, unlike an tales games before or after. There was a human quality about it, that I deeply appreciate.

I think, it's an excellent case for going the extra mile and trying to make something unique within a very fixed and well-known framework. Because if you look at the moment to moment gameplay, there is little difference to your average Tales of ... experience really. The magic is in what lies beyond and the finer details. Like how your Weapons are Swords crafted like instruments or music notes at the grip. It is not just that, but it is also that.

You make it sound like the 360 sold well at any point. I dunno about it, I think more along the lines it sold less worse than the PS3. My deepest insights actually come from my aunt, who worked for a major Japanese company for most of her life and had to adapt to some particular cultural practices. I have little knowledge about Japanese culture beyond what you get from a massive consumption of their pop media, particular manga and anime, and games obviously. Based on what I know or was told anyways, I do not think I would appreciate living in that culture though. I am very much a contrarian by nature. When it came to debate club, there was never really any need to convince me to act the "advocatus diaboli". I prefer to disagree, as I find it yields stronger reactions and thus more truth. Compliance is often just a euphemism for "lack of thoroughness", at least, that is what I found at university. I'm not sure, that my tendency to rock the boat, would be a super great fit Anyways, I find the culture fascinating still and I am no stranger to their history or business practices though.

I definitely do not know nearily enough to judge what roll Sakaguchi played in terms of the 360's success in Japan. Like here in the west, to few people would have cared, to make an entire platform a failure. The red ring of death, I know him well, is definitely a factor, but given how succesful the 360 was despite that and how it affected the whole global supply, it's dubious how that played a major role.

I would think, that the PS3 launched at a time, when Japanese consumers were moving away from consoles for abit, so the situation was rough no matter how you looked at it. An US console was not ideally poised to win them back. Really, the home console market in Japan is declining, has been for a long time, and around 2006/7 it came back hard, but hardly due to Xbox OR PS3, but more du to the one-hit-wonder called Wii. Things changed late in the game more in favour of the PS3, but for a while there, within an otherwise declining market, the Wii really pushed the home console market in Japan to what seemed new heigths. We now know, taht this was unsustained though.

Apple has a different marketing strategy altogether though. I feel, they are pretty much culture agnostic in a way. Personal vanity is pretty much universal. And Apple is doing great in selling tech as personal vanity objects, best of all and crucial in some parts of Asia: universally accepted vanity

The culture thing does carry far yet I think. Just comparin the sales charts from Japan vs say UK, not even the US then, shows some easy to spot differences in preference. I think jRPGs are the best example though. jRPG historically speaking were like a "spin-off" a early western, particularly american RPG system. They were not a japanese invention at all. There as just little available over there and it took forever, so it kinda created .. entrepreneurs if you will, who saw demand - theirs and beyond. Now, if you look at the early years and really 1-1,5 decades, the differences are apparent in the emphasis that these games put versus the ones that the "originals" in the west did. That gap widended, but it was there pretty early on. I still sit up straight if I see a jRPG with even a basic character creator for instance. Individual expression is not a theme here. It's very much a theme in the west though, where some games used their character creation to market their games. Neither is exploration, any jRPG exploration is always more diversion than genuine mechanic.

In other words, pretty much everything associated with Xbox, was not really hitting japanese sensibilites at the time. I think most people saw that, esp. outside of the folks that you could consider hardcore or "early adopters". In a way, many of the games I dislike on PS3 might have been better jRPGs for Japan, than the games I celebrate on Xbox. Lost Odyssey was a FInal Fantasy'esque game, but you would be hard pressed to find a moment were you ride a chocobo to evade silly birds in a minigame That kind of weirdness was largely absent, and I think that was by design. Superficialy, it migt have been target at Japan, but under the hood, there were some other design ideas at play. If that was Microsoft "meddling", possible for sure, it worked out fine as far as I am concered at least either way.

I mean, this goes far beyond games doesn't it? Marvel and DC had some good times in Europe as well. I don't know if anyone in Japan ever bothered with a comic. Yeah yeah, someone did for sure and they do watch the movies, but really, how would the typical Marvel or even DC narrative speak to the average Japanese consumer. It is hardly 100% relateable for the continental European mindset, so ... the heroes in mangas and comics are not really of the same making for the most part, that much I can say with high confidence.

That's a big topic though. I would love to be wrong actually, but as far as cultural exports go, I feel Japan is mostly a rough terrain. Not for every company at all times, but as a rule of thumb, yeah. I do not know to what degree concepts of loyality for instance play into that. Is a Sony employee likely to get this kid an Xbox, no matter how much that kid might crave it?

I can only put it this way: If my Aunt had worked it Sony (it was a similar, but different company), and if she ever had gotten me an Xbox (she never did anything like - unfortunately), I think she would have never managed that at work, not even in a casual conversation. Hell, she barely ever left before her boss did- work or not (not that this is in and of itself a jap.-exclusive ^^). It was just unseemingly apparently.

I do gather though, that your success in mixing romance and friendship were of very limited success ultimately? The notion is beautiful and I want to say I am with you on that, but ... not really. Might be just my bad though, I have no real wisedom to offer here: "She is like my best friend..." sure who hasn't heard that before, right? Didn't really work for me. I think, it might be asking too much of one person to be. I say that as a romantic at heart. Also, I do think that it's good, on pratical level, or maybe even crucial, to have like social needs that other people fulfil. Naturally, that gives you your own space, which no one can do without, while not offending anyone. Wish I could say I figured that out, but I didn't and most "advice" by couples is usually .. well meant but kinda useless ^^

Also, sadly my days off are almost at an end, so any future correspondence might be somewhat delayed on my end and/or way less meandering (so I do have tendency there for sure ) and/or delivered in smaller parts. Just a heads up, but cruel daily life is about to reclaim my soul (and time) unfortunately

@Ralek85
I have a question for you, what large company, that has competitive rivalries, hasn't been hacked? Microsoft has. In fact, I've talked/chatted with more people who had to replace a credit card that they had 'saved' the information for with Microsoft because of the card information being stolen than any other individual company, but how often do you hear them admit to having been hacked? If Microsoft isn't getting hacked then that means that their employees are able to see your full card information, and can steal it whenever they want, and you still trust them? Also, Nintendo has been hacked as well.

As for the online connectivity problems you've had...........I do 99+% of my online gaming on my laptop, so I can't speak from personal experience. I can say that before the launch of the Xbox One Microsoft was borderline notorious in the States for such problems, but they were almost unheard of with Sony at that time. I'll admit that I haven't been paying any attention to how things sit in that portion of the arena since though.

I don't have any secondary accounts on any of my Sony consoles, in fact only my Switch has a secondary account, and that was to introduce Pokemon: Let's Go Pikachu and Pokemon Shield to a friend in a manner that she could have her own saves (her and I are only a match as friends, nothing more). I can say that I haven't tried setting up an Xbox Live account for my 360, as many years ago when I initially set it up to do anything more than a basic account REQUIRED credit card information, and I'm hard pressed to come up with companies I'd trust less with that information (nearly all of them are blatant fronts for criminal enterprises though). I also haven't tried to see if it is possible to do so differently since then, mostly to back up the saves for the few games that I need my 360 for, but I can say that the account level I have DOES NOT allow for cloud backups as recently as about 2 years ago (that was the last time I tried), at least without a 'full' Xbox Live account with saved credit card information (even if you haven't gone Gold).

Wait, you LIKE the OS on the 360? I have to fight with it to be able to delete a demo, or even the small portion of installed data for a game that I rented, as I didn't like it and won't need it anymore. I find the OS, as it is organized, on the 360 an absolute pain to work with, and difficult to do anything more than the most basic of the basics because nothing is where it would make sense to me for it to be. Then again, I've had that problem with a lot of other things that have menus organized to be more 'user friendly', especially heavily GUI based menus like MS Word shifted to somewhere around 2007-2010. Hell, I used to be able to do some rather fancy page layout designs in Word, now I have to figure out how to bring up the help just to find out to do a simple 'Select All' action as the 'Edit' menu is gone so I can't just go 'Alt', 'E', 'A' for 'Select All' when I'm typing like 99% of programs did before shifting to high GUI interfaces (especially 'touch friendly' versions), and it isn't under the Right Click options anymore either. Seriously, I'd almost need to take a class on how to use MS Word since that redesign, and before then the only thing I didn't do with ease was tie-in to a Power Point presentation with it (I've never used Power Point) that was being paired to a report I was typing up. I hardly, if ever, have that kind of problem with any Sony console (handheld or otherwise) I've ever used. Now, I won't argue that not finding out you can't install/download something until you try to do so and there isn't enough memory, and then having to check the required HDD size for the game so that when you go to the system storage you get enough freed up for it is a pain, and what you described with your Xbox series console does sound convenient, but that is the only advantage that isn't purely user preference that it appears to have. I have not had 'bad luck' with using my 360. The way its OS is designed and the way my mind organizes information has a very low compatibility index.

I'll admit to never being entirely happy with using the PSN Store on my PS Vita, but that's mostly because a game's page doesn't have direct links to any DLC for it there, unlike the other platforms (strangely, including PSP). Otherwise, I can't say as I've ever had a personal complaint about the PSN Store, or even utilizing the PSN features I do utilize on a semi-regular basis.

I'm a much bigger fan of Digital Storm than Dell, but I don't know if they ship to non-States locations (they can do higher quality custom builds with better specs for less than Dell does, even under the Alienware line, if you want a gaming laptop). My desktop is mostly being used as a 'data center' as well, and if I can get to the point of having the time to properly mess with it myself I'll be doing all of the hardware upgrades directly instead of buying a machine, it's cheaper and there are only two real points of compatibility to worry about. Those are which motherboard type your case is compatible with (the tower case my next desktop will be re-building into is of the best type in that regard) and what pin type the motherboard is compatible with so you get the correct processor version (and if you have the correct case, like I do, you can actually start with the processor, and then find the motherboard that supports it, has the number of expansion slots you want, and is compatible with your case, and if you have the right case type that is a VERY long list).

Personally, I think they should've been willing to either make the PS4 PRO a $600 dollar machine, or take a loss on it. Primarily because the only people who had the TV then to benefit from the 4K capabilities had the money to afford a $600 machine, and many (like myself) are still getting by with far less for their TV anyhow, which makes all of the benefits of the PS4 PRO meaningless (especially as the base PS4 can support using up to an 8TB external HDD, per USB port, and I'm just barely over half of my 4TB external HDD being used at present, and I've got the Resonance of Fate 4K/Ultra HD edition on it, along with the remastered Star Ocean: The Last Hope and Star Ocean: Till The End of Time).

The price range I'm looking at for replacing my current 32" TV, if I were to do so, is $700-$850, and preferably less. Not to mention, the 32" I'm currently using barely manages to fit decently into the spot I have it shoved into, anything bigger and I run into problems with just having the room for it. Thus one of the reasons I'm not looking into doing the 4K upgrade, and mostly couldn't care less about it so long as the games will still be playable at lower resolutions. Heck, if that last stops being true, and I'm not in a situation to make the jump to 4K practical, I'll probably stop getting new consoles and games altogether. That's the reason why I didn't have a PS3 until around 2011, I just didn't have the finances to make the jump from PS2 before then (especially with needing a new TV to make the jump). And then I almost forgot my main point. I don't watch 'live' broadcasts anymore, I haven't for several years now. I either watch something off-disc (DVD or Blu-Ray, I do have a PS3 and PS4, so both are valid options for me) or as streaming video, primarily the latter. Actually, it was because of driving truck that I made that switch, and since I only watch streaming video from services I subscribe to, partially for subscriber exclusive content and partially to avoid commercials, I don't have to deal with the commercials. Netflix still has problems with a lot of their stuff having poor audio-balance though. Also, one of the things I'm looking at doing when the time comes to replace my TV is get an AVR, mostly just so that I can have enough HDMI ports for all of my consoles plus some room for more down the road. Although, there were a few good commercials I remember, but they'd mostly gotten to be annoying by the time I stopped watching live TV.

Yeah, the Saturn did have a lack of 3rd party support, but then again Sega had always been a bit questionable in that department. The biggest thing that hurt the Saturn was the fact it just couldn't handle the 3D graphics everything was trying to shift to (even if it actually took until the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox for them to truly take off), but it wasn't actually doing that poorly overall, it just looked like it might not be able to strongly compete into the next few years. However, it turned out there was actually still a fairly strong interest in the non-3D games, and if Sega had just stuck it out for another year or two they could've definitely supported both, at least unless there is some info I'm lacking regarding them dropping the Saturn (and most of the rest of the world would be lacking that info as well), and they could've avoided running into the spiked wall of a pissed-off fanbase that wanted to hurt them back. Still, in the long run I think it may have actually been for the best that Sega dropped out of the console competition, as there are a lot of great games they've either developed, or helped get developed, that it is highly questionable would've happened if they hadn't shifted focus to just developing games. Really, in most respects they were usually somewhat better as a game developer than a console developer beforehand anyhow.

I was unaware of the Xbox One having any degree or type of backwards compatibility. In all honesty, I stopped paying any attention to what Microsoft was saying about it to build hype pre-launch after they revealed that it required an active internet connection to work and the game discs would have 'internal' ID keys and become locked to the first console to install and run the disc, preventing loaning a game to a friend and making game rental services (like Gamefly) unable to rent them out. I distinctly remember hearing that one of those features was 'removed', though I don't recall which one, but I had moved it to my 'consoles-to-ignore' list by that point, although that was partially because there weren't even rumors of it getting any exclusive JRPGs. I haven't seen a solid reason to reverse that decision since, although that's mostly because I held off on getting a 360 until they finally fixed the cause of the Red Ring of Death. Also, the Red Ring of Death didn't exactly hurt sales per se, but made the sales figures highly suspect as it was always somewhat uncertain just how many of those sales were from someone replacing a console that Red Ringed, and that 53.something% failure rate meant there were a LOT of such people, and some people just dropped it after a Red Ring incident as well, which just further muddied the waters regarding market penetration and popularity. I can say that the Japanese do have something against a poorly designed product that could easily have been made right in the first place. It is a HUGE cultural thing with them, and they were much less inclined to replace (or fix) a Red Ringed 360 than to just drop the console altogether. At least, up until Microsoft finally acknowledged the problem and started fixing it for free, then anyone who still had a Red Ringer got it fixed in a hurry. Those Japanese branch repair shops were flooded for nearly a year from that decision, and sales did a decent recovery as it was still getting many exclusives from Japanese developers. The Red Ring of Death hampered it in Japan, though once Microsoft started fixing that for free it was barely an issue. It was quite seriously when Sakaguchi very publicly cut ties that it truly faltered, and then ended up failing, in Japan. There were just enough people, who developed and played games across enough genres, who respected him enough to follow his lead to kill it there. Sort of like how if a major Hollywood celebrity takes a public disliking to something, unless it belongs to a really massive company, it tends to spiral into oblivion in the States. The difference here, is that instead of trying to be like Sakaguchi they trusted he had a sound reason for his dislike, and they eventually got proven right (even if it did take over 5 years).

Yeah, it would've been nice if the PS4 would've had some degree of backwards compatibility, but then again I still have a Gamecube, so keeping my PS3, instead of replacing it, wasn't that much of an issue for me. As far as the PS5's backwards compatibility goes..........I am VERY certain that it will support far more than just PS4. I've only seen the publicly released details regarding one aspect of the backwards compatibility system that has been copyrighted for the PS5, but that aspect was specifically for determining which compatibility method was needed. Did the software that was being read require a different base architecture? Then it gets diverted to a dedicated processor that is just for running that architecture. Does it utilize the same base architecture, but for a different command string length? Then it 'pads' the command strings so that they are the correct length (and differentiates between MULTIPLE different sets of 'too short' command string lengths as well) so that the commands work without needing any direct emulation (and adjusts the apparent clock speed so that it is run at the correct speed the software was designed to run on). There is literally only one reason for such a complex determination system, and that is if they are planning to offer backwards compatibility back to AT LEAST the PS2, and going by what I'd seen in the full document it sounds more like all of Sony's non-handhelds will be supported. As CDs, SA-CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Rays have a shelf life measured in centuries, rather than barely making a couple of decades like many older cartridges, and a Blu-Ray player can read all four of them without problems, it is certainly practical to resume full backwards compatibility for the entire console line. The real question though, is if it does have that degree of backwards compatibility for discs, will it also offer it for software bought from the Playstation Store, namely PS1 and PS2 Classics on the PS3/PSP/PS Vita? Of course, since the document I'd seen just specified software, and not the read source for said software, it does seem very probable.

The latest batch of changes to FFXIV that I'm familiar with really only have a pronounced impact on gameplay below level 30. Don't get me wrong, if you've level 50 for one of the Tank jobs (Paladin or Warrior), and then do the quest to either unlike the other base one or one of the expansion ones (Dark Knight and Gunbreaker), you'll actually have access to all of the Role Abilities (Rampart, Low Blow, Provoke, Interject, Reprisal, Arm's Length, and Shirk, learned at levels 8, 12, 15, 18, 22, 32, and 48 respectively). The Role Abilities replaced similar abilities that were learned by the jobs within the respective Roles, and some abilities, like Provoke, were only learned by one but were very useful for others. Provoke in particular was originally only learned by Gladiators, but it could be a huge help for a Marauder/Warrior to have it when in a party, then again in the base game to undertake the quest to become a Warrior you had to be a lvl 30 Marauder and a lvl 15 Gladiator. They dropped the secondary job requirements in the Stormblood expansion, which probably led to a glut of new players who didn't get certain 'shareable' abilities from other jobs that were borderline necessary that the veteran players had because of the reduced requirements to undergo the Class Quest. Thus, the Role Abilities have been rather helpful for newer players (or players like me who don't focus on playing it until they've mastered it, but play what they are in the mood for at that time, though I do dig just as deeply into the game system as those who focus on mastering games one at a time), and helped redress several balance issues that were popping up in the Party Only dungeons and quests (especially since those only become more prevalent at higher levels) with certain classes not performing as well as they should've been due to lacking certain 'critical' abilities.

Well, I'm fairly certain that Provoke was actually called something else back then, and sadly many abilities that got changed to Role Abilities lost the enhancing Trait that made them more useful (like blinding enemies, though only a Gladiator/Paladin got that bonus since it was from a Gladiator Trait), while others had said secondary bonus incorporated into the base ability so you always had the effect (which typically meant you had it 8 levels earlier than normal, and now all classes that share that role get the bonus). Also, ALL abilities that were made Role Abilities got renamed, and if you have a char from before the introduction of the Role Abilities that char will still have the old abilities on their hotbar(s), but they will be grayed out and unusable. Instead you have to find the 'new' ability under the Role Abilities portion of the Abilities window to set it again and be able to use it once more. Oh, and the two biggest reasons I recommend using a game controller for FFXIV are using abilities while moving (you said you played SW:TOR, I don't need to say more there) and because although you only get 8 hotbars, you effectively get 16 slots per hotbar, and you can also set how many hotbars you wanted shared across all jobs and how many get job specific settings. The game remembers what you had set to the job specific ones, so that when you change back to that job your hotbars are all good to go. Also, if you use a game controller it is a LOT easier to switch between non-adjacent hotbars, and honestly most abilities trigger a global cooldown that is long enough to switch hotbars if necessary when using a game controller. The Paladin for instance has 34 Abilities (including Role Abilities), although not all of them are useful at the higher levels. Well, the current Lodestone website labels those as the PvE abilities, but I don't recall the game having any dedicated PvP abilities, just some whose affects differ in PvP. Also, only the Heavensward expansion classes can have their initiation quest taken at level 50, the rest require level 60 (except Thief, which only requires level 10, and aside from not being a valid choice as a starting job is otherwise treated the exact same as them, but it's from the 'free' expansion they did before the official expansions, and is technically a part of the base game now). Also, the expansion classes introduced in Heavensward and after mostly start at a minimum of level 30 (Blue Mage, which is labeled a Limited Job follows special rules, and starts at level 1), although most of them get some very interesting special mechanics to them. Small warning though, FFXIV is very heavily focused on PvE for the vast majority of the game.

Actually, SW:TOR is still running mostly because Disney has been heavily expanding upon the large-scale PvP content. Nearly everyone complains about the post-Disney storytelling, and it doesn't help that you have to get through the good storytelling first, which only makes it that much more obvious just how badly Disney is doing at telling the story. However, the improvements they've been bringing in to the PvP have made it an MMORPGer's paradise, for those who love good PvP, or even just highly varied PvP. However, depending on how long it has been since you last played it there are some very pronounced changes. They've completely reworked the crafting blueprints, and somewhat changed around what materials are needed. Or more accurately, the basic materials that EVERYTHING under a specific crafting skill needed are now crafted into a generic material that ALL of the new 'final' blueprints use, and sometimes they use other 'refined' materials, thus allowing for far more materials for some of the really high level blueprints. Oh, and the new blueprints all start at a higher tier, so that there is only one more tier that can be unlocked via reverse-engineering an item. In addition, the stat boosts for the gear with level requirements in the teens are higher than what the original level 40 blueprints of equal rarity gave. Seriously, they basically made it that gear almost matters more than anything else, and the gear you can craft is insanely over-powered in comparison to the original launch of the base game. In some respects it is easier to get into the game now, but in some respects it is harder.

I know what you mean about Persona 3, but it was my impression of it at the time, and it does start off lighter in tone than the others (but still darker than most games, I was only comparing it to the typical SMT title), as you don't learn about the special way the Evokers are used until well past the relative point when the first dead body showed up in 4. Also, don't forget that I mentioned that was the same week I first played The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which seriously impacted the impression Persona 3 gave me. As for 4 seeming more dating sim like..........yeah, I can see what you're getting at, but it's still building off of the game system introduced in 3 and trying to get a slightly better degree of realism (without entering the Uncanny Valley) for better immersion into the setting. Also, Persona 4 Golden (which I do have as well, though I've mostly played the original) does give some of the characters a much more 'peppy' vibe, as you put it. It also has a few tweaks to some of the dialog and such to it. And don't forget that they also did a whole new opening FMV for it, that really pushes giving it a bright, cheery, and peppy vibe (the opening for the original was much darker). I don't know if it is available in your area, but if you can I recommend you try to find Persona 4: The Animation somewhere to watch (Amazon Prime has it available for streaming in the States, but I have the series on disc.). It was made before the release of Golden (there is a secondary series that focuses on the changes introduced in Golden, and it doesn't make ANY sense unless you have either played the entirety of either game or watched the entirety of the first series), and far more closely matches to the feel of the original than Golden does.

No, Neptunia wasn't meant to be a parody, but rather done more in the vein of a satire on the gaming industry as a whole, or at least the Japanese portion of it. To be a parody it would have to pick a specific game, or /maybe/ genre, though that would be iffy to pull off, to be poking fun at. Don't forget that Neptunia herself is one of the 4 CPUs (Console Patron Units) within the setting, and that she uses HDD (Hard Drive Divinity) to transform into Purple Heart. Also, the 4 CPUs equip several Processors to provide them with stat boosts when they use HDD (and in most of the games the different Processors even change their appearances). Heck, don't forget that the names of the 4 countries are Planeptune, Lastation, Lowee, and Leanbox, straight up jokes on the Personal Computer, Playstation, Wii, and Xbox. Hell, in the original the background images used for Lastation, Lowee, and Leanbox were more than a little reminiscent of the then current gen consoles in those lines. Also, the character designs of the other 3 CPUs were very heavily based on the marketing strategies being used for their respective consoles (PS3 towards the older teens, Wii as family friendly, and Xbox 360 towards a 'mature' audience), with their personalities partially blending into that. Heck, this even applies some to Nep-nep herself regarding the PC and how it is viewed. The thing is, the original was very weak on the story. Although what storytelling it had wasn't poorly done they took every opportunity they could to make another jab at the gaming industry (oh, and don't forget that the world itself is called Game Industry, as a big fat hint to most people as to what the true focus of the game was), even when it wasn't called for. If you want a satire on the Japanese game industry of the mid-2000's it is literally the best you'll find. If you want something that is a quality game in its own right.......you want the Re:Birth ports. Re:Birth uses almost the exact same gameplay mechanics as Victory, with only a few minor tweaks, and the setting itself is heavily modified to better fit with how it is in the later titles (only the original had them as floating continents) with the story being even more heavily modified to focus instead on telling a story that just happens to make fun of the game industry along the way (instead of a massive series of jokes about the game industry that if you do the right things in the right order might also tell a story, which is what the original did). In many respects Re:Birth 3: V Generation is the one that was changed the least, but there were refinements and improvements to the setting, characters, story, and game mechanics that came from remaking the first two. Enough so that for it to flow correctly it ended up more of a remake than a remaster, even though the first two were remade so that they'd fit together within the trilogy, and specifically with Victory, better. They still probably wouldn't be your stein of ale, but they aren't nearly as bad as you make them out to be. Oh, and don't forget to reinforce your 5th Wall if you ever do give it a try with Re:Birth. They forgot to include the 4th Wall with it.

I know exactly what you mean about those similarities starting to take on a life of their own. There are definitely some games that don't have an identity outside of just being similar to something else. And yeah, fanservice for the sake of fanservice is just annoying, unless I get to choose to have that fanservice (like having special fanservice type outfits for the female cast, I get to choose if the fanservice happens or not). And what do you mean American movies are doing it a lot 'these days', it started way back in the early-90's (maybe even the late-80's). The difference is that they've been getting more and more lax about the story-telling, to the point where at times it feels like the movie is more about the fanservice than the story, which starts to make it feel more like badly written soft-core porn in my opinion. I don't think I've mentioned yet that I'm not really a fan of Hollywood, but I'm saying it now. They're better at ruining a good story then telling an original one, and only seem to be getting worse every year.

I would highly recommend you play it after Vagrant Story. If I've got your tastes properly nailed down you might just be finding a new favorite SRPG with it, and it's only 20-odd years old. Just old enough for the affair to not get you in serious trouble, only minor trouble.

I mostly agree with you there, except that I don't really mind most of the PS2 grade visuals, but we've already established we have very different degrees of preference in that regard. Also, I pointed out above why I have reason to believe that that will at least partially be coming to an end (finally, I won't have to use a PS-X emulator to play Digimon World 3, as my PS3 does not like it).

Yeah, trying to achieve photorealism in a work of fiction is jumping straight into the Uncanny Valley, and for most people that turns something that could be really great into something too creepy (in a very bad way) to enjoy. I'm not hit as hard by the Uncanny Valley effect as most people (then again, my main fetish is non-human sapients, that causes a LOT more tolerance there), but even I've come across a couple of things I couldn't tolerate because of it.

Infinite Undiscovery is hugely underrated. Of course, half the problem is most people see the title and make a bunch of preconceptions that the game then turns around and disabuses, heavily. It is a game that to properly enjoy it you have to go into it without any preconceptions, and even then it isn't really for most people. It isn't quite a niche game, but it isn't really mainstream either.

I think Operation Darkness is one of the ones I heard off, but the description didn't really jump out as anything interesting and so I didn't pay it much attention. I'm not that much of a fan of games that are retelling war stories, unless they do something very unusual in the process. Then again, I don't remember any mention of Nazi-SS-vampires or Scottish Werewolves from when I heard about it before, so maybe I'm thinking of the wrong game and this one I just flat out missed completely (which is entirely possible).

I'm not saying there aren't several really great composers out there when it comes to the Japanese developers (and not just for JRPGs either), but none of them are on his level.

It's very easy to tell which one you played. Did the controls feel like they tried to mash three different concept directions together without any rhyme or reason why some aspects were included and others were excluded, or did the controls have a smooth, well-designed feel that felt like a lot of someones spent hundred of hours finding the best way to blend everything together? If the former, it was WKCI, if the later it was WKCII, and if your friend finished WKCI he is deserving of a medal, as the controls were so bad it was nearly unplayable and many people who pride themselves on beating challenging games actually gave up on it as being absolutely impossible to get through the final areas because of the problems.

Fairy Fencer F Advent: Dark Forces doesn't diverge all that heavily from the original for the first few hours, it's only when you get into the second chapter that you start to see the choices that allow for the new path. And really, it does start off somewhat similar to a lot of JRPGs, aside from the odd fairy mechanic. It's only the fact that unless the game repels me I am determined to get a minimum of 10 hours in before making a final call on it that I really saw enough of it to see it diverging off into its own path. Although, most of the generic complaints you have about a lot of JRPGs are present in it, so it still probably isn't for you, but it does build up to something more than you get at first glance.

Ah, the 'magical girl anime for adults'. Or, at least one of them. I find the ending to be rather bittersweet. I do like the fact that she found a means to break the cycle, but the fact that she's nearly forgotten by all of her friends across all timelines, and essentially becomes a force that protects the world from the calamity of the witches without ever getting to have her own happiness is rather sad.

When taking into account the age since launch, and the lack of a sizeable established fanbase, the 360 did actually do well, at first. If you go by general market penetration, especially at a time when new consoles in general weren't doing particularly well, it was doing mediocre at best. The thing is do you want to go by absolute metrics (which means that until around 2010 only the Wii and DS were doing worth crap in Japan for new international grade consoles), or relative metrics (which means that until Sakaguchi cut ties with Microsoft the 360 was forcing Nintendo to work for its lead, which it only had by managing to target a non-traditional audience). It makes a fairly notable difference, and more notably once the console market in Japan started to pick back up the PS3 got a definite spike across all of the Asian markets (and if the 360 hadn't been dead in the water it would've been able to ride that wave to break into the other Asian markets as well).

I definitely understand the desire to play 'devil's advocate' at times, especially with people who come across as having blind faith in something.

Apple's strategy is a very mixed bag. In manages to have a universal form of appeal, but it also has a degree of universal repulsion. For instance, Apple devices are primarily only compatible with Apple devices, without a notable amount of effort going into getting around the problems, and primarily only support Apple peripherals. Now, this isn't an inherent problem with me, so long as they are priced reasonably, especially for their quality. The thing is, Apple products tend to be over-priced, and only in the earlier days of someone trying to make a competing product do they tend to be of a high enough comparative quality to be worth the price. Oh, there are definitely things they do better, and for those who are in the right fields there is literally nothing better to have, but for the rest of us there are a lot of far more cost-effective options available.

True the JRPG came about from the Japanese building on something Americans did, but it is the JRPG that effectively created the console RPG market in the first place. Or, at least here in the States and Japan that's how it was. I mean, the only pre-PS-X console RPG I can name by a Western developer is Secret of Evermore, which was developed by Square USA and utilized the game engine from Secret of Mana. It was quite literally a game made to build on the success of Secret of Mana (questionable as to how well it did in that regard, although for an American RPG it actually has a very JRPG-esque story, and a better story than typically found in American RPGs of the time). Heck, the only Western RPGs I can think of for the PS-X were all ports of PC games, rather than ones developed specifically for console. It really took until the PS3 and Xbox 360 before it was really meaningful to say JRPG instead of RPG when it came to console RPGs in the states. Heck, Final Fantasy, way back on the NES was in the top 5 best selling games for the NES in the States for a while, and that's no small feat consider just how many consoles shipped with either Super Mario Bros. or Super Mario Bros. 3.

Oh, most of the games you dislike on PS3 were far better RPGs for Japan than some of what the 360 got, but many of them would've been multi-platform (as the 360 is what really got that going) if Microsoft hadn't been interfering with development. The big Japanese developers gave it a try because Microsoft was willing to help alleviate the burden of risk, and even a few small developers did as well, but a lot of the small developers were playing a waiting game to see how it went before jumping on board. The thing is, there were rumors of some of the small developers preparing to enter negotiations with Microsoft (and a couple of them were later confirmed to have entered negotiations, but hadn't signed yet) when Sakaguchi cut ties, and they took one look at that, and his reputation (not to mention just how well what he had made for Microsoft had done), and immediately backed off. Hell, if it had taken just another 6 months before Sakaguchi cut ties it probably would've seen several Japanese developers (including NIS, as they were one of the ones actively in negotiations) trapped in a contract the same as Square Enix was, with no way they could afford to back out. It was partially timing, and the only others who could've done what Sakaguchi did and had a similar impact are restricted to just Namco Bandai, Capcom, and Square Enix. No other developers in Japan had the degree of respect needed to cause that strong of a reaction at the time. Now, Sakaguchi has been a small fish for long enough that he wouldn't be able to cause such an effect, though the older companies, and those whose workers who have been in the industry for a good while, would still pay heed, they just wouldn't follow his lead.

Oh, the typical Marvel or DC narrative would flop so spectacularly you'd expect to find a crater under it.

Japan is a mixed bag to make a cultural export to, but fairly easy to make a cultural export from. A big part of the problem is that the Japanese are not the most tolerant of that which won't even attempt to respect their culture (even if it has some bad preconceptions). And before you try saying that a lot of the media they produce doesn't respect other cultures, do try to remember how said other cultures are viewed within Japan. They respect how they view it, and if informed they are doing it wrong make an effort to change. Unless you are willing to reciprocate, they view your culture as something that will try to destroy theirs and they resist it. If done right they can actually be the easiest culture to export to, but you have to understand certain aspects of their culture and being willing to work with it, otherwise they'll crush you with their indifference.

I said a friend, not a best friend. Unless she's a childhood friend, and you've been close since forever, that just isn't happening. But being a friend, and having some other friends apart from her, is important for making it work long term, especially if you're trying for 'till death' long term. Take a closer look at the couples you do know who have a stable relationship and definitely seem like the extreme long term is effectively a given. You'll see what I mean that if they aren't friends, though not best friends, it just won't last. There's a certain 'give and take' to being friends that when blended into a long-term relationship just makes it more stable, and you can't really get that blended in without being friends. Now, that doesn't mean you need to be friends at the start (in fact, it happens after becoming intimate about as often as before in most successful long term relationships), just that you can't reject it happening for the relationship to last.

Yeah, my secondary boss texted me this morning that next week I've got oil loads again (they're usually scheduled about a week in advance, so I'm not surprised about the degree of warning). Unless this is a Rock Springs, Wyoming run it means that our oil contract is going back into effect, and that translates into soon I'll hopefully be able to try for a raise, as hopefully the truck is about to be making about an extra $2000 or more a week than it was before the COVID-19 lockdowns. Well, this round of them anyhow. There are a lot of people who haven't been exposed yet, and if they aren't careful about how they try to get things moving again to control the flow of exposure it's just going to create another wave that will put the hospitals in danger of being overwhelmed, and another round of lockdowns.

@Razmoudah Well sure, there were plenty of hacks, but frankly not on that scale. Almost 80 million accounts were compromised and it took them a while to tell folks. Also, the entirety of the system was down for over three weeks. That time alone accounts for more offline time by several orders of magnitude than I experienced in using Xbox for the last 12 years or so. It's not something I would compare at all, unless Microsoft has been covering up an hack of historical proporitions for a while now. My personal experience here is of course only anecdotal in nature, but the last weeks as well as 2011 definitely inform my feelings toward PSN; as well as the objective lack of features and/or quality of said features (like voice chat etc.). It's just natural as well, because Microsoft was ahead of the curve there, pushing this kind of online platform.

I generally loath credit information being stored anywhere, so I either use PayPal or as with both Sony and Microsoft, I use prepaid cards from Amazon - which I gotta trust by necessity of convenience. Microsoft is running the second biggest cloud service out there behind Amazon, and they might actually be considered more popular and growing faster. I'm just saying that they can afford and definitely have some of the best software engineers working for them that literally money can buy. That does not make them immune to anything, but still a major target, but at least it's an era that they have competency in as one of the most succesful tech company in history. Sony is hardly a tech company, it's an electronic and entertainment one and it's hard to oversell how poorly implemented even basic secure measures were going back to the 2011 hack. It was just an embarrasement. They were not outsmart by some high profile group or anything. They invited anyone who happened to stumble on their outdated Avalanche server to wreak some real havoc and harm. In short, it was their fault for not even remotely doing their due diligence. No one is perfect, but that does excuse negligence.

I was talking about the X1 actually. I barely use the 360 as 90% of my games for it are on X1 and play actually better. I think though, that the OS of the 360 was okay for the time, no worse than the PS3, even though I felt the PS3 looked more appealing. In terms of functionality, I definitely and vastly prefer the Xbox One for features that bother offer as well as stuff only the Xbox One even bothers with.

@Razmoudah I share accounts with my best friend on all my platforms, so we can access each others games. It's cool because we have similar taste but also some different preferences, so I get exposed to games, I might otherwise skip. And of course, it makes sense for coop games, like Halo, Gears, and so on to only have to buy them once, splitting the cost. The thing is, the X1 in the MS store shows me when I can install a game I have not bought, thus effectively telling me it's on the other activated account. On Ps4? I have to log unto my buddies account and manually check (just as I have to manually upload my saves, uninstall games to make room and so on and so forth). I actually missed that he had already bought SO The Last Hope, so now I have 3 copies (360 and 2x PS4 )

I have a bunch of complaints, to many to list. Like for instance, the search function in the browser version is horrible. It only lists EXACT matches. It's pretty much less typo-agnostic than google was 2 whole decades ago. It's an embarassement in 2020 really.

I do kinda agree about the PS4 Pro. The same way I was and still hankering for a Switch Pro with that atrocious screen of theirs. I mean, that's harsh, it is not horrible, it is just a cheap LCD screen and I have moved beyond these with all of my devices but my 3DS. It's always a dismay to have to go back to that. Like someone threw clouds up, obstructing the sun, making everything look just one whole step more dull and depressing really. BUt what can you do ...

I am a bit concerend about storage for the PS5 and XS1. I think PS5 might have an leg up there long term, even though at launch, it will be hard to get anything to expand storage. I do have noticed though that the PSN speed, which have historically always been bad for me, seem to have improved over the last 2 years or so. I can more consistently get 100mbits. I have a Gigabit connection like I said, but both consoles are still on 100mbit wired connections, so more is not really possible outside of Wireless, which only provides better speeds in theory. Anyways, Xbox has been hitting 90 to 100 mbits consistenly, which makes downloading of anything under 100 Gb not much of an issue, so given these circumstances, I am more relaxed in terms of getting my games on the fly and being okay with onl a bunch of them installed at the same time. I might upgrade to gigabit wired for the next gen and then it might not matter whether I have a game stored on an external HDD or whether I am download it (so the latter wil be more eco firendly of course).

@Razmoudah I can see that, linear TV has too many issues. I still kinda of watch public german television, for political discussions and news reports and such, since I consider it a good source, being publicaly funded and all, but not for entertainment purpose at all. German TV is the worst, and I hate german localizations anyways. I moved to watching my TV shows and movies in English almost half my life ago, in fact, I would often pay premiums going to theater farther away so I can see OV runs of new movies!

Also really help bring up my grades in English class + spending hundreds of hours playing Line Age 2 on US servers, chatting my fingers off -> having to learn to a) type and b) learn the damn language, before moving to voice chat. Funny story: one of my Professors once asked me where I learned my English (he felt he detected a Californian accent of all things ^^) and once I told him that story, he laughed out loud and told me, that he can relate, he got much of his language proficiency from watching Cartoons as a kid!

I didn't have an Xbox One at launch. It was a joke a complete laughing stock. Actually, I got one for game like Scalebound and Phantom Dust Remake, which were both sadly canceled. Which would have been enough for me to get rid of it. Alas, I really enjoyed the system for other reasons at that point. Forza Horizon 2 had turned the series from dont-care-go-away to a series I deeply enjoy. Halo and Gears provided the best coop shooting experience there is, as they probably always have and like I laid out before, I am not annoyed using the Xbox One, unlike the PS4.

Things came to a tipping point with Xbox One X, which was just ... better for anything outside of the PS4 exclusives. So I moved my 3rd party gaming there almost entirely. For instance, the system is silent. My PS4 Pro playing God of War forced me use headphones. That never happened to me before in all my gaming time. Hell, Mark Cerney adressed that even in this "Road to PS5"-talk. The system would for some games peform like an airplane turbine. It was ... beyond the plae for a new $400 device.

Backwards compability is an amazing feature on Xbox One. It's what I most look forward to with Series X as well. I salviate at the notion of getting to play Dead Space 1/2 or Resident Evil Remake or all the Final Fantasy in 4K/HDR. Like truly, that is gonna upgrade these games to remaster status for free basically. It is insane what they are doing. They are already running Xbox games at native 4x resolution. Performance is consistnetly better, load times are better (huge deal for a game like Lost Odyssey, which is now 50% more enjoyable and adding SSD and HDR to that, will pretty much make it a complete package.). As a piece of hardware, the build quality of the X1 is superior to the PS4. I have no hard data on the failure rate, put my PS4 harddrive actually corrupted causing loss of some savegames, I had not MANUALLY uploaded yet. I won't say that is representative though, still the X1X is smaller, ALOT more silent and provides more power. No way around that.

@Razmoudah It's really impressive work on a technical level as well, having that PowerPC code run on X86, and it runs better. It did not in the beginning, but they worked tirelessly on it. Some games received liek a dozen backwardscompabiltiy-patches. Like ... imagine that, they were doing it for free and never stoped improving on it, going backs to older releases and bringing those up to snuff with stuff they learned with current ones. I still think it's one of the most consumer friendly and technological imrpessive efforts in gaming conservation done to that, definitely by a commercial player. What they did for FFXIII was absolutely unprecented. I still maintain that there is no other scenario where this would not have been done -> released and repacked and sold as a remaster. They were just doing it for free.

As someone with a deep appreciation for gems like LO and Blue Dragon and Infinite Undiscovery, I really appreciatd that effort.

I have long critized Microsoft for their handling of Microsoft Studios. Rare is an obvious example, but it goes beyond that . Bungie leaving is another, the aforementioned cancellation of their cooperation with Platinum Games. It's a long list of things gone very wrong due to poor management. And it cost them dearly as well, as it should. I still have hopes that they are turning the ship around. THey bought so many new studios .... we have to wait and see. I would love for those 360 days of exclusive jRPG content to come back. I'd love to see them partner with From Software for their own take on Souls. Competition is a good thing.

I am very curious to see what they are doing with PS5. Xbox has a huge lead by now despite Sony being a strong supporter for BWC even with the 1st gen PS3, with basically were a PS2 as well before we got software emulation and then nothing. Microsoft has moved far beyond mere faithful emulation a long time ago though, as I described, really upgrading legacy content to make it worthwhile with modern displays, ironing out performance dips and such.

I think, not having played FFXIV before, that is all stuff I can deal with and I am glad to hear the controllers actually provide benefits here. It's more convient than KB+M on the couch. It's also free of any movement penality when using the triggers, which ought to come in handy with FFXIV. That's interesting, but I do not plan to go back to TOR, definitely not for PvP - ben there dan that, so to speak ^^

I actually tried watching some of the Persona anime stuff, but didn't end up liking it. Dunno why really, it's just ... boring to me. Maybe due to having played the games, I cannot say really. It's just not as engaging an experience, not at all. Might be that Golden leans more heavily into upbeat characters and stuff, I do have the original P4 as a PS3 classic but never felt the need to play it, since everyone and their mom agreed that "Golden" was the definitive version and the best reason to own a Vita (argueably that is Muramasa Rebirth the most beautiful game ever created - argueably ^^).

@Razmoudah

About Neptunia, I actually looked into it once more yesterday, since that and Fairy Fencer are like $5 or something. But I couldn't quite bring myself to it. Like, the reviews are as rough as during the PS3 era and just watchting two like 10 minute Youtube reviews for each (like Dark Advent and N:VIIR) just turned me off once again for all reasons. I don't think I can relate to anything that goes on screen. Neptunia in particular just strikes me as a child of Japanse daytime TV, which from the small sampling I partook, is loud and shrill and really an assault on the senses with mostly senseless interjections and panels reacting to frigging reaction panels, reacting to some gameshow shenanigans. It's silly and not really in that genuinely playful manner I can deal with.

One question though, how do feel about Tales of BERSERIA? It's literally only 8€ on the Eu store, and I actually read some good things about. Having not really loved the series outside of Symphonia, Vesperia and Eternal Sonata of course, will it work for me you think? Its alot darker and mature with some stronger character writing I hear and decent Voice Acting. I feel I should give it a try, beyond the demo I tried, which was okay, but has little story input of course. I tihnk I'll pick it up.

It's just running Vagrant Story for instance on my TV doesn't work. It looks truly unbearable. Since every pixel is stretched beyond recongnition. It's okay on the Vita screen, but at 4k (also the issue of 4:3 of course), it's actually looking bad. THese are things that should be adressed by emulation in 2020. I feel that you really do not have to be a graphics whore for thinking that PSX era 3D graphics hold up purely. 2D assests with strong art direction typically fair better. My all time favourite Baldurs Gate 2 is still very much playable these days.

Even if we could move beyond the Uncanny Valley, and I think we will, just looking at what can already be acomplised with machine learning, photorealism leaves no room for artistic impression. Something is either photorealistic or it is not.

As for Operation Darkness, you must be definitely thinking about a different game. It does not get mch more interesting in terms of alternative history than that game. Like I said it's basically Hellsing, with some Hellboy inspired characters thrown in for good measure like Cordelia Blake aka Liz. There is also a rich cast of historical Nazi figures you rarely see actually portrayed like Rommel, Himmler and Hitler himself. It's neat to see a game not shy away from this. And yes, mixing tiger tanks with werewolfs, dragons and vampires and magic and bazookas is just as fun as it sounds. You literally cannot go wrong with that.

@Razmoudah
The way you put and the way I remember it, it ought to have been WKCI then Yeah, bittersweet is a good fit for describing the ending and really most of the show. I really dug it. hell, I really dug his take on Godzilla, which was just plain weird and out there, but with a great oppressive mood and some unique ideas thrown in. Not perfect, but a fun watch, something done differently with the material to some decent effect.

I agree about Apple, but the funny part is, being reasonably priced would hurt them, I think. They would have to compete on margin, and that would run counter to their image, which is competing on their own brand on obsinate uniqueness. It seems to work them, so more power to them. I had one Macbook in my life and while I liked working with XCode, I still felt no further desire to stick with MacOS. Of course, the way Xbox is now integrated into Windows, running OS is an unfeasible proposition once more as a gamer, not that it was ever really feasib in the 1st place. Bootcamp is also annoying and yeah ... my sis is an Apple person though, through and through, but then again, she can afford it so why not - rather run 4K OLEDs and mutiple gaming platforms than having an $500 smartwatch I never use!

As for Japan, I would theorize by virtue of hindisight that the interference of Microsft resulted in the games we got. Otherwise LO might have felt like FFXIII - or possibly more like it? I'm okay with just three FFXIII experinces on 360 though Maybe as you say, it was just the way the could now talk creative risks they could not take before? LO really makes me wonder time and time again. It's just such a lavish game, money thrown at the screen at every turn, such grand ambition ... nothing like that existed outside of FFXIII back then. Maybe Ni No Kuni, but that was build on an entirely different technical premise, which I feel came much cheaper.

In terms of DC and Marvel ... the movies are doing fine in Japan from what I can tell, so I am not all taht sure that the narratives are the deal breaker as the movies do a good job of emulating the narrative strains of the comic - condensed and less opaque to newcomers, sure, but otherwise not all that dissimilar.

Stay safe out there, the news coming out of the states are still very scary. You guys really had some bad luck as far as timing goes. Trump is really doing his utmost to **** all of this up.

@Ralek85
Oh, I'm not saying that some of those early 360 JRPGs weren't good, they were, and several of them were produced on a scale that wasn't economically feasible because of the raw cost involved. And really, I highly doubt LO would've ended up more FFXIII like, other than maybe coming in installments. After all, .hack was a huge venture, with multiple tie-ins to other media, and it isn't like it wasn't technically possible to release either the originals or the G.U.s as a single game. However, the production cost made it rather unfeasible, but they still came on dual-layer DVD's, which size-wise still had each individual part competing with all but the absolute largest the PS2 got, and I personally average a little over 50 hours on each part of the G.U. trilogy. Although, many of those hours are just doing bounty hunts and filling in the Books of Ryu, I usually have the main scenario cleared around 35-40 hours in. Of course, as I don't hit each volumes level cap until around the 45-48 hour mark I can hardly call most of those extra hours wasted, as there is a notable jump in the levels of the areas you go to when you progress to the next volume. Although, a good portion of the reason the .hacks got split up is because of just how many pre-recorded FMVs there are in each one. It's well over an hour of total video per volume, which is no small amount of data space on a DVD.

Eh, I'm not so sure that it's the condensed narrative that is helping it so much as the fact that with the condensing most of the secondary parts that wouldn't do well got cut out. Personally, I've been fairly mixed regarding the movies, as there are so many small details that keep falling by the wayside, or else are changed from the last time they 'rebooted' the settings.

I don't pay much attention to the news, but from what little I am seeing I'd say that if anything this COVID-19 mess is only well started. Far too many people haven't been exposed yet, and if the rate of exposure for them isn't properly controlled things will get a LOT worse.

@Razmoudah That's the beauty of these 1st-party and partnership games though, they do not have to be economically feasible on their own. To me, that is really the underlying reason many of these games are so appealing. They do not suffer from the same creative constraints about every other type of content does. That said many of them end up being economically viable on their own of course. Halo Infinite can totally loose dozens of millions of dollars ... so long as it sells Series X to early adopters that get the train going. It will in all likelihood make it's investment back and then some though.

For jRPGs the story is typically different. The market is smaller, tastes are harder to pin down, so outside of some very big studios with strong name/brad recognition like Square with FF, it is ... lacking in prudence, let's say, to make a game that is operates on a truly epic scale as well as one that is in any significant way experimental, be it mechnical or narrative-wise.

I dunno, I think the Japanese industry is in a tough spot there. Games get more costly to make, the domestic market is hardly growing (absolutely not in regards to the revenue vis-a-vis the costs) and the formula in use were outdated a long time ago, with limited appeal in outside markets.

I'm very curious to hear what Mistwalker would have done without that support from Microsoft. Would they even exist? Would they have gone straight to mobile or handheld games? It would have been utterly irresponsible to make a game like LO - which would have been a do-or-die-project right out of the gate.

Sony doesn't really have to bother with all of this. For many of these developers, despite digital platforms on PC and maybe the Switch these days, it still their "lifeboat" of sorts to the west. Bringing a game to Steam is dandy and all, but that market is gigantic. Each games runs the risk of being drowned out out within days of it's release. PC porting is also not an easy task and not something that pays dividends domestically, plus not something Japanese devs have had grad technical success in the past general.

In other words, Sony can feel confident that if there is a Persona game being made, it will show up on their system. They might even have enough clout there to keep it as an exclusive forever without much effort.

@Razmoudah As for Marvel, well, I'm used to reading these story arcs that extend over the course of months, spread between 100s of individual isses, released across a dozen or more different series using release guides to boot, but .. that is not something that has mainstream appeal. I feel people got as much consecutive storytelling with 2 or 3 movies a year as they could handle. To call it condensed is a bit of understatement. In fact, we will soon see how all of this pans out once Disney+ starts demanding you have seen hundreds of hours of their Marvel shows to be able to really keep up with the latest movie releases. Then we might be getting close to testing how willing the audience is to keep up here. I am not quite sure what you mean by "secondary parts", but small details falling by the wayside is the nature of the beast here with only so many 2h+ movies being made to deliver on particular narrative string and a lot of on-the-fly retooling being necessary to account for e.g. Spider-Man being in (and out again, and then in again), the deal with Fox bringing certain Mutants in, then the Fox Merger ... upheavals with certain key players like James Gunn.

SOme movies doing better than expected, demanding a stronger focus for the future. GoG is not a huge deal in the comics. Ever since Operation Galactic Strom, which is still one of my favourite event ever, I've been a huge fan of the Cosmic Marvel Universe. I'm still waiting to see that made in to a movie event btw, particularly I want to see Quasar on the big screen! Anyways, that is still somewhat an outlier within the comics. It was in no way clear that GoG would be that big a success and a key movie franchise for Marvel. Personally, I love the GoG movies, they are easily my favourites out of the bunch by any margin.

Then you have actors that want to renegotiate because they realize that their worth has increased by an order of magnitude within years ... Accounting for all for all of that, things have to be flexible. I think that is the reason most studios shied away from doing these decade-plus long narrative experiments.

As for Corona, yeah, no doubt there. It's going to stick with us for at least another 18+ months. Expect a second wave to hit later this year before a vaxine can even start mass production. That is assuming of course, that the virus is not going to mutate into something more nasty or combine itself with material from other viruses within some host. Some of the poorest and least protected populations on the planet have not yet been hit at all. There are, without being cynical, billions of hosts out there, that have not been infected, that will get infected over the course of the next year or so and that have the potential to be the wellspring of the next evolution of the disease.

It's impossible to get that particular curse back into Pandora's box.

@Ralek85
Oh, I'm not saying that some of those early 360 JRPGs weren't good, they were, and several of them were produced on a scale that wasn't economically feasible because of the raw cost involved. And really, I highly doubt LO would've ended up more FFXIII like, other than maybe coming in installments. After all, .hack was a huge venture, with multiple tie-ins to other media, and it isn't like it wasn't technically possible to release either the originals or the G.U.s as a single game. However, the production cost made it rather unfeasible, but they still came on dual-layer DVD's, which size-wise still had each individual part competing with all but the absolute largest the PS2 got, and I personally average a little over 50 hours on each part of the G.U. trilogy. Although, many of those hours are just doing bounty hunts and filling in the Books of Ryu, I usually have the main scenario cleared around 35-40 hours in. Of course, as I don't hit each volumes level cap until around the 45-48 hour mark I can hardly call most of those extra hours wasted, as there is a notable jump in the levels of the areas you go to when you progress to the next volume. Although, a good portion of the reason the .hacks got split up is because of just how many pre-recorded FMVs there are in each one. It's well over an hour of total video per volume, which is no small amount of data space on a DVD.

Eh, I'm not so sure that it's the condensed narrative that is helping it so much as the fact that with the condensing most of the secondary parts that wouldn't do well got cut out. Personally, I've been fairly mixed regarding the movies, as there are so many small details that keep falling by the wayside, or else are changed from the last time they 'rebooted' the settings.

I don't pay much attention to the news, but from what little I am seeing I'd say that if anything this COVID-19 mess is only well started. Going by the news reports far too many people haven't been exposed yet, and if the rate of exposure for them isn't properly controlled things will get a LOT worse.

@Ralek85
And then I forgot to comment on it, but since it sounds like you'd played WKCI if you can find it somewhere to rent I think you should give WKCII a try. They fixed 90% of what was wrong with the game. It still feels like it is trying to be an MMORPG, but at least everything works smoothly and is playable now. Also, in the II content they added a fair bit more multi-player content (online only, of course) while better balancing out the single player content.

Also, after some more thought, I've realized that there has been more than a couple of magical girl type animes for an older audience, and it isn't that unusual for them to go down darker paths either. Is This a Zombie? is the only 'older' one I can think of that doesn't heavily delve into the darker potentials of the genre, though it still dips into it. Just to warn you though, you might need some brain bleach at hand before you try to watch it.

@Razmoudah Not really sure I will ever get back to WKC. Even if II really improved on the 1st one by a huge margin ... it's still not exactly a must play I wager. The appealing aspect about MMORPGS - to me - was always the social aspect above all. I meet some really cool people over the years, with some I even had real life contact. I've actually had guildies from Spain and Finland over here at a time. It was pretty neat to meet in person after having played together for literally years already Aside from that, I enjoyed the group-based PvP long before it became popular in games like Overwatch (which is also great though). Everything else about MMORPGs ... I more tolerated than enjoyed!

I never heard of "Is This a Zombie?" before, but I'll check it out. Generally, I do like mindfucks of a sort, esp. if they have a certain deconstructive-nature to it. I watched "Neon Genesis Evangelion" as a kid (well, I videotaped it, as it run after midnight, and then watched the next day after school) and it had a huge impact on me. That as well as "Silent Möbius" and "A Record of Lodoss War" really got me into Anime in the 1st place.

Anyways, going dark isn't necessary the key here, but seeing how many anime lean into particular tastes circling around titillation, power fantasy/wish fulfilment and fan-service, it's probably just the nature of the beast that "different" often translates to grim'dark mindfucks - at least in large part. Still, it's fascination stuff that at least back then was pretty unthinkable in our sanitized TV landscape, that seemed actively designed to make people complacent.

"Is This a Zombie?" does stick to some extent with the somewhat normal trends of around 2011. A single guy, who for some reason ends up with multiple unrelated girls living with him, although in this one he's only interested in one of them. The darker themes don't hit that hard, most of the time, it's more of a comedy that doesn't shy away from the fact that life isn't all rainbows and sunshine but it doesn't necessarily suck that much, even for a zombie. The thing you need to watch out for is that in the first episode he progresses from being a zombie to being a magical garment girl zombie, as for some unexplained reason he absorbs the powers of a magical garment girl when she tries to erase his memory. Then again, how many shows can have the line "Be a man and transform into a girl already!" actually make sense (note, he doesn't become a girl, unlike one of the later seasons of Sailor Moon, he just ends up wearing the magical girl costume and getting the powers while still remaining a guy, thank the ever-after for memory alteration magic after a Megalo attacks his school, at least he's fit, or we'd be desperate for that magic after watching the show). Things get, different, from there, as he tries to find the serial killer who originally killed him. The second season is far more fan-servicey, especially as they didn't really have any loose ends to deal with without creating them first, so you may want to stop with just the first season, but I'll leave that to you.

Now back to trying to get far enough into my NG+ run of Trials to collect some ???? Seeds and see if I screwed myself over by not using all of them in the old save before starting my NG+. Square did a really asinine thing with the remake, as they switched from a simple RNG system for getting class-change items from ???? Seeds, and equipment from the 'new' Rainbow Item Seeds (a re-named version of the originals equipment seeds), to a base algorithm system that is effectively pre-set, and prevents save scumming from changing the results. Well, the Rainbow Item Seeds do have a chance of producing a non-equipment item, but it just replaces the equipment item that would've been created in that point in the pattern, and the pattern is ***** and royally screws over your first companion char with both types of seeds at times. It actually took me over 50 Rainbow Item Seeds to get all of the equipment for Class 4 for each char in my first save, and some items I had 4-6 copies of by the time I had 1 copy of each of the last couple of items I was trying to get, both for companion 1.