Topic: The DioField Chronicle

True, but that's not how the shareholders see it, the one who influence the marketing. As much as we gripe, there's only one real reason companies exist: the bottom dollar. That's always been the case. Not vision, not some ideal or principle, but money.

If a product feels risky, feels like it won't make money, then the amount of investment put into it is usually minimum. You hear stories like that all the time. "X Company didn't have enough faith in X Product."

@Maxenmus I wouldn't say MS isn't putting a spotlight on this stuff. I think MS is, and there's a reason MS's june presentation saved having Phil come out until the end to introduce the Atlus segment. They're putting a focus (and obviously money) behind trying to build a Japanese game support for their platform. Diofield is being ignored by everyone (including Squeenix, lol), but MS is putting a big spotlight on Atlus titles. It's the press that isn't.

LOL, PC was the original home of the temper throwing man-children, no question.

PlayStation isn't Japanese, it hasn't been for years. Sony Corp the holding company over it is, but PlayStation's a California company with a British CEO and a console designed by Mark Cerny. The gargantuan chassis was designed by a Japanese employee though, so there's that. It's not like NoA that's a tightly controlled sales office with no autonomy. PS is merely a subsidiary operating mostly independently. And they ejected almost everything Japanese. Current PS is no less American than Xbox. Only it's image makes fans of Japanese games view it differently.

@Ralizah I'll never understand a general lack of interest in Japanese games on XB. I know the sales support that but it never really made sense. I think more than anything else age has more to do with it than anything. "Back in the day" when it was Nintendo v Sega v Sony basically all games were Japanese games so when most of us think "console games' a Japanese game is a normal game, Western games are PC games. But Xbox coming out in 2000 ,a younger group that only knows western games as games and never really played the Japanese games as the default just have no interest in what seems different. Even in the PS fanbase, the Japanese base feels like an exotic niche of old folks plus younger anime otaku, not the mainstay of the newer clientele. I wouldn't say Japanese game fans are the mainstay of either green or blue anymore, there's just more leftover holdouts on blue from better days that never felt a desire to migrate.

All that having been said, I preordered SH2 on green, so I can stream it to my Kishi setup from my XSS...... Could do it for PS but then there's the whole PS4 vs PS5 versioning blah blah, stuff. Best to stick to green for that. Playing the Diofield demo that way, too, it's great.

I don't disagree with your criticisms of SH2 to a point, but I also didn't like SMTV, if you recall, I just could NOT find a hook into it which is a first for SMT for me. So I'm hoping Persona Hackers scratches that SMT itch for me.

Diofield..... Try the demo. I'm not sure you'll like it. It's addicting when it works well, it's like the non-base-building part of an RTS/squad strategy game. Probably a bit of what Mario + Rabbids 2 will be like. It has a TON of potential to be something kinda cool (gameplay not story), but....IDK, the rhythm it had fell apart with these difficulty spikes. Something feels broken to me with area attacks. But that might be lack of knowledge/skill. If I could learn what I'm doing wrong here I think I could quite like the game, but it went from I don't care, to I love it, to I hate it pretty fast for me.

To be fair, one of my earliest XBox game was Sudeki... which wasn't a JRPG, but practically looked like one. lol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudeki

And of course, there's the Tales of Vesperia series and Final Fantasy 13-2 on the 360. And let's not forget, Shin Megami Tensei: Nine was an XBox exclusive. Freaking SMT. "What the actual heck?!" a lot of SMT YouTubers went.

General lack of interest, yes, but still, interest.

But that kinda disproves the whole point of Atlus not bothering with XBox too, since they did bother with it... just with Japanese ports only (NINE was available in Japan only). I don't know if Atlus ever released a version in America, but I heard something about a western remake as an MMO.

I think I figured out the answer to my Diofield question. It seems like the game is pretty much designed to force you to "grind" by just replaying the same missions. That's a terrible design IMO. I know FE has the optional mission grinding these days too, but this is literally just "replay the previous story mission a few times before going to the next mission", at least how it's set up for the demo. I realized that 4 vs 6+ at the same level is never really going to work. And overlapping enemy AOE attacks make it so you spend more time running than fighting unless you can hit really hard, meaning you have to be a few levels above the enemies. And to do that....you need to grind. By repeating story (or side) missions. I think my interest in the game just faded a lot.

Started playing Diofield Chronicle demo, and at first, during the initial battle, I was a bit meh on it, but after that, getting to freely run around in 3rd person and seeing all the skill trees and badges and stuff you can rank up, and playing a bit more, I actually quite like it.

It's different and takes some adjusting to, but I actually appreciate the new experience as there aren't many other games that play like thus.

Voice acting is decent too, and graphics look nice on Switch, handheld included.

Can't speak to difficulty spikes cause I'm not that far, but I want to see for myself, cause I'm not new to strategy games. It could be like Triangle Strategy where the tactics you use make all the difference, and grinding is just a last resort (though even that was soft-capped in TS to force you to rely on strategy rather than level).

Did anybody take the plunge and buy diofield? Since it is a sRPG I can likely squeeze a map before bed like I do VNs so I did get it day one. Curious to hear impressions.

@Ryu_Niiyama
I did. I played the demo, and just got the full game. Transferred my save and am playing now.

It’s better than I initially expected. The story is more intriguing and the characters are more interesting- I won’t say either are absolute top shelf, but better than I thought it would be. The gameplay is especially unique.

It’s a solid game. I typically buy what I’m interested in digitally, then archive what doesn’t resonate with me since there’s only so many games I can fit on my main 1TB micro SD. But this is a keeper, if that tells you anything. Also just how different it is- I don’t have any other games that play like this.

@JaxonH nice! I will try to start a little this weekend. As usual I have to work but I hope I can carve a few hours. I like that we are getting some non standard tactics games.

@Ryu_Niiyama
Let me know how you like it.

I'm playing now, and I can't seem to put it down! Which was totally unexpected. The more I play the more I love it. The game actually has just enough quality voice acting and story to keep your interest. And the strategy gameplay is surprisingly engaging. Even on early maps I came very close to losing a unit (VERY close, like one more hit they'd be dead). Which isn't that big a deal cause failure mode is all units lost. But still. For being so early in the game I was being tested more than I thought I would. And that's refreshing. Nothing I hate more than a strategy game that doesn't offer compelling gameplay. And that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be super challenging- many Fire Emblem maps aren't that hard on Normal, for example. But it does need to be engaging, and I'm finding the difficulty to be just right. Not so easy you lose interest, but not so hard you get frustrated.

This game is really freaking good!