Astria Ascending Comes To Switch This Year, With Final Fantasy Veteran Kazushige Nojima In Tow

Final Fantasy veteran can only be a good thing. The opposite would be the case, if he was no veteran.

As the IOS version had mixed reviews I will wait to see how this comes along in the end. It is not like switch does not have a lot of amazing JRPGs anyways lol

Something about the in battle characters / animations seem off...

At the very least it looks pretty fantastic.

All I want is a JRPG that isn't over the top. Apparently such a thing cannot exist. The closest I've come was Octopath, which had a story which was pretty down to earth for the most part, but even in that game, some elements were too silly.

Ah well...

@Aneira I'm not so sure, at this point so many people have worked on FF and FF itself has had dud elements to their games so it's not a guarantee of quality.

It's like hearing somone who wrote on The Simpsons is working on a new show it doesn't mean it's gonna be hayday The Simpsons good, it just means you've got someone who worked on The Simpsons. It could be one of the orginal writers when it was good or one of the guys from 2010s episodes or even just one of the guys who contributed very little to the final draft of the scirpt so it doesn't even matter .

@jump

My point was that recent FF games sucked hard compared to the older games (FF7 remake excluded). I wouldn't trust anyone working on FF15 to sit the right way on a toilet seat.

You'd be surprised how many high quality jrpgs you'd find in mobile in japan that get no traction because they're mobile. You'd imagine these devs realize they can put their games on switch and rework them to remove the gaccha garbage... Glad some are catching on.

I was hyped for Zodiac: Orcanon Odyssey after getting a demo at E3, but the final product was a let-down. I never finished it, but this game could be fun with some retooling.

Now we just need a Switch remake of the Chaos Rings series.

Looks like a mix between a Romancing SaGa and Final Fantasy title but with mobile quality graphics. I'll check it out but the gameplay doesn't feel that engaging. Also while the summons look cool it seems like they are attacking airs in the trailer which feels off, a modern up to date trailer would be nice as this 2015 one doesn't do it justice.

Hey look a character from ARMS

Hopefully it has a demo because it doesn't look good right now.

This article made me remember I want 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim for Switch though.

Well well well, I'm all gift horses in the stomach about this one. And other mixed metaphors.

Hate that mobile look. Immediate turn off. Haha

Excited about the chara design and composer.

Saw that it was a phone game.

Not excited anymore, not getting it.

Gonna flopPUHHHHH

love the art style, giving me massive Steamworld Quest vibes!

New trailer looks interesting but I still need to see more to be excited.

The line art is pretty, but the on-rails side-scrolling mechanics are an instant buzzkill; they wouldn't allow for any genuine exploration, which is one of the core requirements of any good RPG in my book. And maybe it's a Japanese thing, but one race of overly "cute" mascots is well-trodden territory at this point, let alone two.

Lastly, the Final Fantasy pedigree doesn't mean nearly what it used to, at least to me personally but I suspect many other gamers ss well. While I realize that a lot of folks do like the real-time, button-mashing, extravagant visuals with absurd and labyrinthine themes and plots of more recent iterations, I'll always feel the franchise began to lose its way after IX and X. Game mechanics are crucial no matter what kind of eye candy your game may offer, and as for storylines and characters that stay with you, it's been a very long time since the franchise did that for me.

Lots of walking at the beginning of the video. They could’ve done without that.

Ima be honest, this is not doing it for me. Not a fan of the artstyle, don't need another side-scrolling RPG, the world/lore sounds pretty dumb so far, and if whoever did the voice-over in that trailer is actually voicing a main character? Yikes. Happy to be proven wrong but not a good first impression.

@Beatrice yeah I don’t know if it’s the same artist but they love those thunder thighs I guess.

Seems like everybody is adopting the lame marionette style animation. It must be easier/cheaper to produce. I’m not a fan of this growing trend

I can’t get past how ridiculous her legs look.

@Realness I agree. Those idle animations just feel strange to look at.

More importantly, the not-Moogles are strangely a dealbreaker, not to mention the Noise and harmellons feeling a bit trite. I'm not sure why. I think the whole presentation just has too much of a Not-Final Fantasy look that puts a bit more pressure on everything else.

This game will be an unmitigated disaster. It's made by the people behind Final Fantasy X and XII, which were both terribly written visual novels. You won't need to use your head for this one: just remember to press the X button to turn each page of text.

The graphics look like a mobile game, and the art style is horrendous.

I played the original when it released and it was average, at best. The only thing it had going for it was the art direction and the music. Here's hoping they can salvage that and reconstruct a game worth playing.

@tsdenizen
The reason the lore sounds dumb to you may be due to the fact that it was written by someone who has never written anything good in his life. Videogames aren't literature. Writing a good, long story requires a real writer. That's why Zelda and Dragon Quest are so successful: hardly any story, just "Evil Dragon monster wants to destroy th world - go kill him!". That's all a videogame needs.

@TheWingedAvenger You have absolutely dreadful taste.

Don't like the artstyle, but won't care if it's actually good.

Nope. It looks like a phone game.

@Daniel36
If you want a serious JRPG try:

Xenoblade Chronicles
Fire Emblem Three Houses
Phantom Brave (coming to Switch in summer)
God Eater 3
Shin Megami Tensei 3

@TheWingedAvenger I don't entirely disagree, but there has been good writing in video games. Breath of the Wild certainly isn't an example but DQXI has decent writing if a bit basic. And recently, stuff like 13 Sentinels, Disco Elysium, and Kentucky Route Zero have raised the bar. But yeah, this didn't do anything to draw me in.

@JR150 Appreciate the tips, but Xenoblade is WAY over the top, FE is alright, Phantom Brave is all slapstick and it wasn't for me mechanically either (I had it on PS2), God Eater is also extremely over the top and Shin. Well... not my thing. No, I am looking for low fantasy without any silly over the top shenanigans in there. And well... it doesn't really exist. Not in JRPGs at least.

@Daniel36
I've noticed that it's mainly Japanese developers who go over the top with their stories. The worst story ever in a videogame is Final Fantasy X. When you're playing it you think it was probably written by a psychotic twelve-year-old with Attention Deficit Disorder, but then you check on the internet and find out it was written by grown men.