CasualTalkRadio

...so basically, you don't care about story, just the battle engine.

Because there's no way you should have 3 above 2 if you care about story. At all.

@Chibi new game ONLY if it's not along the vein of "Tales of Aionios" - otherwise called "Xenoblade Chronicles 3" but isn't really.

If said new game is closer to 2, Future Connected, or Torna, then yes. We'd like that. But if it's going to regress to something like 1, 3 or X...no.

...so to all of you who kept saying "not another Game Key Card scam post, doot doot doot!" or "why do you all keep complaining?"

Because critical mass is how you beat them. Not complacency.

Game Key Cards are a straight up scam. Period. The ONLY one we ever purchased was the Bravely Default JP version, and only because it's uncensored. Everything else, we're not doing it.

The game must be on the cartridge, unhindered by the presence - or absence - of a server just to run it. And no, "you have Day 1 patches, doot doot doot!" is not an excuse. You're never required to patch games to play them.

@Jeronan "This game doesn't need mods"

So long as they have Judy written to not be a straight female, mods can safely be considered required to "correct" that oversight.

"players have grown more accustomed to games with darker narratives"

The problem with this statement is that unlike Dragon Warrior VII, many games that came out afterwards started rushing towards the "Kingdom Hearts Syndrome" - meaning avoiding death or other negative emotions because of people who can't seem to handle it.

If we don't get the deaths that happened in this game, it's a problem. Hopefully they left that alone.

"This two-in-one release will arrive on 12th February 2025"

Interesting. Now we just need a remake of Back to the Future for Switch 2, so we can travel back in time for that release date.

...a scene editor, you say? Wonder how uncensored that will be.

Creating a scene in court between Franziska and Phoenix might be...fun. If it's unconstrained

@FrenchVaniIIuxe 100%, true, yes.

...women officers wearing pants and not skirts = literally unplayable

@canaryfarmer There are those who don't care about censorship, those that do, and those that should.

The truth is, everyone SHOULD be against censorship of any kind.

@canaryfarmer Script was rewritten to remove comments considered sexist against Estelle.

@hisownsidekick 3 was arguably the best of the series at one point.

HOWEVER...if this doesn't have the English dub...it is absolutely a non-starter.

@the_beaver "It really is surprising that most websites do not care about this game... It's hard to understand."

It's not hard to understand. The game was CENSORED.

All it really has going for it is the battle engine. Everything else is barebones basic compared to everything else in the Trails series, including the garbage that was Reverie.

...their exaggerated screaming makes this literally unwatchable.

Even old Bruce Lee movies didn't do it THIS bad.

@daftmagician To be fair: DQ7 got a bad rap. The fiasco that happened with Dragon Warrior IV and Heartbeat only to end up with 7 that nobody asked for left a very bad taste in people's mouths that never left.

Frankly...we think 7 sucks. But that's largely because it was such a complete 180 from the "style" of the Zenithian Trilogy (especially 4). It's actually not a "bad" story, it's just not up to par with the Trilogy. Nowhere close.

@MyMemory There is a fervent push towards making females in video games less "weak" and more dominant. Referred to as "girlboss" - made famous by such games as Forspoken.

It wouldn't surprise to hear that Echoes of Wisdom and Age of Imprisonment were her idea before she took the reigns.

@outsider83 Reggie "got" the Internet.

Most CEOs do not.

@nessisonett You raise a good question.

Did they SET RIGHT what once went wrong?

(meaning...the GameBoy version and Dragon Quest Builders exposed the discrepancy in naming over time. Older gamers will fondly remember RHONE - only to be encountered with some "Rendarak" place that previously had no bearing on anything.)

Fun Fact: The host of the podcast wrote an FAQ decades ago for the GameBoy version, where the first question was, "who's this Loto guy and what's he got to do with anything?" because people were confused at the name change away from Erdrick.

@MyMemory We're here before the possible modification of Peach, turning her into a "girlboss".

@Misima Of course it does.

Business = money.

Doing it this way...the only logical answer is to maximize profits.

@Freek Vaguely, yes.

This new game looks...dunno, like, too "clean". It's hard to describe. Maybe if it had some sort of grit filter or something. But as-is, it reminds closely of the M.U.L.E. remake (which got pulled from platforms). It just doesn't have that same spirit.

@Joekun A better solution would be for Nintendo to stop mandating large, ugly, red banners across the top and the "Game Key Card Scam" banner across the bottom.

Obviously, they have to disclose the scam before unwrapping; but surely there's an easier answer, like a separate slip-in piece, vs butchering the cover art.

"I personally feel as though Nintendo could have easily hired on a bunch of the contractors as FTE and had better results while still saving money from having to use the agencies."

There certainly does seem to be a steep decline in the desire to do temp-to-hire, which used to be common in the 90s.

Speculation: The companies being pushed to raise wages has caused them to be gunshy to commit beyond temp labor. 30% overhead for benefits, etc.

@ROOCIS That's why they're rushing to chat support, because they can hide the truth about "Bob" and not have the customer hear that obviously non-American accent.

@Kingy ...you're getting triggered for no reason.

Your message is a different path than ours. That's not disagreement. It's alternate feedback and should be taken only as such.

Read it again, carefully and calmly.

@Kingy you said "don't see any way to improve".

We're saying not to DEMAKE (i.e. RUIN) it.

We're saying different things.

Adding the girl from the 3DS version? That's an improvement.
Adding the Jessica alternate ending? That's an improvement.

We're fine with improvements such as no random battles, etc.

We're NOT fine with DEMAKE (i.e. censoring uniforms, censoring flirting, etc.).

That's all

@Kingy VIII must NOT receive a "demake".

You talk censorship...that game will be absolutely BUTCHERED. Scripts, Jessica, the other new girl they added in 3DS, the female soldiers, etc etc etc.

The real answer:

"Dragon Quest VII didn't have much to censor. But we've got to spend extra time with all of the censoring for especially IV, that game, not sure how it got out of the gate with Mara and Nara, but we'll fix it"

@Kuruwin Fairly certain (but never tested) that when you set up the Switch 2, it should have prompted you to transfer all game data. That includes save data.

Which means (in theory) you should be able to access it through System --> Data Management.

We just confirmed that save data for games that have never been played on Switch 2 appear available on Switch 2 using the step above. You can even tell the Switch 2 to purposely re-download whatever save data you don't see for some reason.

EDIT: Also confirmed, we just downloaded Ys VIII's save data (which wasn't initially transferred because it only existed in the cloud) without an issue.

@Joekun You're not wrong.

HOWEVER...consider that the Switch 2 physical cases are terribly ugly compared to the Switch 1 version.

Just something to think about.

"Please don’t rein Estelle in too much. Keep things light and funny, and balance the serious with the sentimental perfectly."

And of course, they did the EXACT opposite of this request.

@BrewsterTea
Dynasty Warriors: Origins is excellent but not perfect. Also, anyone who gets triggered off of harems in games should avoid it - because the women will absolutely throw themselves at the MC, AND some of the dudes borderline flirt with him.

@Kuruwin
Save Data download is always available - but it's buried in menus. Easier to just rent from GameFly to get access to it if you don't keep games. Certainly the younger generations are not fans of holding onto games (that decades later go 10x on resell value).

...hmm.

It's certainly been a while. But not recalling it being so campy. Seem to remember the actors coming across more natural than that.

Are we...misremembering?

0:08 - skirt CENSORED (spats) as expected.

...that case is NOT a "Game Key Card Scam".

If true: that's worth applause at least.

@Spider-Kev There's nothing wrong with that line. It means the same as "on this day, 10 years ago" just not written in prose.

Go listen to "Have You Seen Her" by the Chi-Lites. First verse.

...meh. Accessibility is never a bad thing.

HOWEVER...Square Enix botched this one.

They should have pulled a Vectorman (IYKYK).

@Synecdoche Sure - but you don't need to comprehend the symbols to learn the language. You can learn the entire language just by listening to it and using context clues which every kid was taught in elementary school (or usedta).

The same cannot be said about Japanese. If you can't figure out the symbolism, you have no idea what to do when you go up to Osaka trying to read signs.

Censored. Censored. Censored.

@OpheliaDynamight "you're paying for the game, not the medium it's delivered on."

Now obviously you know that's a lie, since buying the game on PC almost always has a 20% discount on launch unless it's a mainstream (i.e. Square Enix) game.

"At The End Of The Day", you don't like fair pricing, you don't mind getting gouged, you just don't care. We'd respect you more if you just outright said that.

Nirvana Initiative is straight garbage, and Catherine: Full Body is censored.

@OpheliaDynamight It only confuses you because for years you've been convinced that digital pricing as-is, makes sense. It doesn't and never has.

Physical distribution costs MORE money than digital. Yet the price is the same. Why? Because the price of digital games is inflated artificially, and they're pocketing the rest. Meanwhile brick-and-mortar stores suffer.

The REAL value of "Game Key Card" rather than as a scam, would be to offer it at a significant discount in exchange for 1 day's worth of gameplay; you just can't save progress. But if you're good enough to beat the game without saving and playing for 1 day (which as kids was not hard at all), so be it, $10 is all you paid for the privilege, then you can hand the card to someone else to do the same thing if they can pull it off.

But if you're like the rest of us who are smart and see value in paying $10 to see if a game sucks before forking over more money, you've now just opened up a new avenue for people to get into games that otherwise think $70+ is too steep when you don't know a game sucks yet and can't return it (because it's digital).

Get it? It's not hard.

@OpheliaDynamight People would think it less of a problem if the price reflected what you're getting.

Full game on cart = full price (because the cart itself costs money, the memory costs money, printing, distribution, etc.)

Digital game only = discounted by $15 (because you didn't have the above)

"Game Key Card Scam" = discounted by $20 (because you don't even have the game and all you're recouping is the physical media costs).

Or even better: You can get the cartridge for $10, lets you play the game for 1 day, no save file capability. You want to save? You want to play longer? Pay the digital game price and it unlocks the full download.

That last suggestion? THAT is how you make money on this otherwise scam.

For $60 they could have made a playable.

As-is - completely not worth the asking price.

@Eel "...the rest of the market, the part that doesn’t actually care if their device has dedicated A and B buttons..."

There is no such thing.

A person who games on their phone isn't a gamer. They're a phone holder who plays games. That is NOT the same as gaming on a dedicated gaming device OR gaming PC.

It's fine to be that. But the bottom line is, you need dedicated hardware built around games.

The right answer for the future: either more devices like Switch but 80% docked power and 20% mobile; or disconnected devices where one is basically a small console that plugs into your TV or you can buy a mobile monitor. Both with options for controllers and/or keyboards.

100% touch cannot replace tactic feedback. It never will. And using controllers on phones is clunky at best.

@Eel "that gap is currently filled ..."

No. No it's not.

The true gap is with hardware that has dedicated support behind it, doesn't rely on a cell phone plan or internet just to play games, and can use physical controls.

There IS a gap. A significant one.

SEGA's leadership should have long since been back in the market with a convertible "Dreamcast" device that can play their entire catalog of games. Brand name alone would cause #FOMO rush.

SEGA leaving money on the table.