This is what happens when you go in without any really knowledge, notice that active live service games are immensely profitable, and proclaim "we'll have an immensely profitable live service game" to investors, without understanding how much effort it takes to make a successful one, the failure rate, and the cost of tanking, all while banking on the commercial viability of the DC universe, which is a pale shadow of Marvel that many are already burned out on.
If regular people weren't the ones losing their jobs, I'd say it couldn't have happened to a nicer group of people.
So the company exists, but no one involved in anything you liked is working there anymore. It's functionally a new company.
I love video games (it's why we're here!) but I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone would be a dev in the industry. The pay scale in the industry is at the bottom edge of the skillet and qualifications, the hours are atrocious, and you're basically just a contractor these days to be cut unceremoniously to make numbers dance for quarterly earnings even after releasing a highly successful project.
I got through Vesperia which I mostly enjoyed but it started to drag near the end. I would be interested in this, but I'd wait to see the reviews on the port since Bandai burned a lot of people with Abyss.
Wound up with more free time than expected this weekend, so I'm going to try to finish The Messenger. Making up my mind whether to stick with Persona 5 Royal or shift to a different game, namely Ys VIII: Lacrymosa of Dana, which I've false started on at least 4 times.
Also working an electronics-based experiment and some minor hiking and cooking a fancy dinner.
@KimBread it can be any of the above. Many DLCs put on an extra chapter, some off your built save and some slightly outside of it. Xenoblade 2 made an entire standalone prequel that you can buy as a separate game, to give you an extreme case.
The Sea of Stars one in particular has been described as a "side adventure," although beyond that I'm trying to remain mostly ignorant.
@Waluigi451 that's fair, but Link is as silent as a protagonist gets. Honestly, Ganondorf could be a really compelling character as the once in a century son of the Gerudo burdened with leading them to survival and prosperity, for which he seeks ever greater power. Ultimately he'd be corruptible as any man convinced he's doing everything he does for the greater good, as he finally makes the fateful play for the Triforce, finishing the transformation into Ganon.
It goes without saying it has to be Hot Ganondorf.
I finally rolled credits on Trails of Cold Steel III and into Persona 5 Royal, which seems rather odd that I haven't played yet but I only own a single console on principle and my backlog is immense. Always have to have that 100 hour game going.
Other Persona/SMT games have really grated on me by the end, so I decided to play it more episodically with The Messenger to break up the experience and maybe a to-be-named third game. But man, Persona 5 is stylish in a way that feels like Cowboy Bebop did when it came out. Assuming the interpersonal drama doesn't wear me out, I'm going to have a tough time resisting it based on the first few hours.
@gcunit that's how it normally works if you're a bigger development group. Smaller ones looking to take a large growth step may be willing to take a bigger risk, even if it threatens the stability of the company.
And sometimes management just fails to listen to engineers or other advisors when told its either a bigger job than is being sold or that their business partner isn't as steadfast as management had hoped.
I get that the Switch isn't bleeding edge, but technically the videos look like a PS1 game given the Octopath treatment. I wanted to give it a go but it's hard to know what discount makes the risk worth it if it's not immediately clear that this is in a playable state yet.
The SNES Classic gave me a few things: Secret of Mana did not age well for combat with the incessant cooldowns and spell grinding. Earthbound lives on in my heart, but man that battle system is hard to go back to. I worry that an official Mother 3 release will probably fall into that.
I've been putting off Link's Awakening for the reason noted above, it was clunky then swapping items on two buttons and the remake reportedly didn't stick the landing.
Still chipping away at Trails of Cold Steel 3. I'm getting all the great swag to the point I'm game breaking and might try on Nightmare but maybe I'll just finish out.
Fighting the urge to play Unicorn Overlord which I got at a great sale as a physical - it's always walking that line to get the sale before used copies flood the market and drive new back up. I feel like a great economic mind when I get it right, even though I very much am not.
The chili Link's Awakening style made me hopeful this would be a slightly silly "anything goes" with lore mix-and-match bits from everything (maybe even a chain chomp?). I didn't even remotely have this on my radar and I'm so beyond stoked it exists now.
So stoked. I'm glad they were able to keep the NES feel - I can still remember the game feeling like this in my head. Gaming is objectively better now, but there was something about when games started feeling BIG way back when.
@Diogmites I keep eyeballing Scarlet Grace when it comes on sale, but I bounced hard off the last Romancing SaGa (2) I played. How is it? I can tolerate a little jank and melodrama, but I didn't care for the characters and a lot of it felt a little same-y by a third of the way in.
Entering Chapter 4 of Trails of Cold Steel 3. They really bring the drama at those chapter wrapups (I know, in a trrTrails game?). Looking forward trading for all the sweet swag now that my item collecting habit pays off. Going to get in the time I can, as I'll be spending a chunk of time cooking for my daughter's birthday. A few fancy dishes have been requested
Also playing with some Raspberry Pi electronics - I started a project a while ago processing messages from Alexa skills to try to integrate voice activation for local devices that I'd like to prove out.
I'm all for it, although I do wonder how the first DW/DQ especially becomes a game that can stand on its own in the modern day without nostalgia carrying it. Maybe the trilogy is merged into a single experience in acts?
I got a lot of the feels in DQ XI, especially going back from Tickington for the past missions. There's a lot of that DNA that is in modern JRPGs to the point that those feel quaint (like in the SNES Era FF games) but those were just so new back then.
@YourDaddy that's the great part - you don't! The stories are not directly connected, with the exception of one key side quest chain that I won't spoil.
I enjoyed the first one but it had its flaws. If you're bouncing off the first one from the disjointed stories and/or grindiness, you may prefer just to move on since they tweaked the second game to address that.
@YourDaddy the second one is much better, and it's easier to farm Caits and Octopuffs so you may find yourself OP without a lot of effort. By the last chapters I was rolling bosses on the first break.
Working this weekend, so not a lot of time to play, maybe a game of Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Brothers Ultimate with the kidlets. Still in my quest to catch up on the Legend of Heroes series, although Falcom is coming out with games faster than I can finish them 😅
@Duncanballs I think the Crossbell Duology is fine if you don't want to start from the beginning. There will be some callbacks but you won't be lost. Frankly the line between past character you missed and a completely new character with really confusing motivations is pretty thin.
Unpopular opinion, but if you play those, you can jump into Cold Steel 3 without being completely baffled by the goings-on. Will you get more out of it? Sure. But it also cuts out a 5 game prerequisite.
I don't think I've seen the concept of bullet hell/rpg at all outside of Undertale, and that seemed kind of gimmicky, if really innovative. I'm interested to see where this ends up going.
It sucks that we've reached the point in which there is extractive industry for other real business as the norm (it's happened since GE). I feel for the people who love the games they make enough for it to be their livelihood, but it's hard to see how we have an industry years down the line once the talent responsible decides the love of their work doesn't keep them from losing their home and works for a telecom or something.
Maybe it's reading too far into it, but highly skilled labor in other industries don't typically accept that kind of volatility. I would probably start updating my resume the second the word 'equity' pops up in relation to leadership of my organization.
@amongtheworms the first time down in the depths is scary, especially when you fell in unprepared by accident and immediately run into a gloom Lynel 😅. You're a braver human than I for going no fast travel.
@deecas I think you'll find a lot of spirited disagreement in the series because everyone has different value on complex story vs. deep gameplay. XII is extremely fiddly with the systems and is almost a solo MMO, whereas X/XIII are the opposite (although also fiddly with certain aspects). They all have their flaws, but if you like JRPGs of any flavor there's probably one more you'll latch onto (I will die on the hill that VI is forever the peak).
Even VIII has its charm with odd systems and a story that completely jumps the rails at a certain point 😅
Continuing on Trails of Cold Steel 3, wherein I'm caught the trademarked avalanche of lore and side quests and figuring out how I'm going to build out my party. I still like the legacy party members much better but damned if I'm not making the new class into a force.
I was also thinking of trying Ori and the Blind Forest for a bit here and there as a change up. It gets hard to go all in on an expansive JRPG at times.
Just hit chapter 2 in Trails of Cold Steel 3. Still waiting the cast to grow on me, but I've been playing LoH long enough that I'm already starting to break the battle system, a proud tradition in JRPGs.
Otherwise working on things around the house and engaging in life this weekend as well. It's spring and I'm at a brief lull so I'm taking advantage of that to fit in what I can. Might also fit in a couple rounds of Ultimate Chicken Horse or Mario Kart 8 with my youngest.
I have a pretty high tolerance for lengthy games, but Chrono Trigger is the platonic ideal of RPGs for a reason. The gameplay doesn't allow endless fiddling, you just keep driving forward. On the other end of the scpectrum, I have never played an Atlus game that didn't feel like another job for the final 15-20 hours, and I am a fan of the Trails games.
I like single-shot stories like Gris and Oxenfree, and I really enjoyed the way Hades could have limited length in runs but the story somehow keeps going well after you "win."
Maybe they need more NFTs or whatever it is generative AI would get them.
I'm concerned they're conflating "quality" with "cost," which isn't quite the lesson to take from it. There's a lot to be said for a successful AA game (your Octopath Travelers and Secrets of Mana). This strategy would not have prevented Forspoken from tanking them the year prior. I think both they and Sony overestimated how much someone is willing to drop $500 to pay another ~$200 for a three-part remake of a 27 year old game (for example) if they weren't otherwise inclined to get a Playstation.
After a move, travel for work, and a brutal end to a semester, things settled down and I'm playing Trails of Cold Steel III. Still fairly early but enjoying it a lot. It feels good to rest, gaming is a stress relief and also the first thing to get cut when I get stressed 😅
@Spider-Kev agreed. The movie will be wasted potential if they don't have Link find all 900 Koroks
In all seriousness tho, I just hope he's played enough of them to get the point but not enough to obsess over the multiple heroes multiple timelines thing
Kinda feels like Tales of Symphonia. I was looking forward to it on Switch, but it was unplayable at release and I haven't heard a lot of people talking about it anymore if it actually did get fixed. Disappointing, but my backlog is big enough without a broken afterimage of Suikoden.
Blaming the hardware might be more plausible if it didnt look like a game that could have come out more than ten years ago.
I would expect this is less about branding and more about pushing all the bad debt on one company and torching it. This was really the only logical outcome of having your entire plan hinge on getting investment money that fell through.
For the rest I'll withhold judgement for when actual games get released, although that does not appear to be a prioritized goal at this time.
Picked up Ultimate Chicken Horse at a discount to play with my daughters a bit this weekend, but mostly in the end stages of classes so I'm not even getting as much of that as I'd like.
Decided I'm finally going to play Trails of Cold Steel III when I free up a bit. After the Crossbell Duology, I figured I can just play Sky games as prequels, and I'll deal with I&II if they're ever localized on a console I own. Onward!
Still trying to tie up Octopath Traveler II, which is really a matter of stepping through Osvald's story and whatever comes after that. I'm catastrophically overpowered and the battles are trivial, but finding the time with work, school, moving, and family has been difficult. The woes of a balanced life, I suppose.
I also want to play Oxenfree II: The Lost Signals if I get the chance, but I likely will not 😅
It doesn't make a lot of sense to say you're pricing for the veneer of quality and that it's not sustainable - that's direct acknowledgement of being the problem. What amazes me is that companies know by the time it's priced whether it's worth it - TotK was, a number of other titles most certainly were not but went forward anyway.
I don't particularly care if your company dumped nine figures if you ended up with a mid game. That's not a great case for handing over a premium.
Mostly finishing off stories in Octopath Traveler II, although I might have made the progress I'm going to make for the weekend already. Taking my wife for a modest getaway and I have some homework to do as well. Still, I'm close enough to be thinking about the next game, I'm waffling between 13 Sentinels and Persona 5 Royal for my next overly ambitious time commitment, even if that's probably a week off.
@Rayquaza2510 if they did a full rebuild in a new SDK, that could have potentially been a major undertaking under the hood even if it doesn't show much on the user side. There can be some nightmarish nuances switching tool chains, even just to a newer version.
I like a good JRPG to kind of meander through some unstructured time, especially in the winter. If there's one that feels like that to me, it'd be Earthbound.
Right now I'm plinking single chapters in Octopath Traveler II. I haven't had much time to play but managed to get most of the team to the point that I'm taking late-game bosses down after a single break (I inadvertently faced the Deep One back to back and the Scourge of the Seas three times in a row without an issue). On one hand I'm ridiculously OP, on the other, at least they seemed to have fixed the grindiness of the original.
Also, my youngest is starting up Undertale and going in blind. I'm enjoying hanging out with her while she laughs boisterously at it (the inventory dog bit made me laugh harder than I have at a game in years).
@Bobb I've checked out of most online game spaces because of reactionary tantrums. Not every game needs to be Elden Ring, and shockingly, a lot of people prefer that to be the case.
Heavens to Murgatroyd, some sites review this like Kirby games haven't been successful for decades.
Super Mario World arguably perfected 2D platforming, so objectively it should be the pick. But there's something about what SMB3 captured, introducing secrets and powerups and weird one off level concepts that just weren't something we even imagined from games before. And there have been so many great games since then, so there aren't a lot of wrong answers.
I'm into the third chapters in Octopath Traveler II but I've been relentlessly exploring the world and have encountered a large number of Caits and Octopuffs. As a result my party has near endgame leveling and a full loadouts of powerful weapons, so I expect I'll probably blaze through the rest of the story within the next week or so.
Playing Octopath Traveler 2 and appreciating it being somewhat episodic so I can play in chunks while going to touch grass from time to time. The exploration is way more interesting than in the first.
Also finished AI: The Somnium Files, which was really good but by the end I was really over the Psych sequences. Worth the $8 or so on an eShop sale.
@imadeanaccount the stories in the original are wildly varying in quality, and you only get hints as to the greater events as you get to the end of each route. If you miss out on a couple of sidequests you won't trigger the true ending, and it's a grind fest to get to that.
I liked it a lot overall, but I also have a hard time recommending a game that takes 30-40 hours to get good to someone who wasn't already receptive (except Dragon Quest XI).
Comments 338
Re: Warner Bros. Is Reportedly Looking To Sell A Stake In Its Games Business
This is what happens when you go in without any really knowledge, notice that active live service games are immensely profitable, and proclaim "we'll have an immensely profitable live service game" to investors, without understanding how much effort it takes to make a successful one, the failure rate, and the cost of tanking, all while banking on the commercial viability of the DC universe, which is a pale shadow of Marvel that many are already burned out on.
If regular people weren't the ones losing their jobs, I'd say it couldn't have happened to a nicer group of people.
Re: All Humble Games Staff Reportedly Laid Off As Publisher Announces "Restructuring"
So the company exists, but no one involved in anything you liked is working there anymore. It's functionally a new company.
I love video games (it's why we're here!) but I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone would be a dev in the industry. The pay scale in the industry is at the bottom edge of the skillet and qualifications, the hours are atrocious, and you're basically just a contractor these days to be cut unceremoniously to make numbers dance for quarterly earnings even after releasing a highly successful project.
Re: Rumour: 'Tales Of Xillia Remastered' Switch Release Spotted Online
I got through Vesperia which I mostly enjoyed but it started to drag near the end. I would be interested in this, but I'd wait to see the reviews on the port since Bandai burned a lot of people with Abyss.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (20th July)
Wound up with more free time than expected this weekend, so I'm going to try to finish The Messenger. Making up my mind whether to stick with Persona 5 Royal or shift to a different game, namely Ys VIII: Lacrymosa of Dana, which I've false started on at least 4 times.
Also working an electronics-based experiment and some minor hiking and cooking a fancy dinner.
Happy gaming everyone!
Re: Production On Sea Of Stars DLC Is "Going Well", Says Sabotage Studio
@KimBread it can be any of the above. Many DLCs put on an extra chapter, some off your built save and some slightly outside of it. Xenoblade 2 made an entire standalone prequel that you can buy as a separate game, to give you an extreme case.
The Sea of Stars one in particular has been described as a "side adventure," although beyond that I'm trying to remain mostly ignorant.
Re: Talking Point: Could Ganondorf Ever Be The Star Of A Zelda Game?
@Waluigi451 that's fair, but Link is as silent as a protagonist gets. Honestly, Ganondorf could be a really compelling character as the once in a century son of the Gerudo burdened with leading them to survival and prosperity, for which he seeks ever greater power. Ultimately he'd be corruptible as any man convinced he's doing everything he does for the greater good, as he finally makes the fateful play for the Triforce, finishing the transformation into Ganon.
It goes without saying it has to be Hot Ganondorf.
Re: Random: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Overtakes NES Lifetime Sales
Not a new take, but this has a problem like Smash Ultimate - it's hard to see what the next installment really adds aside from just "more."
Re: Feature: "Hades In Particular Further Opened Our Eyes" - TMNT: Splintered Fate Dev Talks Crafting A Radical Roguelike
Hades but with Ninja Turtles. I'm so in.
It's fine to copy someone's homework if it's the smart kid's and you change enough to make it look like your own.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (6th July)
I finally rolled credits on Trails of Cold Steel III and into Persona 5 Royal, which seems rather odd that I haven't played yet but I only own a single console on principle and my backlog is immense. Always have to have that 100 hour game going.
Other Persona/SMT games have really grated on me by the end, so I decided to play it more episodically with The Messenger to break up the experience and maybe a to-be-named third game. But man, Persona 5 is stylish in a way that feels like Cowboy Bebop did when it came out. Assuming the interpersonal drama doesn't wear me out, I'm going to have a tough time resisting it based on the first few hours.
Happy gaming everyone!
Re: Square Enix And Nintendo Co-Dev Reports Losses After Multiple Projects Cancelled
@gcunit that's how it normally works if you're a bigger development group. Smaller ones looking to take a large growth step may be willing to take a bigger risk, even if it threatens the stability of the company.
And sometimes management just fails to listen to engineers or other advisors when told its either a bigger job than is being sold or that their business partner isn't as steadfast as management had hoped.
Re: Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes Receives Another Switch Update, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
I get that the Switch isn't bleeding edge, but technically the videos look like a PS1 game given the Octopath treatment. I wanted to give it a go but it's hard to know what discount makes the risk worth it if it's not immediately clear that this is in a playable state yet.
Re: Talking Point: What Games Are You Nervous To Replay In Case They Don't Hold Up?
The SNES Classic gave me a few things: Secret of Mana did not age well for combat with the incessant cooldowns and spell grinding. Earthbound lives on in my heart, but man that battle system is hard to go back to. I worry that an official Mother 3 release will probably fall into that.
I've been putting off Link's Awakening for the reason noted above, it was clunky then swapping items on two buttons and the remake reportedly didn't stick the landing.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (29th June)
Still chipping away at Trails of Cold Steel 3. I'm getting all the great swag to the point I'm game breaking and might try on Nightmare but maybe I'll just finish out.
Fighting the urge to play Unicorn Overlord which I got at a great sale as a physical - it's always walking that line to get the sale before used copies flood the market and drive new back up. I feel like a great economic mind when I get it right, even though I very much am not.
Happy gaming everyone!
Re: Feature: 25 Things You Might Have Missed In The Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom Reveal Trailer
The chili Link's Awakening style made me hopeful this would be a slightly silly "anything goes" with lore mix-and-match bits from everything (maybe even a chain chomp?). I didn't even remotely have this on my radar and I'm so beyond stoked it exists now.
Re: Hands On: Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Is Much More Than A Pretty Picture
So stoked. I'm glad they were able to keep the NES feel - I can still remember the game feeling like this in my head. Gaming is objectively better now, but there was something about when games started feeling BIG way back when.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (8th June)
@Diogmites I keep eyeballing Scarlet Grace when it comes on sale, but I bounced hard off the last Romancing SaGa (2) I played. How is it? I can tolerate a little jank and melodrama, but I didn't care for the characters and a lot of it felt a little same-y by a third of the way in.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (8th June)
Entering Chapter 4 of Trails of Cold Steel 3. They really bring the drama at those chapter wrapups (I know, in a trrTrails game?). Looking forward trading for all the sweet swag now that my item collecting habit pays off. Going to get in the time I can, as I'll be spending a chunk of time cooking for my daughter's birthday. A few fancy dishes have been requested
Also playing with some Raspberry Pi electronics - I started a project a while ago processing messages from Alexa skills to try to integrate voice activation for local devices that I'd like to prove out.
Happy gaming everyone!
Re: Soapbox: The Erdrick Trilogy Is The Right 'Dragon Quest' For The HD-2D Treatment
I'm all for it, although I do wonder how the first DW/DQ especially becomes a game that can stand on its own in the modern day without nostalgia carrying it. Maybe the trilogy is merged into a single experience in acts?
I got a lot of the feels in DQ XI, especially going back from Tickington for the past missions. There's a lot of that DNA that is in modern JRPGs to the point that those feel quaint (like in the SNES Era FF games) but those were just so new back then.
Nostalgia still coloring it 😅
Re: Octopath Traveler II Receives A Surprise Update On Switch Today
@YourDaddy that's the great part - you don't! The stories are not directly connected, with the exception of one key side quest chain that I won't spoil.
I enjoyed the first one but it had its flaws. If you're bouncing off the first one from the disjointed stories and/or grindiness, you may prefer just to move on since they tweaked the second game to address that.
Re: Square Enix RPG Octopath Traveler II Receives A Surprise Update
@YourDaddy the second one is much better, and it's easier to farm Caits and Octopuffs so you may find yourself OP without a lot of effort. By the last chapters I was rolling bosses on the first break.
[Redacted Superboss] is still some crap tho 😅
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (1st June)
@Link41x the height of option football from days long gone by.
I just feel compelled to recognize anyone who remembers that somewhat obscure little gem.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (1st June)
Working this weekend, so not a lot of time to play, maybe a game of Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Brothers Ultimate with the kidlets. Still in my quest to catch up on the Legend of Heroes series, although Falcom is coming out with games faster than I can finish them 😅
Happy gaming everyone!
Re: Feature: Is 'Trails Through Daybreak' The Fresh Beginning The Trails Series Needs?
@Duncanballs I think the Crossbell Duology is fine if you don't want to start from the beginning. There will be some callbacks but you won't be lost. Frankly the line between past character you missed and a completely new character with really confusing motivations is pretty thin.
Unpopular opinion, but if you play those, you can jump into Cold Steel 3 without being completely baffled by the goings-on. Will you get more out of it? Sure. But it also cuts out a 5 game prerequisite.
Re: Celeste Composer Reveals New Shmup RPG 'ANOTHEREAL'
I don't think I've seen the concept of bullet hell/rpg at all outside of Undertale, and that seemed kind of gimmicky, if really innovative. I'm interested to see where this ends up going.
Re: Take-Two CEO Responds To Reports Of Studio Shutdowns
It sucks that we've reached the point in which there is extractive industry for other real business as the norm (it's happened since GE). I feel for the people who love the games they make enough for it to be their livelihood, but it's hard to see how we have an industry years down the line once the talent responsible decides the love of their work doesn't keep them from losing their home and works for a telecom or something.
Maybe it's reading too far into it, but highly skilled labor in other industries don't typically accept that kind of volatility. I would probably start updating my resume the second the word 'equity' pops up in relation to leadership of my organization.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (25th May)
@amongtheworms the first time down in the depths is scary, especially when you fell in unprepared by accident and immediately run into a gloom Lynel 😅. You're a braver human than I for going no fast travel.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (25th May)
@deecas I think you'll find a lot of spirited disagreement in the series because everyone has different value on complex story vs. deep gameplay. XII is extremely fiddly with the systems and is almost a solo MMO, whereas X/XIII are the opposite (although also fiddly with certain aspects). They all have their flaws, but if you like JRPGs of any flavor there's probably one more you'll latch onto (I will die on the hill that VI is forever the peak).
Even VIII has its charm with odd systems and a story that completely jumps the rails at a certain point 😅
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (25th May)
Continuing on Trails of Cold Steel 3, wherein I'm caught the trademarked avalanche of lore and side quests and figuring out how I'm going to build out my party. I still like the legacy party members much better but damned if I'm not making the new class into a force.
I was also thinking of trying Ori and the Blind Forest for a bit here and there as a change up. It gets hard to go all in on an expansive JRPG at times.
Happy gaming everyone!
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (18th May)
Just hit chapter 2 in Trails of Cold Steel 3. Still waiting the cast to grow on me, but I've been playing LoH long enough that I'm already starting to break the battle system, a proud tradition in JRPGs.
Otherwise working on things around the house and engaging in life this weekend as well. It's spring and I'm at a brief lull so I'm taking advantage of that to fit in what I can. Might also fit in a couple rounds of Ultimate Chicken Horse or Mario Kart 8 with my youngest.
Re: Talking Point: Which Games Were Just The Perfect Length?
I have a pretty high tolerance for lengthy games, but Chrono Trigger is the platonic ideal of RPGs for a reason. The gameplay doesn't allow endless fiddling, you just keep driving forward. On the other end of the scpectrum, I have never played an Atlus game that didn't feel like another job for the final 15-20 hours, and I am a fan of the Trails games.
I like single-shot stories like Gris and Oxenfree, and I really enjoyed the way Hades could have limited length in runs but the story somehow keeps going well after you "win."
Re: Square Enix To "Aggressively Pursue" Multiplatform Strategy, Includes "Nintendo Platforms"
Maybe they need more NFTs or whatever it is generative AI would get them.
I'm concerned they're conflating "quality" with "cost," which isn't quite the lesson to take from it. There's a lot to be said for a successful AA game (your Octopath Travelers and Secrets of Mana). This strategy would not have prevented Forspoken from tanking them the year prior. I think both they and Sony overestimated how much someone is willing to drop $500 to pay another ~$200 for a three-part remake of a 27 year old game (for example) if they weren't otherwise inclined to get a Playstation.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (11th May)
After a move, travel for work, and a brutal end to a semester, things settled down and I'm playing Trails of Cold Steel III. Still fairly early but enjoying it a lot. It feels good to rest, gaming is a stress relief and also the first thing to get cut when I get stressed 😅
Happy gaming everyone!
Re: Random: Zelda Movie Director (Kind Of) Doesn't Want To Reveal His Favourite Game In The Series
@Spider-Kev agreed. The movie will be wasted potential if they don't have Link find all 900 Koroks
In all seriousness tho, I just hope he's played enough of them to get the point but not enough to obsess over the multiple heroes multiple timelines thing
Re: Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes
Kinda feels like Tales of Symphonia. I was looking forward to it on Switch, but it was unplayable at release and I haven't heard a lot of people talking about it anymore if it actually did get fixed. Disappointing, but my backlog is big enough without a broken afterimage of Suikoden.
Blaming the hardware might be more plausible if it didnt look like a game that could have come out more than ten years ago.
Re: Embracer Group To Split Into Three Separate Companies
I would expect this is less about branding and more about pushing all the bad debt on one company and torching it. This was really the only logical outcome of having your entire plan hinge on getting investment money that fell through.
For the rest I'll withhold judgement for when actual games get released, although that does not appear to be a prioritized goal at this time.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (20th April)
Picked up Ultimate Chicken Horse at a discount to play with my daughters a bit this weekend, but mostly in the end stages of classes so I'm not even getting as much of that as I'd like.
Decided I'm finally going to play Trails of Cold Steel III when I free up a bit. After the Crossbell Duology, I figured I can just play Sky games as prequels, and I'll deal with I&II if they're ever localized on a console I own. Onward!
Re: Talking Point: Nintendo Indie World Showcase Predictions - What Do You Expect To See?
The words of [redacted] will not pass my lips. And yet...
I'm also super excited by Neva if it is coming. Gris was almost bordering on life changing, so I'm eager to see what's next.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (13th April)
Still trying to tie up Octopath Traveler II, which is really a matter of stepping through Osvald's story and whatever comes after that. I'm catastrophically overpowered and the battles are trivial, but finding the time with work, school, moving, and family has been difficult. The woes of a balanced life, I suppose.
I also want to play Oxenfree II: The Lost Signals if I get the chance, but I likely will not 😅
Re: Saber Interactive CEO Doesn't Think $70 Video Games Are Sustainable
It doesn't make a lot of sense to say you're pricing for the veneer of quality and that it's not sustainable - that's direct acknowledgement of being the problem. What amazes me is that companies know by the time it's priced whether it's worth it - TotK was, a number of other titles most certainly were not but went forward anyway.
I don't particularly care if your company dumped nine figures if you ended up with a mid game. That's not a great case for handing over a premium.
Re: Random: Capcom Reveals "Most Popular" Games And Comments From Fan Survey
@Grail_Quest I dare say it might also be the last time Capcom pushes those words out in a release 😐
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (30th March)
Mostly finishing off stories in Octopath Traveler II, although I might have made the progress I'm going to make for the weekend already. Taking my wife for a modest getaway and I have some homework to do as well. Still, I'm close enough to be thinking about the next game, I'm waffling between 13 Sentinels and Persona 5 Royal for my next overly ambitious time commitment, even if that's probably a week off.
Happy weekend everyone!
Re: Nintendo Switch System Update 18.0.0 Is Now Live, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
@Rayquaza2510 if they did a full rebuild in a new SDK, that could have potentially been a major undertaking under the hood even if it doesn't show much on the user side. There can be some nightmarish nuances switching tool chains, even just to a newer version.
Re: Talking Point: What's Your Perfect Sunday Morning Game?
I like a good JRPG to kind of meander through some unstructured time, especially in the winter. If there's one that feels like that to me, it'd be Earthbound.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (23rd March)
Right now I'm plinking single chapters in Octopath Traveler II. I haven't had much time to play but managed to get most of the team to the point that I'm taking late-game bosses down after a single break (I inadvertently faced the Deep One back to back and the Scourge of the Seas three times in a row without an issue). On one hand I'm ridiculously OP, on the other, at least they seemed to have fixed the grindiness of the original.
Also, my youngest is starting up Undertale and going in blind. I'm enjoying hanging out with her while she laughs boisterously at it (the inventory dog bit made me laugh harder than I have at a game in years).
Happy weekend to those that can observe!
Re: Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Princess Peach: Showtime!
@Bobb I've checked out of most online game spaces because of reactionary tantrums. Not every game needs to be Elden Ring, and shockingly, a lot of people prefer that to be the case.
Heavens to Murgatroyd, some sites review this like Kirby games haven't been successful for decades.
Re: Talking Point: What's Your Personal Favourite Super Mario Game?
Super Mario World arguably perfected 2D platforming, so objectively it should be the pick. But there's something about what SMB3 captured, introducing secrets and powerups and weird one off level concepts that just weren't something we even imagined from games before. And there have been so many great games since then, so there aren't a lot of wrong answers.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (16th March)
I'm into the third chapters in Octopath Traveler II but I've been relentlessly exploring the world and have encountered a large number of Caits and Octopuffs. As a result my party has near endgame leveling and a full loadouts of powerful weapons, so I expect I'll probably blaze through the rest of the story within the next week or so.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (March 9th)
Playing Octopath Traveler 2 and appreciating it being somewhat episodic so I can play in chunks while going to touch grass from time to time. The exploration is way more interesting than in the first.
Also finished AI: The Somnium Files, which was really good but by the end I was really over the Psych sequences. Worth the $8 or so on an eShop sale.
Re: Trails Through Daybreak Storms Onto Switch This July
Still need to finish the Erebonian arc and Reverie and I do not at all have the time to even do that this year, and maybe not the next either 😵
Re: Former Switch Exclusive Octopath Traveler "Delisted" On The eShop, But There's No Need To Worry
@imadeanaccount the stories in the original are wildly varying in quality, and you only get hints as to the greater events as you get to the end of each route. If you miss out on a couple of sidequests you won't trigger the true ending, and it's a grind fest to get to that.
I liked it a lot overall, but I also have a hard time recommending a game that takes 30-40 hours to get good to someone who wasn't already receptive (except Dragon Quest XI).