moodymcsorley

@Susurrus I tried it out with my Switch 2 and Switch, and it works.

This would be really nice with mouse controls, too.

Shiren the Wanderer 6. Only found out about this series in November and am loving it.

@KY502ShinyHunter Here here for Shiren 6! Never heard of the series either, and when I tried it I realized that a lot of what I've been wishing from games the last few years of my life is exactly what the game brings.

@Purgatorium It's a strength of the game, but only if you like it. The second half and its difficulty was my favorite part of the game. Definitely polarizing.

@NintendoByNature Having played the game, I found that it was difficult but not confusing nor grindy. The difficulty spike in the second half of the game comes from the fact that the game basically blocks you from grinding and instead expects you to succeed by discovering the best strategy for its bosses.

And that was the polarizing aspect of it because you have different personas of JRPG players (neither better than the other). Some like just earning their victory through time invested in leveling their characters. If they hit a boss that wipes them, they'll just put in the time to grind and return at a higher level. But then you have others who want to make the most of all of the available options that their party has and respeccing their characters. The original game rewarded the latter JRPG fans but hindered the former.

Even though I'm a big fan of the game, I believe this is a fair review. My impression plus what I've seen from others' comments over the years is that there is definitely a niche audience for Fantasian's difficulty spike in its second half. I was a big fan of this aspect even though I've never pushed myself that far for a JRPG before. I think the final boss, probably the most difficult boss I've ever fought, took me anywhere from 4-8 tries, but it felt so good when I won.

Now I'm excited.

Unfortunately, the trailer didn't excite me because it emphasized how the game allows exploring the possibility space of a sandbox system, which isn't really what I go to Zelda (nor most of the games I enjoy) for. It's great that players that do enjoy such things are turbo excited about it.

If I feel like I already explored most of a world, I'm not too eager to revisit if the value of reexploring it is predicated on how I traverse it is different. But I'm hoping that the rest of the game delivers, though. Don't wanna dismiss it too soon.

As others have pointed out, she also did the beautiful and ethereal SNES SimCity soundtrack, which is definitely in my top 5 video game soundtracks.

Listening to the album, it sounds like she hasn't missed a beat from where she last left off! That'd be amazing if they had her do a new original Mario Kart composition in the remaining MK8 Deluxe DLC.

@Browny Just two weeks ago I started playing RK again (I never was committed: probably just around 100 total logins). and said to myself, "I forgot how much I enjoyed this!" Then the EOS announcement came, and I stopped playing completely.

I also played TB for a brief spell when it came out and was hoping to return to it a few months ago. When I saw it wasn't around anymore, I had a similar thought as I do abot RK: "Why can't they make a standalone, 'permanent' version of the game?"

So your point really sticks, unfortunately: The shutdown of these games reveals a get in, get out cash grab situation. But if they tried to respect the game's legacy with a one-time purchase offline edition, it'd give some artistic merit to the gacha model.

@Browny This just happened with Final Fantasy Record Keeper. Last week, an in-game announcement informed players that the service is ending in September. Many players who put in tons of both time and money are grieving over it.

What I find unfortunate is that there doesn't seem to be incentive for companies to make a "farewell" offline release of their game after the service shuts down. From a game design standpoint, it'd be really cool that a game could be in development for x years and regularly bring in money so that the gameplay experience and content can be expanded and fine-tuned.

edit: I somehow forgot to wrap up my last point. It'd be cool to see all that time and effort be ossified into a "final version" that people in later generations of gaming could return to and enjoy.

@Ooyah Yeah---Roland definitely doesn't come off as a wholly epic fantasy name at first glance. The genre definitely tries to steer away from names we see as common for the sake of exoticism.

If I can play the naysayer, consider the following:

• The name Roland has significance in literary history with the French epic poem "The Song of Roland," which may have also inspired the poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" that eventually inspired Stephen King's Dark Tower series (as @Lugazz points out).
• The medieval periods that these fantasies are aesthetically inspired by often had noble figures with such plain names.