High enough regard to be very profitable, which makes the job cuts even more ridiculous.

I’m probably still not getting this at full price, but there do seem to be a lot of little things adding up to a positive product here. Still really bummed that they didn’t orchestrate the music, though.

I put my Shart in a crit build every single run simply because the voice lines are so good.

Feels weird to say, but Jennifer English might have a unique talent for combat cries. She’s really good with it in Expedition 33, too.

Alicesoft is one of the major dev studios in this exact space, but their games range from having some non-con to outright featuring it. Not for everyone.

Stardew Valley’s success had more to do with smart marketing than anything. The game has the exact same formula as Story of Seasons and Rune Factory, which are very corporate-run series, just not at AAA scale. The difference was Eric Barone cultivating word-of-mouth marketing via influencers and online communities to reintroduce the genre to the Western market (along with lucking into capitalizing on what was then a more nascent pixel art indie gaming trend).

Undertale’s a good example, though (I’ll still note this particular example is a huge spoiler). I did the thing and it was a very fresh idea, and one of the best hooks I’ve seen in a video game. Thing is though, I doubt even 10% took that route to see it. That’s something the game has in common with Baldur’s Gate 3, which is full of those low-percentage moments. AAA devs don’t like investing a lot of resources into things most people aren’t going to see.

I think this is the fourth I’ve seen now? Would make for an interesting article.

I could be way off, but I feel like all this is an overreaction for something like Silksong. The last time we saw a dodge like this was Elden Ring and I don’t think it’s going to be anything like that. Maybe it is in the indie space, I don’t know.

This article drives me nuts every time I see it. 3,000 words inventing a problem for a series that boils down to a very simple concept:

• Trails is a video game series with a continuous narrative
• That continuity is the reason to play the series

The place to start with this series is the first game in the story–the first Sky game–just like you’d start with the first episode of Game of Thrones or the first book of Wheel of Time. None of the games are “skippable” any more than a season of GoT or a book of WoT is. There are many moments in Trails that may not seem relevant in the moment that set up plot lines for later (sometimes much, much later). The whole “Crossbell spoils Cold Steel” bit isn’t a thing, either. Stories sometimes have parallel narratives, and sometimes writers give you information in a non-linear way. This is intentional.

And yes, you can start with a later game, but if you do, you’re playing an experience that isn’t fully intended for you. And here’s where I’ll be honest: without that full experience, some of these games are very average JRPGs. What sets these games apart from the pack is how they connect to each other, from the stories to the lore to the setting to the characters. Why not meet Trails on its own selling point? There are hundreds of JRPGs with great stand-alone experiences if that’s what you want today.

I started Crying Suns and have been very impressed with the art and the story, both the greater narrative and the script. Not sure about the combat just yet, maybe my tactics are just bad.

Overall though, I don’t know how how the hell this one passed me by. Commanding a spaceship and roguelite gameplay, it’s exactly the sort of thing I love.

Honkai: Star Rail. I love turn-based RPGs, and it continues to have the best turn-based combat I’ve ever played. The main story also has my favorite fiction trope (a shake-up of a pantheon) and it’s got amazing music, so it just hits a lot of really good spots for me.

Having played a chunk of the demo with Japanese audio, this hasn’t been a literal translation situation. It’s a standard JRPG localization, closer to NISA’s work with the series than XSEED’s that was on the loose side.

Yeah, was a solid move to echo the series opening with the in-game engine.

A roguelite structure seems like a natural fit for the premise, too.

Yeah, I’m not as down on the rebrand as everyone else seems to be, but this logo is a complete failure.

Or buying a lot of MTX in few games.

I know gaming enthusiasts don’t want to hear it, but a huge chunk of the market is people attached to one or two live service games.

Best gaming news I’ve heard in a while. This was a fantastic new IP and really shows a lot of promise for future games. Really excited to see where they take this world.

I still see the fifth generation as a lost one for pixel art. The games that do it really well in that era are few and far between (Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Suikoden, Breath of Fire IV) and even those still had 3D elements in them that have aged like milk.

I too grew up more on pixel art, but the problem I always had with 3D in the 90’s was that–on an objective, technical level–it was already being done so much better elsewhere than it was on PlayStation and the others. Both PC and arcades were consistently driving much higher framerates, and by the late 90’s, far better picture quality. It wasn’t even four years after the PSX that the Dreamcast launched and completely outclassed it in graphics potential. I feel the move to 3D in the console market was just too early. I guess I can sort of see why some would be nostalgic for it, but to me this trend is the equivalent of being nostalgic for 19th century movies.

What I don’t get is why this trend is happening now. The tech’s been there for indies and the like to do this for a while. The demo for people old enough to grow up with these games has also long been in disposable income territory. Maybe we’re just oversaturated with pixel art at this point?

Even though I liked ME2 and 3 a bit more, the series overall still has my favorite Bioware cast by a mile and one of my favorite casts in gaming.

The ironic thing is I actually find the setting kinda hokey, but the moment-to-moment action is fantastic. The exposition dump towards the end of ME1 that sets the stage for the larger conflict was so satisfying. A classic example of solid script writing and characterization elevating overall plot and setting.

Impossible to rank, so I’ll pull from at random from a top 25 I did not long ago:

• Trails to Azure - This one had a massive impact on me, from musings on depression and self-worth to love for a city, a community, and the hard choices that come from that love. Incredible story and character writing. All boosted by a well-developed world with a lot of moving parts and a crazy good soundtrack.
• WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames - Endlessly replayable. Holds up even to this day. Every time I think about it, I’m amazed at how they got lightning in a bottle with this new idea.
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Just one of those games where every single facet clicked for me. Visuals, writing, setting, soundtrack, gameplay, meta-gameplay, decision points. All of it.

Unfortunately it’s a thing when going back to older games after being living in the map marker era for so long. This is a big part of why games back then came with annotated maps so you’d at least have a reference for all the locations.

I’d say at the minimum, don’t be afraid to pull up maps and take notes.

Setting aside how unusual it is for overall spend to decrease in this age cohort (I encourage people to read the WSJ report linked in this article), this is the only comment here that hits on the most newsworthy part of this. Video games have been recession-resistant for decades, but now we’re seeing it as a leading category for cutbacks. Even though gaming is a low-cost hobby, zoomers have found alternatives, and that surely includes F2P games.

While trends haven’t been great for a while now, this is the most alarming data I’ve seen yet for the traditional gaming market. I feel like I’m gonna blink and there’s going to be a generational divide like there is with baseball.

Fire Emblem Engage. Only the third FE I’ve tried, I go back and forth on whether this series is for me. At this point, this one might be my favorite out of the ones I’ve played. The cast is really weird overall but I still quite like a few of them. I also like the character advancement and Engage systems. It’s fun to tinker with my party. The battles also seem to have less of the nonsense and more of the kind of strategy I like than in the others.