General Game Chat

[Moonface]

If it's only the big hitters, then it'd be weird that both Baten Kaitos games are getting remasters, but Paper Mario wouldn't. Quick check online tells me that, worldwide, it pushed nearly 2 million units. I can't find any numbers for Baten Kaitos, but that in and of itself should tell you a lot about how many copies those games sold. And for reference, Metroid Prime sold 2.84 million according to the sources I could find.

According to Wikipedia, the first game was expected to sell 500,000 units and it seems the game probably didn't even reach 50% of that goal, while the second one sold 14,000 units in its first week in Japan. It might be that the games are being remastered because the first game was published under Namco, and maybe Nintendo feels Monolith in their current form could give it a strong revival. It might even be that Monolith convinced Nintendo to let them remake it given their track record with Xenoblade, and it gives them something new to try outside of Xenoblade that doesn't require a whole new IP creation.
It does make me wonder though if Xenosaga would ever get remade down the road if the Baten Kaitos remake does well. I'd expect Monolith to go back to their Baten Kaitos 3 plans they abandoned and actually bring that game to fruition first before adding another IP onto their rotation.

[Moonface]

Ugh, I hate when games give you NOTHING to refresh yourself on how to play it when you've not touched it in ages. Just tried to pick up Kena again and there's nothing to re-learn combat techniques and mechanics, so I'm stuck just dying repeatedly in enemy encounters randomly figuring out what things I can do and how. It's so painful...

[ShiraNoMai]

Between that and being locked-in on a particular mission you were last stuck on has to be one of the worst game-revisiting feelings ever

[Moonface]

Private Division Announces Publishing Partnership with Game Freak
Private Division, a publishing label of Take-Two, have announced a partnership with Game Freak to publish the developers new action-adventure IP codenamed Project Bloom. This piece of concept art that was released alongside the announcement seems to indicate the game will focus around a samurai-type character:

From the beginning, Private Division was the publisher we wanted to work with on our new game. Their track record and global expertise give us all the confidence to create a sweeping new action-adventure game that we can’t wait to share more about in the future.

We’re ready to help Game Freak unleash their potential and we’re honored to be the first Western publisher to work alongside this exceptionally talented and proven team to bring a bold new IP to market.

You can read the full press announcement here: https://www.privatedivision.com/2023/05/...ame-freak/

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Anyone got any thoughts on this? Personally I am incredibly skeptical about this because any time Game Freak tried making something outside of Pokémon it never turned out very good, so I really can't imagine them making a game that comes close to looking like that concept art nor necessarily being very good to play regardless of how it looks.

[Moonface]

System Shock has Gone Gold
Posting this one mostly for @Maniakkid25 and didn't want it bundled into the post above for the sake of clarity between two different pieces of gaming news that I'm posting in here. So as the title says, the remake for System Shock has gone gold and will officially release on May 30: https://presse.plaion.com/CODE-COMPLETE-SYSTEMS-ONLINE

Anyone who pre-orders the game on any PC platform the game is being sold on will also receive a copy of System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition for free. Console versions of the remake are planned but details on their release dates will be shared at a future point in time.

For anyone curious about the remake, there is a demo available right now on Steam, GOG, and most other digital storefronts on PC. I might check it out myself unless my laptop isn't going to be able to run it, in which case I guess I'll just watch a demo playthrough instead and wait for the console release if I like what I see enough to want the game.

[Dragon Lord]

Yeah, I'm not going to expect too much out of that new Gamefreak game. I've heard that Giga Wrecker Alt ended up being an absolute garbage bomb (I haven't played my copy of it yet, so I don't know from personal experience). We'll see I guess, game isn't slated to release until late 2024 or 2025 I believe, so plenty of time to see what they cook up.

As for being refreshed on how to play a game you haven't played in a while... it's called... git gud teehee~

[Moonface]

Yeah, I'm not going to expect too much out of that new Gamefreak game. I've heard that Giga Wrecker Alt ended up being an absolute garbage bomb (I haven't played my copy of it yet, so I don't know from personal experience). We'll see I guess, game isn't slated to release until late 2024 or 2025 I believe, so plenty of time to see what they cook up.

I didn't even know Game Freak had released another game recently besides Little Town Hero. Quality of Project Bloom aside they need to really up their marketing game because anything non-Pokémon seems to really fly below the radar.

As for being refreshed on how to play a game you haven't played in a while... it's called... git gud teehee~

I beat the last two bosses of Kena today so I guess I got gud.

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Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg | Gameplay Footage + Previews
Posting this one for you @Dragon Lord since I recall you being interested in this, even if I suspect you may have already seen all of this stuff. So Chinese website Bahamut posted a 20 minute gameplay video for the upcoming Atelier Marie Remake, with some other sites writing up previews for the game:

While Atelier Marie's premise may be simple, it's full of charm and whimsy. It's a refreshing return to basics, especially coming off the most recent Atelier games: Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Dream and Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & The Secret Key. While those games feature large worlds rife with flora and fauna, complex synthesis systems, and near-mechanics-overload battle systems, Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg keeps the charm and simplicity of the original title.

Full Preview: RPGFan | Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg

What we were expecting when we sat down was something along the lines of the Atelier Ryza or Atelier Sophie games: an RPG with a local town hub where you explore nearby areas to fight monsters and collect reagents. However, what we got instead feels much more like an old Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons game by way of the Princess Makergames. Marlone ("Marie" to her friends) is in danger of flunking out of alchemy school, so her tutor gives her an atelier and five years to synthesize an item of astounding quality, or else Marie will be expelled. These "five years" is actual in-game time. "Okay, no big deal," we thought, "that's plenty for us to do stuff."

Full Preview: Anime News Network | Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg

Much like other Atelier games, the game revolves around gathering materials and crafting items for quests. However, this system is notably more barebones than in the more recent titles. While the Atelier Ryza games featured bustling towns full of NPCs handing out quests, Atelier Marie has a single tavern in a town consisting only of places required for your needs. It's not surprising, of course. This is a remake of a much older title that's been iterated on countless times, and so it feels stripped back as a result. However, it might feel a bit disappointing to newer fans of the series whose experience is with those larger, more complex titles.

Full Preview: Siliconera | Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg

[Moonface]

@Dragon Lord: Just noticed in your signature that the last game you got all the trophies for is Afterimage. How is that game? I hadn't heard of it until seeing a small bit of gameplay the other day when a streamer I watch was playing it and it looked neat, although what little I saw gave me a lot of Hollow Knight vibes.

[Dragon Lord]

I had a love-hate relationship with the game as I was playing it. There's a lot of highs for the game, but also a lot of very deep low points.

I felt the game was far too large in terms of map size, and it just wore out its welcome after a while. 'Dodging' doesn't actually have any iframes on from the start, and it makes it so you can't dash through enemies/attacks (something I feel is a major flaw in a 2D game). You later get an upgrade that gives you iframes on the dodge, but they are pretty minimal and I found that you would still get hit by a lot of attacks because your iframes wouldn't outlast the hitbox of the attack. Fast travel is extremely limited for a large portion of the game, which was a huge negative considering how massive the map is. You could teleport between the "main" points infinitely, but there are tons of smaller save points that you can't teleport to unless you have a consumable item to do so, and you don't find a shop to buy them until much later in the game. Money is extremely annoying to farm in the game because you just don't get much of it from enemies. Instead you have to farm enemy drops to sell to earn money, which is just kind of meh. Makes getting the trophy for buying one of each item from every shop in the game extremely annoying if you end up spending money on potions/teleport items through out the game. Story is absolutely nonsense and is told very sloppily. Especially considering that the game has absolutely no direction and you're left to just randomly wander the world to try and find where you're supposed to go next. The problem with this is that you can end up doing story events completely out of order with makes an already sloppy story even more impossible to follow. Speaking of no direction, this is where you really feel that the map is too big and the lack of being able to teleport around as freely as you should be makes the game feel like it's just dragging on for no good reasons. There's also a lot of bosses you encounter that don't actually serve any purpose other than to drop a new weapon. Makes the game feel a little bloated with a bunch of filler like that. Lastly, healing potions are way too limited/expensive to buy considering how much damage you end up taking because sometimes there's literally nothing you can really do about it. Even the Parry skill of the Greatswords still makes you eat some damage despite perfectly executing it.

The good stuff though is pretty damn good. Combat does feel fun despite the lack of an actual dodge for a majority of the game (and as I mentioned, even when you get the upgrade, it's still pretty bad). Considering that they went with "Souls-like" boss battles, not having a proper dodge is... just a head-scratcher of a move. The music is pretty great, the art style of the game is gorgeous, has a nice variety of weapons (I was thrilled to see both Scythe and Dual-Blades weapon types), a nice talent-tree system for learning skills for weapons/getting stat upgrades, has voice acting with I was surprised by (even more so that it included Japanese voices so I didn't have to suffer with the cringey English voice acting). The character we play as is pretty cute too, which isn't something that effects the game in any way, but figured I'd include it because it never hurts having a cute waifu to play as~

Long story short: I thought the game had a really good base and lots of upside, but also had very ugly downsides that really detracted from just how amazing the game could have been. If they make a second game, I really hope they'll polish up some of these aspects and also just give the player a true dodge from the start. I may go back and do the PS4 version for the double dip platinum and see if knowing where to go and not spending so much time lost makes the game feel more enjoyable or if it still feels like it overstays its welcome.

Oh, one thing I forgor to mention: The game lets you place markers on the map (though iirc the game tells you nothing of this), and I didn't see the option for it until pretty late into the game, so make sure you use it a LOT. Put markers any spots that have items you can't access yet, spots you need a new power to get through, locked doors, and especially at forks in the road, because there was a couple of times where I thought I had explored everything and couldn't figure out what to do, but it turned out that there was a point where I had to pick left or right, and I picked the path that went further into the game instead of the one that led to a boss that had a power I needed to advance, but the map looked like I had already uncovered everything in that area. If I had noticed the marking feature sooner, I could have placed a marker there to signify that there was another path to take there despite the map making it look like there was nothing else there.

[Moonface]

I felt the game was far too large in terms of map size, and it just wore out its welcome after a while.

Especially considering that the game has absolutely no direction and you're left to just randomly wander the world to try and find where you're supposed to go next. The problem with this is that you can end up doing story events completely out of order with makes an already sloppy story even more impossible to follow. Speaking of no direction, this is where you really feel that the map is too big and the lack of being able to teleport around as freely as you should be makes the game feel like it's just dragging on for no good reasons.

So the streamer I saw briefly playing it played it again the other day so I got to see a bit more of it, and they shared a similar sentiment to this as well as saying that even though it's a Metroidvania so you're supposed to explore, the map is too large to not be giving the player any indication of where to go a lot of the time.

'Dodging' doesn't actually have any iframes on from the start, and it makes it so you can't dash through enemies/attacks (something I feel is a major flaw in a 2D game). You later get an upgrade that gives you iframes on the dodge, but they are pretty minimal and I found that you would still get hit by a lot of attacks because your iframes wouldn't outlast the hitbox of the attack.

I was going to question why give the player a dodge if it has no i-frames, but I guess you can still use it to move out of the way of attacks. I saw a comment on the Steam page for the game saying that any skill tree upgrades are super minimal unless you throw a ton of points into one particular skill all at once so that it gets bumped up noticeably, and going by what you're saying about the dodge I guess they were being pretty on point with that remark.

 . . . the art style of the game is gorgeous . . . The character we play as is pretty cute too, which isn't something that effects the game in any way, but figured I'd include it because it never hurts having a cute waifu to play as~

Although I don't disagree that the art is really good (I particularly appreciate that it's all hand-drawn), something I kept noticing when watching dialogue scenes is that there were times where the art style of the player character and the art style of who you're talking to do not match at all. Like in this image for example the guy on the right has way more detailed shading than she does, and I initially questioned if the streamer I was watching had replaced the character model of the player (which wouldn't be out of their realm as they do that to characters in Darkest Dungeon to make them better looking).


Given the shortcomings you felt with the game, are there any other Metroidvania style games that you've played that you think would be much better to check out that like Afterimage may fly below a lot of peoples radar? My only real knowledge with the genre is Metroid, Hollow Knight, and Ori.

[Dragon Lord]

Yeah, at times it feels like they had multiple different artists working on character art, but no collaboration between any of them, so we get this random mix of character art.

I'll always recommend Ender Lillies 110%. One of my absolute favorite Metroidvanias.

[Moonface]

Ah, didn't realise that game is a Metroidvania. I was curious if a demo for the game exists but seems not so I'll have to go and look at some gameplay footage to get an idea of what the game will play like. It was run at SGDQ but I don't think I managed to catch that run when it was happening (probably due to a migraine given how the trip went for me lol).


On a side note, I always find it really interesting to discover a developer worked on two or more different games I enjoy but never realised they were all by the same developer. I discovered last night that Behaviour Interactive made Scooby-Doo! Mystery Mayhem, albeit under a different studio name at the time, and even then it's crazy to see all the stuff they worked on until they struck gold with Dead by Daylight. I never would've thought they were making games for Spongebob and Disney, among others.
Then there's the opposite where I thought a developer made a particular game and then found out they didn't, and it explained a lot for why the game was really bad in comparison to their other stuff. Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters comes to mind in particular as one such game where I thought Insomniac made it, and then found out they didn't. Also didn't help I went in not knowing it was a PSP port and not a natively made PS2 version so it ran like trash too which made it hard to even try and appreciate anything about the game in the first place.

[Moonface]

@Maniakkid25: Since I discovered the original game thanks to a post you made a while ago in the thread about inventory limits, I figured you might be interested to learn a sequel has been announced:

Haven't watched the trailer yet myself because my internet keeps dying on me today every few minutes but if it's only a few dollars I'll probably just pick it up as something to play through when I get bored and want to kill a couple of hours with a neat puzzle game.

[Moonface]

Dang, it's crazy to see Reggie on social media making a post about how it's been eight years since Satoru Iwata passed away. He shared a brief audio transcribe of a part in the opening of his book that was published last year where he talks about making the trip to Iwata's funeral, which I can't imagine was easy to do and keep a straight voice:

In case Twitter is garbage and doesn't work, here's the excerpt in text form:

It was by far the hardest trip I ever had to make. It wasn't because this was the third trip to Japan in less than six months. It wasn't because a nearby typhoon was causing the plane to shake violently throughout the trip. No. The reason this was my toughest trip was because I was going to Kyoto for the memorial services of my boss, my mentor, and my friend Nintendo's Global president Satoru Iwata.

Crazy how it's been so long and yet not at the same time to me. Like, I thought it was way longer than eight years but that itself is still a long time too. For anyone interested, here's the thread from the old board that was made at the time the news broke. I looked at my comment about wondering what it would feel like seeing someone other than Iwata in the role of president, but upon looking up who even took over in the role since his passing I can't say I actually know anything about either of the two people who have held the position since 2015. I can't even remember if I've seen either of their names in any Nintendo Direct before. XD

[Dragon Lord]

So I forgot it had shipped, but my physical copy of Tunic arrived today. Poggers

Sadly I'm not sure if I'll get around to it soon, since I have to get back to and finish FFXVi and then I'll have Sea of Stars to play through towards the end of August, but I'm looking forward to diving into Tunic at some point.