The soundtrack is fine. It works very well in its context and I still hum some of its tones every now and then, but that’s mostly it imo. The end credits song is one of the best end themes I’ve ever heard in a videogame, though.

Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross and Xenogears are the holy trinity of JRPGs for me. Every fan of the genre should play them at least once in their lives.

2025 is the year of the X360. First the decomp tools, now this. Maybe we can even expect a serious attempt at emulating the system on PC? Xenia is still not good, unfortunately.

I’ll be honest, it doesn’t just “look like Advance Wars”. It looks like a rip-off. I love AW but I wish they went with a more original art style, like Wargroove did.

From the glimpses of the battle system, graphics and animations are truly insane. Incredible work from the devs.

About the GoG store’s second class treatment: it’s always worth it to email the publisher and ask them if they plan on updating their game on GoG!

I did exactly that a few months ago when I wanted to buy I was a teenage exocolonist - emailed Finji and let them know that their game was not up to date on the platform I wanted to buy the game on. They replied rather quickly and the game was updated a few days later. It was very nice because the game was on sale and, thanks to their quick reply, I was able to not miss the sale.

Still waiting for MS to do something right this whole generation.

AI techbros will have you believe that you can solve world hunger, cure cancer, and colonize Mars with a few prompts on ChatGPT.

Yet their AI is still incapable of answering two prompts consecutively without making shit up, or drawing a human without turning it into an eldritch abomination.

Game preservation could be fixed with open source emulators and fixing copyright laws so that I’m allowed to download a game nobody has profited from in two decades, but that’s not appealing to big corporations.

*Upcoming update for console insiders

Insiders may get bugs because that’s what the insider program is for.

Mildly surprised to see another installment in this series after all these years, but I’m pretty excited.

For those who don’t know, Styx is a AA stealth game where you play as a goblin assassin (the titular Styx). It spawned as a spin off of another fantasy game (Of orcs and men) where you played as both the goblin and an orc warrior, which was unfortunately a bit too janky for my tastes.

The focus on stealth of the following installments really benefitted the series, imo. While they still carry a bit of janky-ness (as many AA titles do), they are nevertheless a lot of fun! The story in the first one was very good as well. I still haven’t finished the second one, so I can’t comment much on it.

The first two games are also currently discounted on Steam and GoG ($2 for the first one and $3 for the second), and I think they are very much worth that much.

If you kind of liked the XIII games, I highly recommend Lighting Returns. Time limits make me deeply anxious but that game’s timer is VERY generous, especially because you can stop time pretty much forever. I 100% my first run in, like, four days out of thirteen.

The story is wacky as hell (I honestly didn’t care much after XIII-2), but gameplay’s solid and exploration is fun.

As for the last question, I think that they should go back to their roots. They pivoted away from the JRPG genre with each title, but recent successes from similar games (such as Persona 5 in the AAA department, and Sea of Stars in the indie category) proved that people still crave a more traditional turn-based system.

I really enjoyed Tunic for the same reason as you! It has nice and cozy vibes but manages to challenge the player without ever feeling too cheap or overwhelmingly difficult, in both combat and puzzles. I really was reminded of old-school gaming, in a good way.

The only thing I disliked is how cryptic the last few puzzles were, to the point that I doubt the vast percentage of the player base would be able to figure them out without resorting to a guide. I certainly wasn’t. I love puzzle games and I love games like Talos Principle and Crosscode. I guess I just didn’t like how meta-gamey some of the solutions (and the reward for the puzzles) were.

PS. Another great post and the formatting is excellent. Congrats!

As a fellow enthusiast with an obsessive-compulsive drive to write about my hobbies (not necessarily video-game related, but quite similar) i know that these things take a while to write, especially when you take the time to format everything correctly, link the sources, etc.

So I wanted to echo the others here and say that I really appreciate your work here. It was a fun way to start my day, and I’m looking forward to your next post :)

*three movies

Batgirl, Coyote vs ACME and a third one I can’t recall the name of.

Sony has stopped releasing games on GoG ever since they required login to the PSN. For example, you can buy God of War and Horizon Zero Dawn on GoG, but you can’t buy Ragnarok or Forbidden West.

They lifted the requirement a few weeks ago, but the games still have not been released on GoG, and at this point it’s doubtful they will.

Are they? Genuine question. Some of the FF titles I’ve played in the past were technical marvels on their respective consoles. FFXIII still gives modern games a run for their money on the graphical department, despite being 15 years old at this point. Not sure how they fare up nowadays though.

It did. It’s also on Switch and on Windows/Xbox as a Play Anywhere title on MS Store (buy once, get to play on both platforms). But from what I remember, FFIX was the one that needed the remaster treatment the least, as it plays fairly well on any emulator. FFVII and FFVIII, on the other hand, get more bearable with the built-in speed up button (which, yes, you can do on an emulator as well, but then the music gets sped up too and it gets annoying).

I was hoping for a new World game, but as a Digimon fan I’ve learnt not to be picky with new releases lol

Source: trust me bro

I don’t know how much time has passed since I last saw a CAD panel that wasn’t Loss.