Samantha Lienhard's Blog, page 11

Fantasy Life i Delayed to May 21, Multiplatform, Digital-Only in the West

(No we don’t have a special Valentine’s Day romance review after all, since I’m still grievously behind on my game-playing.)

So, let’s talk about Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time.

Once one of my most-anticipated titles, Fantasy Life i is one of several upcoming games from Level-5 that has been delayed repeatedly. We last discussed it after last year’s Level-5 Vision 2024, when it was delayed out of 2024 to this April.

Well, it’s been delayed once more, this time to May 21.

(The specific release date might be an encouraging sign, but then again, I remember when it was set for October 10.)

This new release date comes alongside an overview trailer that shows off the game’s various features, as well as the confirmation that it is now a multi-platform title.

The digital deluxe edition will include early access on May 18, for all versions except the Switch version, for some reason.

Unfortunately, even though it was originally expected to have a physical release, it is now confirmed to be digital-only outside of Japan. This is disappointing to me, so I might import a physical copy if they’re multi-language.

I say “might” because I have to admit, I’ve gotten nervous about Fantasy Life i. I loved the original Fantasy Life, and the trailers for Fantasy Life i look good, but all the delays and increasingly bigger scope of the game have me nervous enough about how it will turn out that I might wait a bit after all.

Are you looking forward to Fantasy Life i? Do you think May 21 will be its final release date this time?

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Unannounced Digimon Story Game Listed at GameStop

PlayStation is having a State of Play tonight at 2 PM PT / 5 PM ET, and while we don’t know what will be announced, one unexpected title just got a whole lot likelier.

Listings have appeared at GameStop for Digimon Story: Time Stranger, for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

That doesn’t necessarily mean it will be announced tonight, but an unannounced game appearing at a retailer on the same day as a showcase means there’s a good chance.

We’ve known for a while now that a new Digimon Story game was in development. In 2022, it was revealed to take place in the Digital World and feature the Olympos XII.

Now, I’ll be honest, I know next to nothing about Digimon. That description means nothing to me.

But I love RPGs and story-driven games, so I’ve been wanting to play both the Cyber Sleuth games and Digimon Survive. They’re all in my backlog, but this potential upcoming news of the next game has me excited to finally try them. Hmm… perhaps Cyber Sleuth as one of our May mystery games this year?

State of my backlog aside, I’ll be looking forward to news of the next Digimon Story game, whether it’s announced tonight at the State of Play or another time. What do you think about the sudden appearance of Digimon Story: Time Stranger?

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The Great Ace Attorney Nendoroids Announced (At Last!)

I love collecting Nendoroids, and for a while now I’ve been hoping for one specific thing: Great Ace Attorney Nendoroids.

They’ve already made a few Nendoroids for the main Ace Attorney series – Phoenix, Edgeworth, Apollo, and Maya – and every time they make announcements, I’ve hoped for more.

This time, it finally happened.

Good Smile has announced Nendoroids of Ryunosuke Naruhodo and Kazuma Asogi, and while I was really hoping for a Barok van Zieks Nendoroid, I’ll absolutely be getting these.

(And then I’ll hope for more.)

Their full selection also includes Nendoroid Dolls for Phoenix and Edgeworth and the first look at the Nendoroid Kei Okazaki from Collar x Malice, among others. And although they aren’t on that page, they also shared new images of the Yakuza Nendoroids (Kiryu, Majima, and Ichiban), which I’ll also want to pick up.

Now, recently there have been concerns about data breaches through Good Smile, and it’s not clear if they ever fixed the problem or not, so we’ll have to be cautious. I’m just happy that the Great Ace Attorney Nendoroids I’ve been hoping for will finally exist!

(Fingers crossed we get Van Zieks next.)

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An Onimusha 2 Remaster is Finally Happening!

Back when I played the remaster of Onimusha, I mentioned my hope that the sequels would be remastered as well.

I’d never had a chance to play them, and I enjoyed the first game enough that I wanted more.

At the time, it seemed unlikely. There were a lot of concerns that the remaster simply hadn’t sold well enough for Capcom to make more.

But when the new game in the series was announced at The Game Awards, I expressed that hope again. After all, remasters would be the perfect way to fill the long gap before Way of the Sword’s 2026 release, and a new game announcement showed they still had confidence in the Onimusha IP.

Well, although the Capcom Spotlight mostly focused on already-announced titles (and certainly had no Ace Attorney news), it did include one surprise – an Onimusha 2 remaster announced for later this year.

It will be out on PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC, so I’ll probably play it on the Switch like I did the first remaster.

There are two other mainline Onimusha games after 2, Onimusha 3 and Dawn of Dreams. It remains to be seen if Capcom intends to remaster them as well or not, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re waiting to see how well 2 does. I’ll definitely be picking up the Onimusha 2 remaster when it comes out.

(Oh, and they made a point of saying that Onimusha: Way of the Sword won’t be “an impossibly difficult game”, which should lay to rest the concerns that it would be a Souls-like).

Are you planning to pick up Onimusha 2 once the remaster comes out? Do you think the other games in the series will be remastered as well?

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Metaphor: ReFantazio is an Excellent RPG

It took a long time, but yesterday I finished playing Metaphor: ReFantazio.

I was intrigued by Metaphor even back when it was “Project Re Fantasy,” the mysterious new Atlus JRPG it seemed like we might never see.

Once it was officially unveiled as Metaphor: ReFantazio, I loved everything I saw and named it one of my most-anticipated games of 2024.

And even though I hadn’t played my other anticipated titles yet, I started it right away.

My first reaction to Metaphor was, “So this is just Persona after all.” After all, it’s a turn-based JRPG with a lot of features reminiscent of Persona. There’s a calendar system with deadlines, you can choose an activity each afternoon and night to pass time, you spend time with allies to improve your rank with them, and party members even have a similar sort of “awakening” scene when they learn to use their powers.

But the more I played, the more I saw aspects that really do help Metaphor stand out as unique despite those clear similarities. For example, Archetypes. These are essentially character classes, which give you access to different abilities and combat styles. Not only can you change any character’s Archetype, but you can also equip a certain number of skills from previously-learned Archetypes to do a little mix-and-matching. I loved that sort of system in Final Fantasy V, and I loved it here, too.

Traveling also plays a big role. You travel to different areas, both as part of the plot and for side quests. There are even a lot of side dungeons you can visit, which was fun, although I wish they had more varied designs.

Best of all, not only does the calendar system still come into play while you’re traveling, but some activities are only available on the road. This really helped to break up the formula and made it feel unique.

I found Metaphor to be difficult at times, although more often than not this was because I needed to rethink which Archetypes I was using and switch things around. The Archetype system really opens up a lot of strategic options. I also ended up using a different approach to deadlines than in Persona. In Persona, I almost always do the main dungeon right away, but because of Metaphor’s side dungeons, I often found it more beneficial to do some of the side content first.

Now, it’s a curious thing when it comes to the deadlines and time management. Throughout the game, I never felt like it was being lenient. I felt like I had to carefully manage my time to get everything done. But when I reached the end, I had plenty of time left over. There were a couple of minor missable activities I’d overlooked along the way, but for the most part I got everything I wanted to done and still had time to spare.

That let me enjoy the world even more, and that’s great because I love the world. It’s a fantasy setting, inhabited by various races that don’t get along. You play a young man from the tribe considered the lowest, the elda, on a secret mission to break the curse on the prince. As you travel, you learn more about the world, and there are even these beautiful detours where the characters stop to take in especially interesting landmarks.

While the plot has its share of surprises and a few pretty intense sections, it was a bit more straightforward than I expected and a couple parts felt a little rushed. However, it made up for any shortcomings with its characters. I love this cast of characters, and I really enjoyed spending time with them and getting to know them.

Click for Metaphor party member spoilersEspecially Basilio. I love him. I’d do anything for him. Hulkenberg had been my favorite character up until then, and Heismay too, but then Basilio came into our lives. He’s everything.

I spent over 115 hours playing Metaphor: ReFantazio, and it was a great experience. While it hasn’t become one of my all-time favorites, I’d love to see another game in this style in the future.

That marks my first completed game of 2025. Not a bad way to kick off the year!

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No Celebrating All Things Romantic 2025 (But It Could Return Next Year)

February is here… and Celebrating All Things Romantic is not about to start.

For the past few years, I’ve focused on romance games in February in honor of Valentine’s Day. Last year, I shifted that focus to just the first two weeks, to make more time for my backlog.

But this year, my backlog is so out of control that I decided Celebrating All Things Romantic has to be pushed aside for 2025. (I still haven’t even finished the games I shortened the event for last year! I’d really like to finish Infinite Wealth in time to play Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii not too far after its release.)

There’s another reason, as well – a lot of the best romance games are on the longer side, which makes it even more difficult to play so many of them in a single month. I might still try to do something for Valentine’s Day itself, but it won’t be a whole event.

If you’ve been looking forward to the contest, don’t worry. I expect to have another round of mystery games to discuss in May, so you can expect Celebrating All Things Mysterious 2025 to go ahead as planned.

And it’s not gone forever. Assuming I can figure out a good way to handle it, I have every intention of bringing Celebrating All Things Romantic back next year.

In the meantime, are there any romance games you’re planning to play this February?

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Capcom Spotlight Set for February 4 (Is There a Chance?)

Where would we be without some unreasonable Ace Attorney hopes?

Capcom has announced a new Capcom Spotlight for February 4 at 2 PM PT / 5 PM ET.

It will feature Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Street Fighter 6, Capcom Fighting Collection 2, and Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, and then be followed by a Monster Hunter Wilds Showcase.

So of course, since this is a Capcom live stream, I have to cross my fingers that we’ll get Ace Attorney news there.

On on hand, it’s unlikely. The last time they had an event called a Capcom Spotlight, it only focused on already-announced titles, and this one’s description lists those specific games without implying anything else will be there. On the other hand, there’s always a chance they could include a new announcement, right?

I’m full of hope that this is our year for a new Ace Attorney announcement. Between Capcom saying the series would continue and the Investigations Collection being released within a year of the Apollo Justice Trilogy instead of being spaced out more, it feels like the time is right. And I certainly haven’t let go of my hopes for more Great Ace Attorney content with 2025 being its 10th anniversary. We probably won’t get a new game announced in this Capcom Spotlight, but that won’t stop me from hoping.

I’d be tuning in regardless for Onimusha, so at least I have that to look forward to. Do you think we’ll see anything about Ace Attorney?

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Saintess of the Golden Bow is an Upcoming Isekai Otome

Today we’re going to talk about something new – a demo for an upcoming indie otome game.

I recently had a chance to play the demo for Saintess of the Golden Bow, after the developer provided me with a Steam code to preview it.

Saintess of the Golden Bow follows a young woman named Celine who gets hit by a truck and wakes up in a fantasy world she recognizes as the setting of one of her favorite web novels, with her taking the place of Celeste, a minor character who was supposed to die early on.

Yes, it’s a standard isekai premise through and through, and Celine’s knowledge of the original story means she has plenty of questions about how her survival will change things.

Celine is chosen to be the Saintess who must fight the Demon Queen, in place of her devoted knight Levi who was chosen as the Saint in the original story. The demo is fairly short, but long enough to provide a look at the world, basic plot premise, and a decent introduction to each love interest. The final game is supposed to be 30 hours long, with three romance routes and a fourth planned as DLC.

None of the love interests completely grabbed my attention at this point, but a couple did enough to intrigue me.

The art is quite nice, and it especially stood out to me that there were a fair number of CGs even in this short demo. I don’t know if the quantity of CGs will stay that way for the whole visual novel, but it would be nice to see.

CG scenes also have voice acting, which felt a little jarring to me. I’d just as soon have the whole thing be unvoiced rather than have voices just for CGs. That’s just me, however. Other players might feel differently and appreciate the partial voice acting.

My only real criticism is that part of the premise left me with an odd feeling. You see, the web novel Celine was a fan of was a BL story. The three love interests were the hero and his love interests originally, and her survival has changed that. That… does set up three convenient love interests, and the story acknowledges the fact that her role breaks up the original relationships, but something about it just feels odd and makes me wish the premise had taken a different direction.

But overall, I’m intrigued enough by the world and characters of Saintess of the Golden Bow to see where it goes from here. A public demo will be available during Steam Next Fest on February 23, so you’ll be able to check it out for yourself if the concept interests you.

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Atelier Resleriana is Shutting Down Outside of Japan

We’ve talked about Atelier Resleriana: Forgotten Alchemy and the Polar Night Liberator a few times now, even though it’s a game I had little interest in.

Announced during a live stream as a mainline Atelier entry despite being a free-to-play gacha game, it’s been somewhat controversial among fans.

Last January it came to the west… but the curse of mobile games has struck once again, as they announced today that the global version of Atelier Resleriana is shutting down on March 28.

This is one of the biggest drawbacks of these games (besides all the things I hate about the gacha game structure). Most of them shut down, sometimes quite fast, and then you can never play them again. Only a rare handful of mobile games get replaced by an offline version to let fans play what content already existed, while the rest just vanish forever.

At least with this one, the Japanese version isn’t shutting down yet, so fans could experience the story through fan translations. Still, its end will eventually come as well.

I wasn’t interested in Atelier Resleriana in the first place, but it must be disappointing to fans invested in the story, not to mention any who have spent money on its gacha.

Fortunately, this shouldn’t have any affect on Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian, the upcoming offline, non-gacha game set in the same universe. That one I am interested in, so here’s hoping it’s still on track.

How do you feel about the shutdown of Atelier Resleriana?

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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Comes Out on April 24 and Has a World Map

I’ve been excited for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 ever since it was announced, even naming it one of my top 5 most anticipated games of this year.

Now I have even more reason to love it, because the latest trailer and commentary from the developers confirmed that it will have a world map.

I love the classic JRPG world maps, and I’m sad that they’re so rare nowadays. Being able to traverse an overworld in between the individual areas just appeals to me so much, so it was a delightful surprise to see one here.

According to the official description, it will be “an overworld brimming with secrets, side quests, and challenges,” so that’s even better.

It really seems like it’s shaping up to be the sort of RPG I’ve been hoping for.

The trailer also gave us a release date, April 24. Now, that’s the exact same release date as The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, which is also on my list of most-anticipated games. Just when I thought 2025 wasn’t as packed as the past couple of years…

I was already excited for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and now I’m even more so. Here’s hoping it lives up to our hopes, because it looks fantastic! Are you looking forward to it?

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