Samantha Lienhard's Blog, page 24

Metaphor: ReFantazio is Due Out on October 11, and It Looks Great!

I remember when Atlus’s Project Re Fantasy was a mysterious title whispered about with the worry that we might never actually see it.

But at last year’s Xbox Showcase, it was officially unveiled as Metaphor: ReFantazio, and the game that was once a mystery became one of the most-anticipated games of 2024.

On Monday evening, Atlus had a special Metaphor: ReFantazio showcase live stream to show off more of this upcoming JRPG.

This included the release date announcement. Metaphor: ReFantazio will be out on October 11.

Right now I’m drowning in a backlog of great games, so I hope I’ve made a bit more progress by October, because Metaphor looks like the sort of game I definitely want to play at launch. I even preordered the Collector’s Edition, which includes a steelbook case, a soundtrack, an art book, a set of pins, a set of stickers, a cloth map, and several digital bonuses along with the game itself.

Metaphor definitely has Persona-esque trappings – including the passage of time and deadlines, although it’s not clear yet if missing a deadline will lead to a game over or if there’s more flexibility.

The combat system also seems interesting. You can use action combat to defeat weak enemies and gain an advantage over stronger enemies, which you then fight in a turn-based combat system. Like I mentioned once before, this sounds quite similar to the combat system in the upcoming Trails Through Daybreak.

Social interactions are here in Metaphor as well, and forging bonds with these characters will unlock new “Archetypes” for you to use, which are basically jobs or classes.

Overall, Metaphor sounds like it’s going to be a really cool game with a lot of features. The story is the part I feel I know the least about at this point, but I have my fingers crossed that it will be great. I can’t wait to play Metaphor: ReFantazio when it comes out and find out for myself.

What you do think of the latest information about Metaphor: ReFantazio?

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Zombie Police: Christmas Dancing With Police Zombies Announced for This Summer

Every now and then I see a game that looks like exactly the sort of weird I appreciate, and that’s how I felt the other day when I saw the announcement of Zombie Police: Christmas Dancing With Police Zombies.

Zombie Police is a mystery adventure game from Japanese developers ALTERCIWS and Lobstudio, and it’s due out on Steam this summer in English, Japanese, and Chinese.

According to its Steam page, it stars a rookie detective who teams up with a zombie detective to investigate cases.

You’ll gather evidence and information about the case and use it to make deductions about the culprit. Different deductions will lead to different endings, so it sounds like you’ll be able to proceed even with an incorrect deduction if you can make a logical argument.

The announcement trailer, while not exactly informative, is cute.

I don’t know why it’s called “Christmas Dancing With Police Zombies.” I don’t really have a good grasp on what the game is about.

But a human-zombie detective duo mystery game sounds like the sort of thing I don’t want to miss. Heck, one of my first ever publications was about a zombie detective! (Sadly, the site my zombie detective story was published on no longer seems to load properly… maybe it’s time I finally revive it as an ebook like I keep saying I will.)

Anyway, I’ll be keeping my eye on Zombie Police: Christmas Dancing With Police Zombies. What do you think from the few details revealed so far?

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Meiji Tokyo Renka: Full Moon Localization Also Confirmed

Sometimes it feels like similar news comes in waves for no apparent reason, and it’s that time again.

Hot on the heels of Idea Factory’s announcement that otome game 9 R.I.P. will be localized this fall, publisher dramatic create released an otome announcement of their own.

Meiji Tokyo Renka: Full Moon, originally released for the Vita as an expanded re-release of a PSP otome game, will be out for the Switch and PC later this year.

Best of all, the official website confirms that subtitles will be available in Japanese, English, and Chinese, which means we have another otome localization to look forward to!

Back when I started getting into otome games, it felt like such a niche genre that you could buy every localized title that came out and still have only a handful each year. Now the years have been stacked! I’m definitely not complaining, though, but I’m starting to build up a notable backlog for otome games alone.

This one sounds like an interesting story, with the heroine traveling through time back to the Meiji era, so I’ll definitely have this on my list to check out. Are you interested in Meiji Tokyo Renka: Full Moon?

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9 R.I.P. Localization Confirmed

We didn’t even have time to anticipate this one in a blog post before it happened!

Yesterday, Idea Factory announced that there would be a live stream today at which they’d announce their next otome game localization.

And it turned out to be… 9 R.I.P.

I’ve been intrigued by 9 R.I.P. ever since it was announced for Japan.

It looks beautiful, and it has a supernatural theme, with urban legends and other spooky things. From what I’ve heard about it, it’s more spooky than outright horror, but it still looks like my sort of thing.

While the announcement trailer only says 2024, the official website lists a fall 2024 release window. Considering its themes, maybe they’ll try to get it out around Halloween!

Since this is Idea Factory, there’s not only going to be a standard edition available, but a limited edition as well. The 9 R.I.P. Limited Edition store page is up so you can wishlist it, although no details are known yet. I have yet to be disappointed by Idea Factory’s Limited Editions, so I’m definitely looking forward to that.

While that was the only announcement for today, they strongly implied that they’ll have another otome announcement at their summer festival this July. Fingers crossed it’ll be something exciting…

Are you interested in 9 R.I.P.?

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Top 5 Hopes for Professor Layton and the New World of Steam

With Professor Layton and the New World of Steam not due out until 2025, there’s still a lot we don’t know about it.

If you’ve seen any of my comments on it before, you know I’m both excited and nervous about finally getting a new Professor Layton game.

When I got into the Professor Layton series, it skyrocketed to the top of my list. It was one of my few “immediate preorder” series, a series I had so much faith in I would immediately preorder any new entry.

Then came Layton’s Mystery Journey, which I had… mixed feelings about.

So now, nearly 7 years later, my feelings about Professor Layton and the New World of Steam aren’t “of course it’ll be great, it’s a Professor Layton game” so much as “please be good, please be good, please be good…”

With that in mind, here are my top 5 hopes for Professor Layton and the New World of Steam.

5. A Stylus

This is the most inconsequential of my hopes, but it still deserves to be mentioned. The Professor Layton series started out on the DS and then moved to the 3DS, both of which come with a stylus to use on the touchscreen. With its puzzle-based gameplay, Professor Layton is a series that expects you to write on the touchscreen.

Even in the brief New World of Steam gameplay demonstration, you can see how a stylus would help.

But unlike the DS and 3DS, the Switch doesn’t come with its own stylus. When Layton’s Mystery Journey got ported to the Switch, players had to either adapt to controlling it without a stylus or use their own. Since New World of Steam is a brand-new entry, I can’t help but hope they’ll include a stylus with it to make that a bit easier.

4. Normal Professor Layton Structure

The normal Professor Layton game structure is simple. You visit a new area and tap around the screen looking for hint coins, hidden puzzles, and dialogue, you solve puzzles (some required and some optional), and then you progress the story and repeat the process. At certain points, you’ll be blocked from progressing if you haven’t solved enough puzzles, and of course, more puzzles will appear at different points of the game.

I still don’t quite know what to make about the claim that New World of Steam’s city will develop as you solve more puzzles, but I hope it doesn’t mark a meaningful departure from the usual structure. Switching to a city-development focus, for example… doesn’t sound good.

But it might just be a fancy way of describing the usual story progression, or some sort of side activity, so I have my fingers crossed that the game will follow the standard Professor Layton structure after all.

Oh, and now that I mentioned it, having a mini-game or two to break up the flow is a fun series’ tradition I hope New World of Steam maintains as well.

3. An Absurd Twist

This is a Professor Layton game. I want the story to culminate in an absurd plot twist that turns everything on its head, that manages to survive suspension of disbelief solely because emotions are running so high that you’ll forgive it a few leaps in logic. That’s what Professor Layton games do.

We know very little about New World of Steam’s story so far, except that Layton goes to Steam Bison in America to help Luke solve a mystery. Whatever that mystery is, I hope it’s seemingly impossible only to eventually be explained with a “logical” explanation even harder to believe than the original mystery.

Yes, sometimes Professor Layton twists push suspension of disbelief too far, like in the case of Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright, where the ending disappointed me so much it nearly soured my overall thoughts on the game, but the lack of stakes in Layton’s Mystery Journey made me realize I’ll take that sort of insanely illogical twist that you can tell the writers were passionate about over that game’s style of low-stakes, low-energy storytelling any day.

I’ve waited this many years for a new Professor Layton game. I need the big twist to be appropriately over-the-top.

2. Good Puzzles

This is the part that could make or break the game. Professor Layton is a puzzle series, so the puzzle quality is hugely important. Akira Tago, the “puzzle master,” passed away prior to Layton Mystery Journey, and the puzzles suffered for it.

A group called QuizKnock has been brought in to design New World of Steam’s puzzles, so I have my fingers crossed it will be a return to form. I’ve seen positive impressions of their puzzles online, so here’s hoping it feels like the style of Professor Layton puzzles we know and love.

1. Excellent Storytelling

But if there’s one thing I’m even more nervous about than the quality of the puzzles, it’s the quality of the story.

I’ve touched upon this with my previous points already, but Layton’s Mystery Journey had such a low-stakes, disconnected story that it didn’t win me over like the other stories in the series. Professor Layton puzzles are fun and addicting, but it was the stories that really made the series one of my favorites. They might be ridiculous at times, but they’re always heartfelt and emotional.

I want that style of storytelling to come back. I want New World of Steam to have the sort of story where, no matter what the rest of it ends up being like, I can recommend it to people for that alone.

Right now, we don’t know much about the characters aside from the fact that both Professor Layton and Luke will be back, and we don’t know what the mystery is about. But I hope they’ve written another heartfelt story that will have me dying to know what will happen next.

Conclusion

If all of these things come to pass, New World of Steam will be another favorite. All I really want is a return to form – one that will make the Professor Layton series leap to the top of my list once again.

What are your hopes for Professor Layton and the New World of Steam?

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Old JRPG Series Tenshi no Uta May Be Getting a Revival

Obscure video game revivals seem more common than ever these days, and the latest is an old RPG series called Tenshi no Uta.

I’d never heard of this series before, so I looked into it after seeing the reports that it might be making a return.

Developed by Telenet Japan, Tenshi no Uta came out in 1991 for the PC-Engine Super CD-ROM² (aka TurboGrafx-16 Super CD-ROM²). It received a sequel in 1993 for the same platform, and a third entry in the series came out for the Super Famicom in 1994.

None of these games ever released outside of Japan, although the third game got a fan translation in 2018.

From what I was able to read about them online, it sounds like the series is about conflicts between angels and demons, as well as Celtic mythology.

According to Wikipedia, the developers of the first two games left in 1993 to form Media.Vision, who then went on to make Wild Arms, while some of the developers who worked on the third game eventually formed the original Tales studio. If that’s true, I’m even more interested than I was already.

So, what’s this about a revival? Although Telenet Japan went bankrupt in 2007, the publisher Edia acquired the rights to their games in 2020 and has already revived some of them. Most recently, their Telenet Revive Twitter account tweeted that a new project is coming, with Tenshi no Uta art and a link to a new website.

Right now it’s not clear if this will be a collection or a new game in the series. Either way, I hope it will be available in English, because I’m really intrigued by this now!

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The New Indie RPG Runa Looks Beautiful, Kickstarter Coming April 16

The other day, I was browsing Twitter when I saw a tweet about an upcoming 3D indie RPG called Runa.

I see games being advertised all the time, but this one struck me because of how beautiful it was, so I decided to take a closer look.

Runa is a turn-based RPG inspired by JRPGs. According to its Steam page, it will feature social links with over 15 romance options, elemental puzzles, base building, and mini-games (of which they specifically mention farming, fishing, and cooking).

The page also lists a weather system, a day/night cycle, a calendar system, and dialogue choices, although despite the dialogue choices, the main character is a full character in his own right rather than a silent protagonist.

I don’t back as many video game Kickstarters as I used to (mainly due to the oppressive shadow of my backlog), but this is one I don’t want to miss. The Kickstarter campaign will launch on April 16, and I’ll definitely be checking it out. It looks pretty ambitious, so I hope the team can back that up.

What do you think of Runa?

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The Stellar Blade Demo Was Fun (and I Need to Practice Parrying)

I’ve had a chance to play the Stellar Blade now, and I had quite a bit of fun with it.

Now, it’s definitely not the Bayonetta-like I expected when I first saw footage. Combat is much slower, despite still having some stylish elements.

You have light and heavy attacks you can string together into combos, as well as some special attacks. You can also parry enemy attacks if you block with perfect timing, and that’s very important.

Parrying attacks not only protects you, but enough parries will break an enemy’s stance and let you use a powerful “Retribution” attack.

The game is forgiving enough that you won’t be dying all the time, but it still taught me that I’ll need to get better at parrying. Regular enemies were fine, but the bosses really needed me to know what I was doing.

Technically you can also dodge attacks, but the window felt much narrower to me. There are also skills you can learn to improve some of these elements, though.

The demo covers the start of the game, and I can’t tell how the story will be yet. I’m intrigued enough by the world, though. It seems like it will have light exploration, with items and lore documents found when I looked around, and you can fast-travel between major locations.

Oh, and you can swim. It’s such a minor thing, but it took me by surprise. When I first saw water, I expected to either be blocked or damaged, so I was impressed when I could not only swim, but even dive and swim underwater to find an item there.

After the story portion of the demo, you unlock a later boss fight with more skills available to you. You also have a handful of costumes for that section. Costumes are just for aesthetics, and I love that. Too few games have unlockable costumes.

In short, I had a lot of fun with the Stellar Blade demo, and I’m looking forward to the full game.

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Sympathy Kiss Has Some Great Routes Despite Mixed First Impressions

Like every other game, the otome game Sympathy Kiss came out earlier this year.

And unlike all those other games, I’ve already finished it.

Sympathy Kiss gives some weird impressions when you first start playing. The main character has no eyes in CGs and no spoken dialogue, which is normally used for self-inserts.

However, the narration describes her dialogue, and instead of being very vague for self-insert purposes, it’s often specific enough that I wished she just had regular spoken dialogue. For example, “I told him that although I had just started, I found myself awed by the complexity of the role.” At that point, why not just give her dialogue?

The game begins with the main character being moved from her current office job in design to a special team dedicated to revitalizing the company’s struggling app.

After a short common route to introduce the characters, you pick a character to work with to start their route (although there are also a couple of secret routes that branch off from the others). From then on, you have two main types of choices.

The major choices, which occur once per chapter, determine which ending you get by giving you points toward either Work or Love. Each route has three endings: one if the love stat is highest, one if the work stat is highest, and the best ending if they’re balanced. The difference between choices sometimes feels incredibly arbitrary, but fortunately you can set the stats manually and replay the last chapter to quickly get all endings if you don’t want to go through the whole thing again.

Minor choices also pop up that have you respond with an emotion. For example, if a character offered you black coffee, you could choose to be either happy or sad about that. Later on in the route, the character will remember you choice and proceed accordingly.

Little details like that, along with the beautiful art, make Sympathy Kiss feel high-quality despite the off-putting impressions from the eyeless, voiceless protagonist.

The first route I followed was for the character who appealed most to me (Kobase, the intimidating yet kindhearted boss)… but unfortunately, I ended his route with mixed feelings. Certain aspects of their dynamic felt off, and the route’s conflict was annoying. The game wasn’t off to a good start.

But I liked the next route (Minato, who would prefer to work alone) much better, and several others after that were also enjoyable to play through. Sympathy Kiss has a total of 8 routes, 6 main routes and 2 secret routes, and while some felt rushed or annoying, others were incredibly good. Even one of the last routes I did (Tainaka, who has no home and just crashes with random women), which I expected to dislike, actually was a joy from start to finish.

Sympathy Kiss has some low points for sure, but it ended up being a game I enjoyed a lot. You won’t find high-stakes action or mind-bending plots here, but if office romance with character drama sounds like your cup of tea, it’s worth taking a look for some genuinely heartwarming and enjoyable romances.

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Final Fantasy VII Remake: Episode Intermission Was a Fun Return to FF7R

Back when I played the Final Fantasy VII Remake, I quite enjoyed it, so I was disappointed when the DLC released in 2021 was PS5-exclusive.

Since I didn’t have a PS5 until late last year, it’s taken me a while to get around to it.

But after finishing Crisis Core a few weeks ago, I decided the other thing to do before moving on to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was to finally get the DLC.

Final Fantasy VII Remake: Episode Intermission is a new story starring Yuffie, in which she heads to Midgar in order to steal materia from Shinra.

Joining her is a young man from Wutai named Sonon, and they team up with members of Avalanche (the larger group, not our primary Avalanche characters from the main game) to get the information they need.

Although Sonon joins you in battles, you only play directly as Yuffie, although you can issue commands to Sonon to have him use abilities or magic. Yuffie’s combat style took a little bit for me to get used to, with sort of a mixed melee/ranged approach, but eventually I enjoyed it. The combat system itself is similar to that in Remake, but with a new “synergy” feature that lets both characters attack together.

There are a handful of side quests, as well as a new mini-game called Fort Condor that I tried a handful of times and then vowed to never touch again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are people who love Fort Condor. It’s not the mini-game’s fault. But it’s real-time strategy, and that’s a genre I’m rarely able to enjoy.

So that was a whole aspect of the DLC I ignored, but I still managed to play for nearly 8 hours. My time would probably be a lot longer if I’d gotten into Fort Condor, so there’s a respectable amount of content here for the DLC’s $20 asking price.

The story is fine. While it doesn’t cover a whole lot, it was a nice look at Yuffie’s character and gave a lot more screentime to Scarlet as the DLC’s main villain.

Click for FFVII Intermission spoilersIt also gave a good role to Nero, from Dirge of Cerberus. Although he didn’t have much in the way of story content here, he was a tough and seriously intimidating final boss. My memories of Dirge are kind of fuzzy, but I didn’t expect Nero to come across like he wandered in from a horror game. I enjoyed his creepy portrayal here.

Meanwhile, the most interesting part of the DLC’s story was the very last scene, which showed Zack, seemingly alive. That scene made me lean more toward the multiple timelines theory, but I’m curious to see where Rebirth takes it.

Overall, playing Intermission reminded me of how much I enjoy Final Fantasy VII and its remake. Now that I’ve completed it, I’m more excited than ever about diving into Rebirth!

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