Samantha Lienhard's Blog, page 67

Hopes for Wednesday’s Pokémon Presents

This Wednesday, August 18, there will be a Pokémon Presents presentation at 6 AM PT / 9 AM ET.

The presentation is confirmed to feature the Diamond/Pearl remakes as well as Pokémon Legends: Arceus.

Like I mentioned back when they were first announced, I’m part of the minority that doesn’t mind the graphics of Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, but I would prefer to see the Pokémon Platinum storyline be included.

Maybe this presentation will give a better idea of whether the remakes are strictly focused on Diamond/Pearl content, or if they will follow Platinum’s plot.

(Since the games are due out this November, we should get a good look at them.)

As for Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the main thing I want to learn is if it’s truly an open world game or not. It appears to have turn-based combat, but the nature of the world and exploration is still ambiguous enough that I hope they clear it up.

But while those are the Pokémon games being featured, do we have a chance at seeing anything else? Unlike a lot of people, I don’t think there’s any chance of them announcing the next generation of Pokémon games, but I do hope they’ll finally reveal the Detective Pikachu game that was announced for a Switch a couple years ago.

(I still need to play the first one, but I might hold off if the Switch Detective Pikachu game turns out to be another expanded port… although I hope it’s a full sequel instead.)

What are you hoping for from this Wednesday’s Pokémon Presents?

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A New Castlevania Game? (On Apple Arcade)

We were just talking about Apple Arcade because of Fantasian, and now it’s come up again already.

This time, the newest Apple Arcade exclusive is a Castlevania game. Not a port, but a new one… sort of.

Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls was first announced back in 2018 for iOS, then actually came out in 2019, but only in Canada. It had typical mobile game microtransactions and was shut down a year later in 2020.

But now it’s 2021 and Grimoire of Souls is coming back, still mobile but now exclusive to Apple Arcade. This is noteworthy because Apple Arcade games do not have microtransactions. Its official store page describes it as “a full-fledged side-scrolling action game” with 60 levels, although it also mentions daily and weekly missions.

That makes me think it’s still a mobile game at heart, instead of a regular game that happens to be on a mobile platform, but the lack of microtransactions is a definite plus.

Grimoire of Souls being revived like this sort of reminds me of the situation with World of Demons, which was initially planned as a mobile game with microtransactions but then rebuilt for Apple Arcade.

Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls isn’t out yet, but should be coming soon.

My history with the Castlevania series is still sadly small, so I’m not jumping for a chance to play this like I am with Fantasian. Still, it’s nice to see Konami is at least doing something with their franchises. Between this and GetsaFumaDen, maybe there’s hope after all.

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The Second Half of Fantasian Releases August 13

The first half of Fantasian, the new turn-based JRPG from Mistwalker, came out on Apple Arcade earlier this year, and now the second half is almost here.

Fantasian will be updated with part 2 this Friday, August 13.

While the first part of Fantasian was described as being more story-driven, the second half is described as being quest-driven.

As far as I know, this will be the conclusion of the game. It was always discussed as a two-part release.

Part 2 will have 40-60 hours of content, new areas and music, and new gameplay features, including the ability to swap party members in and out of combat. Two trailers for the second part were revealed alongside the news, a story trailer and a gameplay features trailer.

I keep hoping Fantasian will be ported to another system, but if not, I’ll need to wait on this intriguing JRPG until I have a device that can run Apple Arcade.

Did you play the first half of Fantasian? Are you looking forward to the second? And do you think there’s any chance of a port? Let me know!

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Catching Up on All the Recent Otome News

With an Idea Factory live stream on July 28 that promised more otome news and a live stream from Aksys last Friday, it’s been an exciting time for otome news!

So let’s catch up on all of the recent announcements, because there’s a lot more than anyone expected.

Before we get into those, Bustafellows is out now and PQube said they’ll pick up more otome localizations if it sells well. So they could become a new otome publisher to keep an eye on.

(Bustafellows is waiting in my backlog, since it came out nearly on top of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and NEO: The World Ends With You.)

Now let’s get into the two events I mentioned previously.

Idea Factory hasn’t localized much otome in quite a while, so people weren’t expecting much… but they announced Cupid Parasite for this fall, teased Birushana Senki, and said they have another unrevealed otome on the way as well.

Then on Friday, Aksys came out swinging with release dates for their previously-announced otome titles (September 9 for Olympia Soirée, December 2 for Dairoku, and sometime in February for Variable Barricade) and went on to announced four new otome localizations: Lover Pretend, KimiYuki, Paradigm Paradox, and Piofiore: Episodio 1926.

(The first Piofiore is, you guessed it, sitting in my backlog. We’ll get there eventually.)

So between the two companies, that’s 7 upcoming otome games, even if one of them is still a mystery for now, in addition to the 3 that were already announced.

With so many upcoming otome games, I might need to do a little more research beyond “Visual novels, woo!” before I buy them, especially since these events also included several non-otome announcements that have my attention as well, much to the dismay of my ever-suffering backlog.

Who said this year would be slow for games, anyway? This year is so packed with exciting games, I need to ignore games that would have been day-one buys just because of how much else is coming out at the same time!

Are you excited for these upcoming otome titles? Which ones are you looking forward to the most? And what do you think Idea Factory’s unknown otome could be?

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Japanese Horror Series Tsugunohi Coming to Steam Next Week

The Japanese horror series Tsugunohi is now coming to Steam on August 13.

I wasn’t familiar with Tsugunohi before, but apparently it’s a series of short browser games that were available on free game websites.

They are simple horror games where you walk to the left, with a focus on daily events as creepy things begin to occur.

They seem to have a cult following.

I don’t know how many original Tsugunohi games there are, but the Steam release will include remastered versions of the first three episodes, four others, a new one called Tsugunohi -The Ethereal Railroad Crossing- that has been created for the Steam release, and another original episode to be released later.

So that’s a total of 8 episodes already announced, with a 9th coming as well.

Tsugunohi will be out on August 13 for $9.99.

Although I’d never heard of this series before, I’m intrigued by it now. It sounds like it might be fun to dive into (maybe for our horror celebration in October). Are you familiar with Tsugunohi? Will you be playing it when it comes to Steam?

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Fatal Frame Producer Hopes to Make a New Entry

As announced during E3, Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is getting a second chance at life later this year.

The Wii U exclusive will be remastered for all major platforms on October 28, although sadly it’s still digital-only in the West.

While I have Maiden of Black Water on the Wii U, I was thrilled to see the news because it increases the chances that the Fatal Frame series will make a comeback… and it sounds like Koei Tecmo wants that, as well.

According to Siliconera, Fatal Frame producer Keisuke Kikuchi said in an interview with Famitsu that the performance of the upcoming remaster could help pave the way for future Fatal Frame games.

In particular, by releasing it on multiple platforms to celebrate the series’ 20th anniversary, they hope to bring it to many more players and “connect it to the next title.”

So Fatal Frame is still alive! Not only is the latest entry being remastered, but there’s a good chance we could still see a Fatal Frame VI!

Are you planning to pick up Maiden of Black Water?

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Fill Out Capcom’s Official Ace Attorney Survey!

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is out now, and Capcom followed its release with an official survey about interest in the Ace Attorney series.

Although the survey is from asia.capcom.com, it is entirely in English.

The survey seems designed to gauge general interest in the Ace Attorney series and in The Great Ace Attorney in particular. Curiously, it specifically asks if you’d be interested in another Great Ace Attorney game.

Later on in the survey, it also asks you to list every Ace Attorney game you’ve played. This includes Ace Attorney Investigations 2 (with the title written in English), but I wouldn’t read too much into that, since it also allows you to say you played The Great Ace Attorney and its sequel on the 3DS before they were localized.

However, if Capcom is gauging interest in future Ace Attorney games, this is the perfect time to show how much we love the series.

There is some belief that if The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles sells well, they will also release a collection of Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies, and Spirit of Justice. I also have renewed hope that we might someday see an Investigations collection, bringing us an official release of Investigations 2 in the west.

Everyone is still hoping for Ace Attorney 7 news, too. When will that announcement come?

This is the most enthusiastic I’ve felt about Ace Attorney’s future in a while, so be sure to take the survey and let Capcom know your thoughts! According to the survey page, the survey will be open up through the end of September.

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3D Skits Confirmed for Tales of Arise

Yesterday was the big day: the reveal of Tales of Arise’s skits.

Early on, some people worried Arise wouldn’t have skits at all, but skits are in – with a new format.

Traditional Tales skits have used 2D portraits of the characters’ faces, with their expressions changing and the portraits moving around or otherwise changing as the conversation progresses.

In Arise, they instead use the characters’ 3D models, but not like a regular scene. Instead, it almost resembles a comic book, with new panels appearing for each part of the skit.

It’s an interesting result reminiscent of some of the scenes in Scarlet Nexus (at least from what I saw in the demo), and I’m not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, it lets costumes and attachments appear and should allow for more expressive scenes. On the other hand, it looks very different and lacks the simplicity of the old skits.

I can’t exactly find the words to explain what feels off about the new skits to me, but I hope they win me over when I actually see them in action.

According to the official description, published here by Gematsu, the skits will show your current location in the game, as well as the time of day.

Meanwhile, the “Lifestyle Features” trailer shows off several other new mechanics as well.

Cooking and fishing are both highlighted, along with some sort of farming system that looks like you’ll manage livestock to get more ingredients for cooking. I’m not sure how that will work out – maybe the party eventually has a home base, like in Tales of Berseria.

Setting up camp to cook and talk to party members also seems like a big feature, as well.

Tales of Arise will be out on September 10, less than two months away! Meanwhile, the next few months are now packed with even more games I’m looking forward to, so it’s going to be a busy time indeed.

How do you feel about the new skit format for Tales of Arise and the other activities shown here?

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An Epic Adventure in Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward

It’s been two years since I beat A Realm Reborn, and yesterday I also finished the first Final Fantasy XIV expansion, Heavensward (which is now included in the free trial).

Heavensward gets a lot of praise from fans, and the quests building up to it after A Realm Reborn started out slow but then reached levels of suspense where I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next.

(In between A Realm Reborn and Heavensward, I also met Hildibrand, a character at the center of the funniest quests I’ve seen in the game so far. That was definitely a highlight.)

And of course, Heavensward is set in Ishgard, the land of holy knights and dragons, so how could I not be interested?

I enjoyed the plot of Heavensward much more than the plot of A Realm Reborn, and it felt like there were less times where I had to run back and forth on busywork quests instead of actually advancing the story. It also gave me a new favorite Final Fantasy XIV character and some pretty exciting moments!

While I wouldn’t rank it up there with my favorite Final Fantasy games like some people do, it was still really good, and my enjoyment of the story might have been hindered slightly by how long it took me to complete.

(I’ll try not to drag out the other expansions quite as much.)

I’ve stuck with my same class through my entire playthrough so far, but in Heavensward I finally improved my own gameplay by switching over to gamepad controls, which I found to be more intuitive for combat. Making a few small changes like that also helped me enjoy the game much more.

Meanwhile, there have been plenty of entertaining seasonal events and other optional parts of the game that I enjoyed quite a bit. Most recently, I did a special event quest at the Gold Saucer that makes you investigate a crime without any quest markers, so you have to search for the information you need to piece together the correct answer.

I intended to take a break from serious Final Fantasy XIV playing after finishing Heavensward, but it ended on a note guaranteed to drive me forward to see what happens in the patches!

And so for the foreseeable future, it looks like my Final Fantasy XIV adventure will continue! Here’s hoping for exciting stories ahead!

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Sweet Fuse: Romance in a Deadly Game

Sure, it’s not February, but I decided to move on to another otome after all.

I picked up Sweet Fuse: At Your Side amidst the concerns about the PSP/Vita/PS3 stores shutting down. I’d first heard about this visual novel years ago, while researching visual novels with unusual premises for a freelance assignment.

Sweet Fuse stars Saki Inafune, a young woman attending the opening ceremony of a video game theme park designed by her uncle, Keiji Inafune (yes, that one).

The opening ceremony is disrupted by a man in a pig costume who introduces himself as Count Hogstein, takes the park staff hostage, and threatens to blow up the entire park unless 7 people play his “games” over the next 7 days.

Saki volunteers for the game in order to save her uncle, while the other six participants are chosen by Hogstein. Together, they must try to overcome the deadly games he’s set up based on the park’s attractions.

Each attraction is based on a different video game genre, which was pretty entertaining.

The first three chapters make up the common route. Some of your choices are important to surviving the games, while others build your affection with one of the possible romance options. After the common route, the story branches based on which character you’ve grown the closest to.

I liked pretty much all of the characters. A few stood out much more than others, but it was interesting to see all of their stories and how the events in the latter half of the game changed depending on whose route I was on. There are some notable age gaps, which added some awkwardness, but the writing handled it well enough.

It is a bit weird that the main character is Keiji Inafune’s fictional niece, though. Every time she’d get a message from Uncle Keiji, where he’d offer some inspiring and motivational words of advice, it always felt surreal since he’s a real person.

Now, there’s also an overarching mystery about Hogstein’s motivations, and one problem is that while each route delves into the mystery from a different angle, some contain far more information than others. So my first route was accidentally the one that explained almost the entire mystery, leaving me with points in later routes where I was impatiently waiting for them to figure out something I already knew.

I enjoyed the mystery overall, though, and it all came together nicely once I played the final route.

In addition to regular choices, sometimes you have the option to just get mad. If a character does something particularly unfair, you get a special choice where Saki can blow up and shout at them. This is almost always the right choice and is pretty entertaining.

Saki also has “explosive insights,” a game mechanic where you choose from a list of key words in order to reach the correct solution to your current situation (although as far as I could tell, you always have to pick three, even if you know which is the right one).

Overall, I enjoyed Sweet Fuse and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys otome visual novels or death game mysteries. Digital PSP games still can be bought and played on a Vita, so it’s not completely out of reach yet despite the scarcity of physical copies, but it would be nice to see this one get re-released someday…

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