toxicitizen

The bosses in this one aren't as difficult and the level cap isn't stupidly low, so it was much easier. The only boss that really gave me trouble was the last one and that was only because I wasn't max level, forgot to go buy an elixir and saved past the point of no return like the fucking idiot I am. I didn't touch time attack until after beating the main game on nightmare this time and I literally got it on my first try. Going back to normal difficulty, none of the bosses posed any challenge whatsoever lol. Feels good to have finally completed these two. I'd been meaning to do it for a long time now but I was kinda dreading playing on nightmare. Now I'm tempted to keep going and do Felghana or Origin next. It's hard to stop when you start a replay of this series but I don't wanna risk getting burned out. You know, just in case NISA manage to quit fucking around and fix the PC version of VIII in a timely manner...

Can't say I'm surprised, summer's pretty much over and there hasn't been any news in a while.

Zone of the Enders 2 getting remastered with 4K and VR support. Was initially announced for PS4 only but it's apparently been confirmed that it's coming to PC as well. It's no MGS but I'll take it. ZOE2 in particular was pretty cool. Sucks that it's only the second game, though.

You've got plenty of time. They've recently said not to expect it until early 2018, which makes sense if Durante's only now getting the source code. After playing at 1080p60, there is no way I can go back to playing on Vita. But man, I want to play CS2 so bad right now.

It's a couple days old but here's some gameplay footage for Cold Steel 3. I only skimmed it for fear of spoilers but it's looking pretty damn good! Hopefully XSEED don't waste time in announcing a western release (along with a simultaneous release on PC, obviously).

Yeah, at first it felt like nightmare didn't make much of a difference because it's such a hectic fight. But time attack is on normal and when I went back to it it was night and day. He hits you for less and you hit him for more and it makes a huge difference. I almost got him on my first try after beating him on nightmare.

The last boss certainly was.

Holy shit, nightmare difficulty is something else. I've been meaning to do a nightmare run of the series for a while and the delay of Ys VIII on PC left me hungry for more Ys, so I figured I'd finally give it a shot. I also needed to complete the boss rush mode, which seemed impossible at first. But nightmare was a hell of a good training for it. Ended up clearing it super quickly after finishing the game. I guess Ys II is up next!

You idiot, Cold Steel isn't TitS! But yeah, Cold Steel III is coming out in Japan exclusively on PS4 in like two weeks. Makes sense that they'd want to get the biggest potential audience possible. The only surprise here is that they didn't get them out ahead of CSIII's launch.

Didn't it also have a Wii port at some point? I'm pretty sure it could run on Switch just fine, they probably just felt it wasn't worth the extra effort.

Aaaaand confirmed. Coming December 12 for 20 bucks.

I have no idea but the fact that they haven't given a new release date certainly isn't encouraging. Honestly, their biggest crime here is that they broke my Falcom streak! I was going to combo Ys Seven -> Cold Steel -> Ys VIII. I even finished my nightmare run of Cold Steel today! I guess I could go back and try to finish Gurumin or give Ys Seven a shot on nightmare right away but meh...

PC version of Ys VIII delayed to unspecified date. Beta testers are under NDA but apparently word is going around that the port is pretty rough. I'd rather they delay it than release a broken POS and, to be fair, they do seem to be trying here. But ugh, yet another reason to be unhappy that NISA forced their way into a series where basically no one wanted them...

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel. This game is way too fucking long! I'd say it could've lost a chapter but there was actually one that they had to cut. It was relegated to a drama CD or something. Should probably get around to reading the translation for that, actually. Anyway, I feel more or less the same about it as I did after my first playthrough. It's good but the structure really starts to hurt the pacing in the last few chapters and because of that it's probably the worst out of all the Trails games I've played. It's a shame because the good parts are really good. If it wasn't for the pacing issues I think I'd love it way more than Trails in the Sky FC. Also, holy shit, turbo mode is freaking amazing! I finished the game last night and I started my NG+ Nightmare run this afternoon just for shits and giggles. I actually made it to the end of chapter 2 in about 2 hours. That's pretty much a third of the game done in a single sitting. It's gonna make this second playthrough a complete breeze and remove pretty much all the hassle out of achievement hunting. I think there's actually a very real chance that I might be able to finish NG+ before Ys VIII comes out on Tuesday lol. edit: And that's NG+ Nightmare done. Not only that but Turbo mode is seriously ridiculous lol. This is not a game you would expect to be able to speedrun in a single week-end. I still kinda feel like I wouldn't want to use it on a first or normal playthrough but it's such a fucking godsend for achievement hunting and whatnot. It might be a little hard to resist the temptation to use it right away when Cold Steel 2 comes out, though. I managed to wrap this one up in time for Ys VIII tomorrow but woops, turns out the PC version is delayed. So now I don't know what the fuck to play next. Maybe I'll check out turbo mode in Trails in the Sky. I do have a few achievements left to get in the 3rd...

Honestly, I don't even know what the fuck I believe anymore. At this point I've read maybe half a dozen theories, some of which are either more interesting or account for more things than mine. Bonus points if they don't invalidate the series' entire mythology lol. Just finished reading this one and it's my favorite by far. As far as I can tell, it accounts for pretty much every little detail. So far I've remained unconvinced due to how these theories are mostly 100% interpretation with very little obvious evidence to support the claims. But this one has me almost convinced. This one actually makes me okay with not getting a season 4.

Looks like the rumors were true and Okami HD is indeed coming to PC (and PS4/X1) in the near future! And that's one less reason to keep my PS3 hooked up. Between this and the recent tease that the first Ni no Kuni might be coming to PC after all there's honestly not a whole lot left. There's like one Tales of game and a handful of PS2 classics. The former I'm not sure I even want to bother at this point and the latter I'd probably be better off hunting down physical copies. I love collecting PS2 games and they'd probably run much better emulated on PC.

Ys Seven. Finished it last night. After playing two Trails games within the span of just a few months, it felt pretty good to go back to Ys. I hadn't played a new one since Napishtim came out on Steam like 2 years ago, so it had been a while. It's neither the best nor the worst Ys but it's still pretty damn good! The port is decent although it's apparently capped at 1080p for now. I think they're working on adding arbitrary resolution support. The main thing is that this was developed as a PSP exclusive, so it's fairly limited in many ways. The character models scale up nicely enough but the environments are pretty small and some of the larger bosses just look godawful. Overall it kinda feels like the prototype version for Memories of Celceta, which I guess it technically kind of is. Crazy how big of a difference the jump to Vita made. I feel like Celceta would probably end up looking way better on PC. So yeah, Seven was the last Ys game I still hadn't played (ignoring those never released in english), so it was kind of overdue. Just in time for Ys VIII next week, too! That also makes Celceta the only one missing on Steam, so hopefully I'm correct in my assumption that it's coming next. It sounds like the team that worked on the port was pretty good and the results speak for themselves, so I'm sure XSEED will be working with them again. Seven sold pretty poorly but at this point XSEED just don't seem to give a fuck. They had to have known that releasing this PSP game just two weeks before the newest one wasn't going to result in a hit. So I can't say I feel too bad about it this time. It's gonna be really interesting to see how Ys VIII sells, though...

Wait... what? Why is this a thing that exists? Also where can I watch it????

Well, it's certainly more focused, I can't argue against that. I can't help but feel like if I had gotten into the series years ago I might feel differently about it. Seven and Celceta definitely feel more bloated than Felghana but I don't really have a problem with that. Especially with a new release like Ys VIII, I'd probably be hesitant to pay a full 60 bucks if it was a short and sweet affair like Felghana. That's unclear at this point. I've heard November for Tokyo Xanadu but I don't think there's been any official announcement regarding the release date yet. As for Cold Steel II, they're only just getting started working on the port. Durante has hinted at a December release on the Steam forums but I'm not sure if he was being entirely serious.

Why, though? Like, I genuinely don't get what's so much better about solo Adol. Is it a nostalgia thing? I love the dynamic of switching party members on the fly depending on what kind of damage enemies are vulnerable to. It's not exactly deep or anything but it's a hell of a lot more engaging than the bump system! Also, platforming was fucking terrible in the old games. The lack of jumping here is a massive improvement. Fight me!

Did you forget about the Mad Max episode or was that just a bad fever dream I had?

Pre-orders for Ys VIII are live. Also available on Humble and GOG. It's actually priced pretty reasonably in Canadaland. If it had been the usual 80 bucks I probably would've held off but I think I'm gonna have to bite now. No pre-order discount yet, though. I'm only about 15 hours into Seven, though, so I'm gonna have to finish that before the 12th. It's pretty damn good if you can look past the PSP graphics but it's in this weird situation like Napishtim was when it came out on Steam where I've already played the more refined version of the game (in this case Celceta), so it inevitably feels like a bit of a step down. But if this is the worst party-based Ys game then at this point it's clear to me that I'm not exactly on the same wavelength as the fanbase. Felghana and Origin are both fantastic and arguably as close to perfect execution as they could possibly be but I still like Celceta (and now Seven) better. Which makes me really excited for Ys VIII!

Really stoked to finally play Ys Seven! Still haven't finished Trails of Cold Steel, though. I'm almost done but holy fuck that game is a marathon. And I still need to do NG+ for achievements purposes. Thank fuck for turbo mode because, as much as I love it, I can't imagine sinking another 80 hours into that fucking game.

I've admittedly not listened to Exit Wounds a whole lot. From One Kill Wonder to The Dead Eye they were one of my favorite bands but they kinda lost me at Versus. But yeah, that track you posted is pretty damn good. Gonna have to give the full album a listen soon. edit: Halfway through it on Spotify and yeah, this is pretty damn good!