toxicitizen

I'm just about ready to head out to the final dungeon, I think I'm almost done wrapping everything else up. I really love how, unlike FC and SC, there's barely any truly missable stuff. You can backtrack to almost every single chest in the entire game and the achievement for the chest messages doesn't require all of them this time around. The only thing you could potentially miss out on is the books in the garden and that's easily fixed if you keep backup saves for every single chapter. The only achievements I'm going to be missing are the ones that require at least another playthrough anyway. I am not looking forward to my first Nightmare difficulty Trails run... Also, star door 14 has some pretty juicy overall lore stuff. Make sure you do all of them, Mal! And goddamn, star door 15 is some seriously dark shit. O_o

I'm a huge fan of puzzle games and I remember raging at some levels pretty hard, so it's definitely not just you. The game strikes a pretty good balance between being challenging enough to require you to think carefully about your moves and rushing you by constantly trying to crawl up your ass with some kind of threat but it can make for some pretty frustrating levels.

Hahahaha, nope. Now I really want to tell you just to scare the shit out of you. I'll just leave it in a spoiler tag and let you agonize over whether to click or not. All I'll say is this. The boss' identity might seem like a big spoiler but it really isn't. That person's presence in Phantasma isn't really a big deal considering the context and when you reach a certain area in a certain chapter, it becomes really obvious that you'll be running into them.

Noticed it was actually discounted for Humble's current sale, so I jumped on it. I feel like there's been an increasing trend of DLC and season passes not being discounted (or barely) along with their base game lately, so I didn't want to miss the chance to grab it cheap. Don't think I'll play them any time soon, though. I'm not quite ready to do a fresh playthrough of the game and I've learned the hard way in DSII that jumping into Souls DLC on NG++ and beyond is just asking for a bad time.

Yeah, it's a completely different beast. I had heard that it was the hardest of all the games but I wasn't quite prepared for how brutal it could get. The boss fight I stopped on last night was just... well, if I told you who it's against you would probably understand right away but let's just say I got utterly destroyed. Not even sure how to prepare for it today, honestly. Personally, I'm not crazy about the new structure and main plot but the doors more than make up for it. I was kinda shocked by how insanely long the first sun door I did was. And I really love how there's a star door that's basically nothing but exposition and foreshadowing for Cold Steel. You wouldn't know it if you're playing the games in order, though. So, I'm really glad to have at least played Cold Steel 1 and it makes me wonder if I'm missing any obvious Zero/Ao tie-ins.

Mass Effect isn't particularly surprising given the state and reception of Andromeda and I can't say I'm particularly heartbroken to see the IP die off. But the IO thing is some fucking bullshit. Hitman 2016 was not only the best Hitman game in years (possibly ever), it was also one of the best games last year. I shouldn't be surprised to see S-E do idiotic shit at this point but it's frustrating as hell to see them punish IO (or any of their western studios) while their own in-house teams make shit that is painfully mediocre on a fairly consistent basis. You'd never see them cut the budget of the next mainline Final Fantasy yet that series hasn't had a truly amazing game in over a decade. Just... ugh!

Yes! Okay, now do Skies of Arcadia next! And Resonance of Fate! And... and Jet Set Radio Future, I guess? Just keep 'em coming!

Yeah, Falcom have this annoying habit of not giving their partners access to their games until after the Japanese launch. So, at the very least a year later for the english release. Then there's the possibility that it might be another massive script like SC, which would likely push it even further. That's just me speculating on script length but it has been 3 whole years since Cold Steel 2's Japanese launch. That's a hell of a gap compared to the single year between CS1 and 2. On the bright side, that leaves us with plenty of time to wait for the PC ports and play them. It's also pretty much the first Trails game to be guaranteed an english release, so it's nice to not have to worry about that for once. Gonna have to ignore all news relating to it for a while, though. I've already had something from Cold Steel 2 spoiled for me and I'd like to avoid any further spoilers...

The art style is also arguably the only truly unique element the series has. I absolutely loved 1 and 2 but they're some of the most derivative games I've ever played. D1 was pretty much just a Zelda clone but D2 felt like they took random modules from various games and just threw them all together. I liked the end result but it ended up feeling kinda weird. I guess in a good way because now that I'm thinking about it I'm really looking forward to replaying it in the near future.

I'm not sure how that even works but I have a feeling unless I want book spoilers I probably don't want to know... It's not like I don't have plenty of time to read the last two books but it's been so long that I kinda need to start over. And a seven eight book series is a little daunting considering I haven't read any novels in forever. Also I would need to grab the new book, I guess. Well, I just tracked down and dusted off my copies. If I leave them sitting in plain sight I'll probably guilt myself into starting them eventually.

They pretty much just confirm what you could already assume but it's always interesting to see this aspect of things being acknowledged. IGN sure are milking the shit out of this exclusive, though. I mean, this probably should've been a paragraph in a bigger write-up lol.

The tinybuild blog post has a bunch of updates at the end of it. The date in the url is most likely just updated automatically whenever there's one, probably so it gets bumped to the top. I doubt it was ever taken down completely. Also, the piracy comparison you keep bringing up isn't really apt in this case. Arguing that piracy directly translates to lost sales is silly, yes. But that's not even close to what they were actually saying. If you actually read that blog post, it says a bunch of keys were bought through tinybuild's own store and then they started getting hit with chargebacks and were able to trace the same keys to G2A. Which, by the way, is the actual reason why their games only show as purchasable through Steam on their own site now. They had to shut down their own store because turns out getting hit with hundreds if not thousands of chargebacks isn't exactly profitable. Pretty sure you usually get fined and end up losing money. The most confusing thing for me at this point is why you're so adamant on giving the benefit of the doubt to G2A, a company with a well documented shitty history, but have no issue making out the actual game makers to be greedy liars shouting at a non-existant boogeyman. Did video games steal your lover and run over your dog or something?

Oh, tinyBuild have taken down the blog post? I had no idea, that changes everythi-- oh wait, nope, it's still up. I guess your google fu isn't as strong as you thought it was, uh? So, you've sold legitimate keys through G2A. Okay. Congrats? And you think that anecdotal experience proves what exactly? Because it sure as shit isn't "so all the other keys must be legitimate as well!" Not remotely close to how that works. Do you also think that credit card theft doesn't happen because you've never personally done it? At some point, doubling down on being intentionally dense starts to make someone look just plain dense, dude. Not a great look when you also start accusing others of being uninformed...

???????? What's obtuse is to ignore the overwhelming evidence and act like G2A is exactly the same as the company that allows you to choose who gets your money between them, the devs and charity. Where exactly have I said that G2A themselves are committing fraud? I think you might be misunderstanding the problem here. It's their marketplace that facilitates the sale of stolen keys or keys bought using stolen credit cards. The problem is that they don't give a flying fuck and have no desire whatsoever to do anything about it. They're perfectly content to just look the other way and take their cut. When I said "Google route", I was referring to the draconian way they handle copyright stuff on YouTube. Probably should've been more specific there. I'm not "patting them on the back" for merely having a refund policy. You're absolutely right that it was overdue. I'm simply acknowledging that their refund policy is way better than anyone could've expected given their history. They could've probably gotten away with something worse than what we got. Just giving credit where credit is due.

Intentionally obtuse it is, then. That means I'm done with this discussion but just a few last points. 1) The UI for disabling G2A Shield isn't "crap", it's very deliberately misleading. Just because MS apparently did something similar doesn't make it any less shitty. 2) I only mentioned Humble in my previous post for a reason. GMG were caught selling dodgy keys for Witcher 3 and caught flak for it (rightfully so). They've since added a disclaimer on their store pages sourcing their keys, so that's something. You're free to double check (or not) when you buy from them. 3) Yes, the refunds are fairly recent but that's not particularly relevant here. They could've gone the Google route and implemented some shitty, corporate-friendly refund policy but instead they went ahead and implemented pretty much the most consumer-friendly refund policy imaginable and, as far as I'm aware, the best one of any digital distributor. To the point where devs making short games with zero replay value are having freakouts about it.

Came to post this. So it's definitely in a playable state, then. Looks a little rough, though. Fury's animations look a bit stiff to me and something feels a little...off about the environment. Just can't quite put my finger on what. Given we have no idea what kind of budget this has or what the team size is at Gunfire Games, I'll take this as my cue to manage expectations. It's pre-alpha so I won't make any assumptions here, they have plenty of time until release. But I'll make sure to not let my hype and expectations for a next-gen Darksiders run wild.

Really? You don't understand the difference between authorized retailers and gray market resellers? You'll never see Humble selling keys bought fraudulently, for a start, and your money isn't going to some random dude in China or whatever. And, of course, small companies like Devolver and tinyBuild are the ones you'll hear complain the loudest. They're the ones that will be hit the hardest by this bullshit! Where you choose to spend your money is your own business and I'm not trying to tell you otherwise but G2A's incredibly shady behavior is well documented at this point. You have to be either grossly uninformed or intentionally obtuse to claim that buying from them is the same as buying from Humble. I mean, just look at the process to deactivate their G2A Shield "protection" Anyone that's taken so much as a single UI design class can see that it's blatantly designed to confuse, mislead and frustrate you into leaving it active. Totally consumer friendly and not shady at all! As for Valve, that no questions asked refund policy sure is anti-consumer! I mean, they are far from perfect and have done shitty things in the past for sure but they are not the bad guys in this particular scenario.

Yeah, about that... I mean, if you can do it from inventory with NeoGAF's rudimentary giveaway system, surely a marketplace like G2A can handle it as well. No bearing on outside keys but those can always be identified and deactivated from the publisher's end. It makes sense for Steam to at least do what they can to stop it from happening through their own system. I'm not saying it's not shitty, just that I can see why they're doing it. Super fans and dumb rich people, I guess? Selling CSGO knives is apparently pretty lucrative. It's kinda mind-blowing. O_o

I'm pretty sure 4-packs were discontinued a while ago because of the refunds. The gifting restrictions suck but I can kinda see where they're coming from. This will at least prevent stuff bought directly on Steam to be sold on shady sites like G2A and whatnot. Also, no more regional restrictions on gifting is pretty damn cool... as long as you both live in regions with pricing that aren't too different. :/

Yeah, it's been in the top 5 on Steam all day. Steam's top sellers list works based on revenue. So, given an equal number of copies sold, a higher priced game should be ranked higher. Which means that to be above Prey it has to have sold at least twice as many copies in the same time period. The game's sales potential still has a fairly low ceiling but it seems to be doing decently all things considered. Hopefully it's at least doing better than SC did at launch. It's been a while but IIRC I think SC was somewhere in the 10k-15k range? As for Crossbell, I'm probably being naively optimistic but I have a feeling that they might have actually started working on it. They got started on 3rd very quickly after SC and no doubt the translator(s) work on 3rd has been over for some time now. I'm pretty sure the same people worked on Cold Steel and 3rd and we know that Hatsuu has taken over as editor/producer for the entire Trails series. So, either they're working on Crossbell or that team is currently not working on Trails at all for the first time in over 2 years. Another interesting thing is that we recently learned that Sara is no longer working on contract, she's now an in-house XSEED employee. Now, that wouldn't have happened unless they had programming work to do in-house. We know she's not working on the Cold Steel ports and it's probably safe to assume that she won't be involved with ports coming from Marvelous' Japanese side. That means XSEED have more non-port PC releases in the pipeline and Sara has almost exclusively worked on Falcom stuff before. I really want to believe that Joyoland deleting everything from Greenlight a few months ago wasn't just a coincidence... TL;DR:

It's the first english release and it's the original version of the game (the Sky trilogy originally came out while Falcom was still a PC-centric developer). XSEED have been going the extra mile and backporting a lot of improvements from the PSP and Japan-only PS3 versions, though. The Steam releases are arguably the definitive versions of the games at this point.

Launch trailer! Hyyyyype!

TODAY IS THE BEST DAY YOU GUYS!!!!!!! Of course, I can't play it until later because my idiot self scheduled a phone interview at 2PM today and only realized after the fact what I had done...

They're only publishing it outside of Japan, kind of like a reverse Demon's Souls. I don't think they funded development in any way nor do they own the IP. There's always a chance some kind of permanent deal was struck but it could easily be timed. They don't own it like they do Bloodborne. @TheMightyEthan More likely they'd just self-publish it on Steam like they do with all their non-contract games.