This isn't really suprising since NISA wasn't going to fund an entirely new PS4 port. It's pretty clear they are keen on not spending too much on Zero and Azure. That's a smart choice too, I doubt these games will see the same sales as the much flashier looking Cold Steel 3 and 4.
Of course it does suck for PS4 players, but on the other hand, I don't think for a series like Trails it's really all that important. It lives from its writing for the most part.
Speaking of Cold Steel 3, it's pretty amazing what Falcom was able to produce once they weren't held back by the ancient Vita or PS3. This games looks crazy good on my Steam Deck, in many ways the 3D models match almost exactly the corresponding 2D artwork in the menus. The 3D models in the message boxes also look about as good as they used to in the Crossbell and Sky games, really detailed and with a good number of expressions.
imho it's even more noticeable in Kuro no Kiseki, where cutscenes with some action have characters moving more fluidly as opposed to the cold steel series where character jumping and doing any sort of action thing look like they're puppets fighting in slow motion.
I always wonder if it is worth starting the trails games, I even own all of them on steam. It's just that I hear how long each one is and then how many of them there are, intimidates me into moving onto another game.
I basically try to make it so that I never play two trails games after each other, and pace it out with a few other games in between. As for the length, my thinking goes that I really like to savour my experience with the games. As such, the length is not a negative. I feel zero pressure to finish them quickly. I chat with all NPCs, since I really like the care and attention Falcom puts to making even unimportant NPCs feel like actual humans, not just background art. I finish the fishing game, since I have very unhealthy obsession with fishing games in JRPG (please help) and generally just like to enjoy all the great things that are in these games.
The only big thing is to avoid burnout, and thus no two Trails games after each other, ideally a pause of at least a month or two in between.
Damn I'm the total opposite, I replayed CS1-2 and in order to play all CS games back to back, did the same with the sky trilogy back then, I don't think I'd have enjoyed them as much as I did if I didn't play them all back to back.
I love bingeplaying this series (and game series in general), it always feels like one big long journey.
Unfortunately it's quite tough, especially with school lessons online. This is why you don't see me playing new stuff on Steam lately. I just don't have the bandwidth right now to download big games or even update them. (I hope P5R isn't too big filesize wise, cuz I would like to play it...)
As for streaming I can only do it on my phone atm. (Unlimited mobile data at least.) This is the biggest reason I ended up subbing to YouTube premium lol. Since I'm forced to watch everything on my phone...
The problem with living in rural areas is that Cable or Fiber often doesn't reach them. My only options where I'm at in Texas is wireless ones such as satellite or mobile hotspot.
That's why I'm waiting on Starlink to service my area. I know Mr. Musk is hated on for good reasons, but goddamn... No one else is servicing people stuck with shit internet options and lord knows the Satellite industry DESPERATELY needs competition.
For me, Starlink would enable going from 3Mb/s to near 200, cut my ping from >150ms to ~30ms, and Starlink doesn't have data caps.
Damn I'm the total opposite, I replayed CS1-2 and in order to play all CS games back to back, did the same with the sky trilogy back then, I don't think I'd have enjoyed them as much as I did if I didn't play them all back to back.
I love bingeplaying this series (and game series in general), it always feels like one big long journey.
I did that with FC and SC, but that's just because the cliffhanger ending of FC is too annoying. For all the other games, I felt the ending always had a fair bit of closure where I didn't feel the need to "binge" them, as you said.
And I don't think the pauses in between hampered my enjoyment at all, quite the opposite. But hey, different strokes for different folks.
actually this made me check if starlink is available where I live and it is, I currently don't "need" it but it's nice to know it's available just in case
I did that with FC and SC, but that's just because the cliffhanger ending of FC is too annoying. For all the other games, I felt the ending always had a fair bit of closure where I didn't feel the need to "binge"
It's an interesting "issue" that is a combination of Falcom's messy licensing/lack of in-house porting and Durante being too good at his job.
It was already the case with previous console vs. PC versions as well, this time it's just more obvious because it's a simultaneous release and PH3 did the Switch version as well.
It's unfortunate for the PlayStation folks, but it is what it is.
Fun fact: that screenshot used in this common comparison shows a general visual bug (in both versions) that we have since fixed.
That no one has remarked on it in any of the discussons about it on the internet (as far as I can tell) shows that it's probably not the most significant bug.
(It's the strength of the glow effect. For some reason -- we aren't entirely sure yet why -- the glow was significantly more pronounced on the original PSP version than any of the PC or Kai console releases. And IMHO it does look better with a bit more glow akin to PSP)
Unfortunately it's quite tough, especially with school lessons online. This is why you don't see me playing new stuff on Steam lately. I just don't have the bandwidth right now to download big games or even update them. (I hope P5R isn't too big filesize wise, cuz I would like to play it...)
As for streaming I can only do it on my phone atm. (Unlimited mobile data at least.) This is the biggest reason I ended up subbing to YouTube premium lol. Since I'm forced to watch everything on my phone...
The problem with living in rural areas is that Cable or Fiber often doesn't reach them. My only options where I'm at in Texas is wireless ones such as satellite or mobile hotspot.
That's why I'm waiting on Starlink to service my area. I know Mr. Musk is hated on for good reasons, but goddamn... No one else is servicing people stuck with shit internet options and lord knows the Satellite industry DESPERATELY needs competition.
For me, Starlink would enable going from 3Mb/s to near 200, cut my ping from >150ms to ~30ms, and Starlink doesn't have data caps.
I am looking forward to playing Trails from Zero at the end of this month. I already played the Geofront version back in 2020, and a bit of Azure's Geofront last year but then I dropped it once the official localizations were announced. I'm currently planning on playing Zero, Azure, CS3, CS4, then Reverie. Made in Abyss game looks interesting, but I want to watch the anime first.
As for the PS4 version of Zero and Azure lacking enhancements and features of the PC and Switch versions, someone on ResetEra has stated that Falcom was approached by NISA to add these features to the PS4 version (since Falcom handles the localization programming for the versions they developed), but Falcom refused. It sucks that PS4 players had to wait two years for the first Trails release since CS4 and they're getting a rather inferior version (both in terms of graphics and QoL), but I can't blame NISA for this.
Either way, this solidifies that the best place to play Falcom's games is on PC, at least if you're patient enough.
There is some irony to this, since Falcom used to be a PC focused developer until the mid 2000s, with Zwei Zwei being their last game with PC as the primary platform. And now, even after they stopped making PC games themselves, you have a situation where in the West the PC is again pretty much the premiere platform for modern Falcom games.
Yes. But only for 10GB tethering (Also called hotspot data). After 10GB the phone company slows you to 128kbs or less when mobile hotspot is enabled. v_v
Unfortunately it's quite tough, especially with school lessons online. This is why you don't see me playing new stuff on Steam lately. I just don't have the bandwidth right now to download big games or even update them. (I hope P5R isn't too big filesize wise, cuz I would like to play it...)
As for streaming I can only do it on my phone atm. (Unlimited mobile data at least.) This is the biggest reason I ended up subbing to YouTube premium lol. Since I'm forced to watch everything on my phone...
The problem with living in rural areas is that Cable or Fiber often doesn't reach them. My only options where I'm at in Texas is wireless ones such as satellite or mobile hotspot.
That's why I'm waiting on Starlink to service my area. I know Mr. Musk is hated on for good reasons, but goddamn... No one else is servicing people stuck with shit internet options and lord knows the Satellite industry DESPERATELY needs competition.
For me, Starlink would enable going from 3Mb/s to near 200, cut my ping from >150ms to ~30ms, and Starlink doesn't have data caps.
Ohhh man I hear ya for starlink. My parents had 100gb data at 15mb/s and 600 ping with satellite until they got starlink..now they're rockin 250mb/s with no data caps and 30 ping so they feel like they're in heaven. Hopefully starlink will hop into your area real soon
It's actually kinda in line with they've been doing in recent years. Smaller (as in: non-Disgaea and I guess non-Yomawari) NIS titles are never getting any new ports when coming west and Vanillaware is, well, Vanillaware. My hopes were mostly based on all that "PC sales good" stuff in NIS' financial report.
Since I was all fawning over Circus Electrique yesterday, I was inspired to circle back around to Darkest Dungeon's Steam page just for kicks.
I've had the base game since way back in the day but was curious to see the current state of DLC accoutrements. To my surprise I discovered that it's currently seeing a pretty deep sale.
The All in One pack, Ancestral Addition, is like 9 bucks and some change. Already owning the base game brought it down to $6.
Explore every niche of the Steam store with powerful new Store Hubs
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Personalized Shopping With New Tag, Genre, and Category Pages
Explore every niche of the Steam store with powerful new Store Hubs
Today's Steam update brings big updates to the various tag, genre, category, and theme browsing pages across the Steam store. Previously released as a Steam Labs experiment, these new store hubs have been tested and iterated upon with player feedback over the past few months. In fact, you've probably already seen these new hubs in action, as we've made use of them during the Summer Sale or various official themed sales.
As the catalog of titles available on Steam continues to grow, we're working to make it easier for you to find your next favorite game. This update improving the ways you can browse genres, tags, or themes, allowing you to dive deep into each area and narrow down to exactly what you're looking for.
Here's a look at what's new:
New hubs for all categories, themes, genres, and tags
These new pages now make it easy to explore all kinds of different niches within Steam. Whether you are looking for a general category like "Multiplayer", a theme like "Space" or a very specific tag like "Action Roguelike", these new hubs let you explore deep into that category. For many categories, we've hand-built an organization to surface the relevant sub-categories within. For example, the RPG store hub is organized into Action RPGs, Adventure RPGs, JRPGs, and more, so you can drill down to exactly the kind of game you are looking for.
Each hub is personalized for you
The contents of each hub is personalized based on your play history, network of friends, followed developers, and what you have on your wishlist.
Each hub starts with big, detailed recommendations
The carousel at the top of the page will show you games recommended for you, along with helpful metadata about why that game might be relevant for you.
New For You: Surfacing recommended new releases and new games from followed devs
Each hub will recommend games based on what you've been playing and the developers you follow on Steam. Of course if you are looking at a category of games that you've never played before, Steam may not be able to generate many useful recommendations for you and will hide those sections.
Filter, sort, and find exactly what you're looking for
These hubs each contain a powerful list view that lets you use the filter controls to narrow down to exactly the segment of games you are looking for. We call this feature 'Faceted Browsing' and it also began life as a Steam Labs experiment.
Find recently updated games and games with upcoming events
Every section of the Steam store is now lit up with current events from related titles. Catch a seasonal event, big update, or other interesting news directly from the developers.
Keep an eye on what's next
The new hubs end with a dedicated section showcasing upcoming releases. Pre-purchase or wishlist anticipated titles to be notified as soon as they're released.
Finding Hubs Is Easy
Click on an individual tag from any game's store page and you'll find the hub for that tag. You can also easily discover the most popular hubs, or the hubs recommended for you right from the Steam store homepage.
Your Recommended Hubs
We've also added a new way to jump right into one of your favorite categories right from this colorful carousel on the Steam homepage. This section will recommend categories based on the games you've recently been playing so you can explore more similar games. Or you can always scroll to find some other categories that you maybe haven't played in a while.
Explore Popular Hubs
You can access the most popular destinations by hitting the "Categories" drop-down at the top of the Steam store.
Jesus XCOM2 vanilla is hard ! 3/4 of my soldiers are in the infirmary, I have basic gears, don't know how to get more scientists and engineer, just one fucking room opened with no new one being cleared because no engineers, and the game suddenly thought it would be cool to go from easy to medium missions.
Now granted, the soldiers get some really good training, but uguu.
This is like, the opposite path that NMS took. They keep adding paid DLC to a core game that's fundamentally broken in a number of ways and ignoring player feedback. It's massively disappointing from a smaller company like Amplitude who have worked to build community forums etc. but then seem to just not act on it.
Tons of people still get their games locked because the "end turn" bug present in all Amplitudes 4X still persists here
They disabled pollution by default because after multiple patches they can't figure out how to balance it (despite, again, a lot of community write ups on how)
Combat and unit management remains a shell of what it could be, because again they don't seem to know how to balance it in an interesting way despite the community also solving that for them
Many of the features touted in that announced expansion should absolutely have been in the base game - one of their early talking points was that the game wouldn't be easy to just "war" your way through and it actually had hard caps to how much you could do with pure violence. And rather than add anything else to the core game, they're just adding it as DLC
I would say the most reasonable explanation for all of this is they have funding troubles and had to release the game early (because it absolutely was not ready for launch when it launched), but even so their patch cycles for ALL their games are incredibly slow and generally very small. At this point it has to be poor management, their other games haven't been the biggest sellers in the world but they clearly had some success and their games were well regarded, but Humankind is just a nonstop mess. Which sucks doubly because the potential for it being great is clearly there, there are interesting ideas, and if you don't get stopped by one of the many bugs you can have fun for one or two plays, but I just don't understand what the fuck they're doing at this point.
Pay what you want for a bundle of hit 2K games including Borderlands 3, XCOM, Civilization VI, BioShock, and more, and support Covenant House with your purchase.
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