I can’t say I agree with the approach. Someone like Sony can perhaps get away with this knowing that even with routine mechanics, they can reliably sell a good story.
But Square is sort of discovering their niche for modern Japanese RPGs; if their singular high budget games are going to be like Final Fantasy 16, there’s definitely some risk of overinvestment in stories people are “meh” about. Meanwhile, if people were asked to name their favorite JRPG stories, I imagine a lot of them were not ridiculously high budget.
Tbh that’s a low bar to pass. The newest CoD flopped pretty bad and Rockstar has been too busy with GTA6. Almost every other notable release was either a flop or a smaller studio or indie title.
While that might be true, 2023 was an year filled with great games and yet Hogwarts Legacy is first, and Call of Duty is 2nd.
As for notable games of the year that weren’t flop (in no particular order):
Spider-Man 2
Baldur’s Gate 3
Diablo IV
FF 16
Armored Core 6
Street Fighter 6
Alan Wake 2
Not to mention:
Resident Evil 4 Remake
Dead Space Remake
They may not be to your taste, but they all rated very highly. I haven’t included any Nintendo games, cause they don’t share digital data. Their numbers are based only on physical sales.
That’s actually fair. I barely pay attention to AAA gaming to begin with, so most of these games just weren’t on my radar. I just thought “oh, Starfield was the big hyped flop of the year, of course there wasn’t much AAA competition”
Well, Mario has kind of a general appeal, so I won’t call it a niche (and it was in 12th with just physical sale). And Pikmin 4 also sold over 2 Million in just first month or so, IIRC, though not sure if that’s enough for being a top seller in a year like the one we just had.
Also, Tears of the Kingdom was on 5th overall sales, and that’s only with the physical sales. Don’t know the actual number difference between 1st and 5th, but with digital added, it could’ve at least entered top 3, if not gone for 1st.
My wife is a big Harry Potter fan but has mixed feelings about it. She described the game this morning as not great but not bad either, with great graphics, but also with an indecisiveness to it that suggests too many cooks in the kitchen.
With that said, that’s just one opinion. The game seems outstandingly popular. She felt it’s worth the money if you can get it on sale in her personal opinion.
My wife and I had the same opinion. Magical to run around the castle for a few hours and do the early classes, surprisingly good combat mechanics, but then… Nothing.
It is really hurt by the inclusion of brooms. They necessitate a huge world so you can’t cross it in a minute, but then it’s too spread out and empty. At least in Ghost Recon my world-design-crippling flying devices have rockets and gattling guns.
Totally agree with this. The first few hours were great but then when you get the broom and you see the huge open space that’s just really lacking. I really wish it never went to that scale.
You may hit the nail on the head, once you get the broom you just breeze past everyhring. The forbidden forest may be the most dense content wise on foot, everything after that does feel more sparse as it was designed with the broom in mind. All in all I still enjoyed the game and got my moneys worth out of it, I did pick it up rather cheap on a sale
Thanks! I think I’ll hold off on this title. I don’t have much time for gaming and open world games can be got it miss for me. This one sounds like it might be a miss.
I got it on sale in December and think it’s worth it. I’m not a huge HP fan by any stretch but was impressed by the mechanics, they’re fun. Though as the game opens up you start to spot the tedious shit all open worlds tend to throw in to keep you busy. I just ignore that shit.
I’ve been enjoying the game as well. Not so much the story, or even “day by day” quest line its had. Once you get into the game and it opens though as the last guy said, it also has a lot of fun activities. You can also customize youre own “room” with the many magical creatures you can find as well.
If you liked the books, and just want to enjoy the game to feel what it might be like as a wizard than its an awesome game.
It’s extremely popular because it is a well polished Harry Potter game; something the world has been begging for for a long time. It does invoke that sense of magic that the films do so well, so if you’re just looking to get a fresh hit of the Hogwarts world it’s great. There are also a lot of really interesting and well designed characters. Most of all the world, particularly the castle, is beautifully and lovingly crafted.
The game buried beneath all that polish is a pretty basic-ass RPG. It is crammed with filler fetch/find quests. The dialogue system is just another exhaust all options non-system. The combat has some really cool ideas on paper but I personally ended up mostly mashing buttons against one of like 5 generic enemies most of the time. Also the only customization in this RPG is your appearance.
It’s not a bad game by any means, but i wouldn’t say it’s great either.
I also agree with the above statements. The best way I could describe it is that while the gameplay wasn’t all that spectacular, experiencing the game world was definitely a treat, and made me smile like I did the first time I opened the first Harry Potter book or played the first games that game out on PS1!
Haha! I actually listened to the audiobooks on the lead up to the release to get myself in that warm and cozy mindset for the game. Those books are like comfort food for my soul.
Can you give me some of your opinions on it? I made it to book 3 of Lord of the Rings, and just couldn’t put up with the purple writing any longer. Segments just seemed to drag on and on and on just to get through some dialogue that could’ve been said with a lot less flowery prose. It was charming at first, but I couldn’t put up with it any longer by book three, at least going back to back. I will finish it one day though! 😭
Ill preface with the fact that overall I think it’s more than worth your time, and is one of the greatest works of fiction ever made. That being said, it takes a little work to read as it is a VERY long series, and does a lot of worldbuilding. There is a point towards the middle where the “depth of field” of the story increases dramatically, and from my experience and my friend who has also read them, that is typically a burnout point. There isnt as much prose as in Tolkien’s works, though some of that is just cultural/temporal, but Robert Jordan was definitely in love with the story and takes the time to describe things fairly often. Im confident you’re likely to greatly enjoy the first three books and the last few books, but the middle could be a stumbling block.
Additionally, if you aren’t aware already, RJ passed away before the last book(s) could be finished and his wife arranged for Brandon Sanderson to collate all of the drafts and notes and conjure up a conclusion, which could definitely be something to consider. Personally, I was already a Brandon Sanderson fan before I read WoT, and I loved the ending.
One last thing, if you are deterred by the series or not ready to try it yet but still want a less-daunting rec, I love to recommend the Licanius Trilogy by James Islington. It is a reasonable length, it is one complete story, and it is just 🤌. End rant
edit: I forgot to mention that I am an audiobook-oriented person and greatly prefer them for the wheel of time. They’re narrated by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading, and they are EXCELLENT narrators.
You’ve got a friend in me, as the only times I have to allocate towards books is the hour commute to and from work every day, I will listen to my audiobooks that I have found or that have been recommended by wonderful people like you!
I will give the Wheel of Time and even the Licanius Trilogy a go, as I do like the epicness of LotR!
It is crazy how narrators can make or break some books though, isn’t it?!
Also, I just finished Fahrenheit 451, and the narrator had the “golden-age” of radio kinda voice and made it so much better than if I was just reading it myself!
Thank you again for taking the time out of your day to gush about something you love! 😁
If you do like Wheel of Time it’s always worth giving Brandon himself a shot as well. He’s busy writing his own universe called Cosmere. It’s got a few different series based on different planets and magic systems that can mostly be read as standalones, but they are also connected in… let’s just say ‘certain ways’ for now. Mistborn is a popular starting point. Personally I think ‘Emperor’s Soul’ is better if you want to try out his writing style, since it’s only about 100 pages or so.
If you aren’t sure, wait for a big sale. I quite enjoyed the game, but other than being a massively-popular IP, I’m not sure why it’s getting so much acclaim. It’s big, it’s Harry Potter (with all the attention to detail that usually gets), and it’s an RPG. If it wasn’t HP, it’d be another good indie game, and that’s it.
It’s a casual game that lets you run around the world of harry potter casting spells at people and things, solving puzzles, and wearing silly wizard clothes. If that sounds good to you then it’s good.
If you’re a HP fan the game is a no-brainer. But if not I suggest finding another AAA RPG game. I borrowed my friend’s copy via family sharing and I only got maybe around 4-5 hours in before I got bored and uninstalled the game.
The character customization is pretty good. Mostly just face and hair iirc but there’s a good bit of options. You can also customize your wand. That’s the most important bit I’d say.
I’d say if you’ve ever wondered what it be like to just wander about the castle, it’s well worth it. It’s cheaper than going to say universal studios or the Warner Brothers lot in London…
But there’s actually very little gameplay in the castle around areas you recognize from the books or movies. It doesn’t take long until you’re throwing into a very generic game with a thin coat of Harry Potter paint applied. There’s a lot of samey quests and combat doesn’t really evolve ever.
You have the same problem with Steam already for years.. I mean you do not have a physical copy anymore. In fact if Steam is down, you might not be able to download, play or play multiplayer. So you own nothing and be happy - WEF.
I did thought you were crazy in the past indeed. Since digital is the future, right? It might still is, but for some reason all game studios, producers and distributors like ubisoft or steam just create bad software/games. Where you need 24/7 internet connection and doesn't allow you to own a digital offline copy of the product. It's not just games.
Steam is different, though; many games have no DRM and even more just have Steam’s DRM that’s already been cracked globally and is super quick to patch. They also maintain access to paid games even after they’re delisted.
AFAIK, the only problems with maintaining access to Stream games are software-as-a-service games when servers go down (MMOs and multiplayer servers, basically) and music with expired licenses (fuck the RIAA and copyright law for that one; not much Steam can do about that.) I have many delisted games in my library and I can download them any time I want.
Sure, Steam could go down, at some point. Maybe. But it’s not a big concern.
Nope.. Some games will fail to start if the "main" server is down or some authentication server or whatever server it nowadays might depend on. So even if you install a game now and let it rest of years, the changes it will start again over 10 years is very low. I'm not even talking about multiplayer, since multiplayer will be definitively broken by then. And LAN features are no longer implemented by game devs.
I do agree that gamepass will only make matters worse.
She is a terrible bigot, and a loud one, and that sucks because she also produced a cultural phenomenon of my childhood, and while the canon of HP is only just barely pretty okay sometimes, it spiralled out from there and SO MUCH of the media and culture I’ve consumed and existed within since then has been informed by it.
So yeah. If there’s any comfort, let it be that any money she gets from this comes from explicitly affirming a trans woman through the work, as well as implicitly affirming any trans players through the character creation options. Small comfort maybe, but she is far away.
That, and there was an entire team of people working on this game for years, trying to make it the best vision of theirs as well as making it fit within the pre established world.
This article was a wild ride. I have not been keeping up with Square Enix so I had no idea they were all in on the web3 hype and now AI, too. I am wondering what is going on with the title “Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai”, did AI come up with that wordy name? What even is a Strash?
Someone needs to teach this company about sunk costs. Just because they invested in blockchain and AI doesn’t mean they need to keep throwing money and resources at it. Maybe they would have a better marketing budget and better market research into the new trends in their field if they weren’t so busy constantly salivating over all the latest tech bro hype.
Honestly, considered it even though I haven't pirated a game in like twenty years. But when I found out the the person who cracked the game is also a hateful bigot, I didn't even want to download their work. Nah, I'll buy it second hand.
“Moderately related” as in “written by and with royalties paid to”
People, and trans people especially, absolutely have good reason to not want to buy a product that directly funds a person who is actively hostile to their existence.
You can’t deal with critical comments from a community who are directly affected by the actions of a major stakeholder? That’s pathetic.
Sealioning Sealioning is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity, and feigning ignorance of the subject matter.
shes wrong about the second part if she said that, it just means you dont care enough about their position (/ them) to stop you or you believe in art ≠ artist. about the first part, it’s too vague for me to take a stance on. if shes called for their deaths thats horrific. if she said that trans minors should get a 40 minute psych checkup before irreversible surgery, i couldnt care less.
I suggest you do your own research then. From everything I’ve read, JKR is a horrible person and virulently anti-trans. There are a lot of ways to br horrific without outright calling for people’s deaths.
i dont put that much weight on some random authors societal takes to research them. if shes calling to take away trans peoples votes or for them to be removed from the work force or something insane thats wrong. if shes just saying ‘idc about peoples preferred pronouns’ i couldnt gaf, shes one person of billions, so what honestly.
She’s one person influencing millions, if not billions, that’s for sure. She’s not some random author, she is one of the most well known personalities of the 20th and 21st century. Her opinions carry weight, as misguided as that may be on the part of her followers.
I’d partially agree with you if we were talking about some random who has sold a few hundred kindle copies of their book on Amazon and is spewing nonsense. And even then I’d call for people to not support that author in any way shape or form. JKR is however hugely influential, and that absolutely should matter when it comes to deciding who you give your money to.
First: she doesn’t need to say anything specifically or explicitly to be a transphobe actively hostile to the existence of trans people.
Second: she says things and creates spaces that are very specifically and explicitly hostile to the existence of trans people.
Third: she associates with and collaborates with people who openly advocate for “reductions in trans people”.
Honestly I could go through my understanding of her issue, but many people have spoken at great length about why her behavior is harmful. If you’re truly interested seek them out.
You can search up “jk Rowling transphobic” or “jk Rowling anti trans” and you’ll find a plethora of sources yourself, this isn’t really a controversial thing. She’s the most well loved transphobe in the world.
It makes absolute sense that people are passionately against this game, which puts money directly in the pockets of not only a very vocal transphobe with a huge following-but one who actively finances anti-trans causes. The game itsself has its own incredibly problematic issues, but I focus on the transphobia because that’s what your comment was concerned with.
Quite frankly, yes, we want acceptance. But “acceptance” of trans people as people who have human rights should be the bare minimum. That is in no way comparable to pushing back against this game, or pushing back against JKR.
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