I strongly disagree on their roguelite “bug” being something they need to drop.
Bastion didn’t land for me, so I didn’t play it, but Transistor would have shined as a roguelite. Its combat system is far too complex, and has potential for so much more, than what can be explored in one or two playthroughs.
The same goes for Cloudbank as a narrative setting.
Transistor, but with Hades’ gameplay loop and storytelling style would be insane. It already felt like a roguelite, but without a gameplay or narrative reason to go in for multiple runs.
Supergiant hasn’t cought a roguelite bug… They’ve found the perfect narrative and game format to match the gameplay systems and worlds they like to create.
They are countries that do not have PSN access. As Sony wants to make PSN accounts mandatory on PC, they got in hot water for selling their games in countries where you can’t legally even have a PSN account.
In response, they blocked sales in all those countries.
I’m saying is that modern game engines and rendering tech allow a lot of the things that are good about these games to be turned up to eleven, both in terms of gameplay and art.
Say what you will about what it did with the characters, but Sly 4 took the level design and art to new heights, and that was thanks to modern advancements in graphics.
Sure, but if they keep trying to go bigger, they WILL hit a ceiling. And they have yet to show a willingness to go smaller with a subsequent project when one ends up too big to pay for itself.
Squenix does not seem to know how to match a budget to the size of the market that actually exists, and only ever goes smaller in scope when something is a “side project” adjacent to a main product.
Intergrade was not as big as main FF installments, but it was well received by a lot of players. As a result they immediately scaled up Rebirth to be as big, or bigger, than anything they’ve done. And lo and behold, players coming from Intergrade love it, but it didn’t magically mean a bunch more people bought it.
I’m referring to Squenix’s habit of overspending on a franchise the moment it gets traction, and then not selling enough games to recoup cost, because there was never that much demand to begin with.
If they make money on this cross-over, then ok. But as someone with zero interest in MtG, but plenty in the new Final Fantasy games, this just feels like yet another expensive marketing stunt that will not get an actual return.
They lost money on Tomb Raider and Deus Ex, because they couldn’t stop themselves spending almost as much on marketing as they did development, expecting a fan base orders of magnitude larger to materialize out of thin air.
And then, instead of reducing scope to match the number of fans and thereby sales they could actually expect, they just axed the franchises.