Oh boy, this makes it sound like there's another Calvard game after Kai. This series is never going to end, hah.

One thing I appreciate about FF5 is it allows for more of that flexibility. Fewer bosses like FF3's Garuda or dungeons like Cave of Shadows that will give the player a particularly hard time if they don't follow the prescribed party composition.

I was mildly concerned, as Metaphor had a little bit more of this than I liked at first. It seems to be easing up on this as the game goes on with more flexible options made available, fortunately.

I know Jennifer English and Ben Starr off-hand for playing Shadowheart in Baldur's Gate 3 and Clive in Final Fantasy XVI, respectively. Andy Serkis is most well-known for playing Gollum in The Lord of the Rings films, but he's been in a ton of stuff.

Seems there was a translation issue, Uematsu is clarifying that he's still doing work, just scaling it back. Consistent with what he's said previously about Fantasian being his last major project.

A seventh month gap for the next game in the series, crazy. Would be amazing if we got Kai by the end of the year.

About expected, I think. Too bad it's gonna take me forever to get to this one. Someone tell me later how Cherami's performance is in it.

It's already surpassed their player count peak from P3R on Steam, and people aren't home from work yet in the US. Could still go higher.

Yep, was trying to cross-post from a third party mobile app and it looks like it didn't do it right. Thanks.

UIs in Hashino's games have been avant-garde for a while now, but Persona 5 was the first time I thought the over-the-top design was essential to the game. Persona 5 makes for an amazing case study in top-down game design, where every last piece of it feeds back into the concept of a bunch of idealistic little shits running around causing upheaval in crusty old power structures by way of thievery. The menus were a big part of the constant reinforcement of this theme.

After playing the demo, I'm not sure how to feel about the menus in Metaphor just yet. I feel like a lot of it relates to things I haven't seen yet in the game, though the use of the MC's body--the artwork is literally him from head to toe as you proceed down the menu--is interesting. Leonardo's Vitruvian Man is referenced in multiple spots in the game, and there's also some body horror stuff going on with some of the enemies, so I imagine the sense of one's human (humanoid?) body is important somehow. It feels a little bit form-over-function overall, but given the game's pedigree, I'm giving them a lot of latitude once I delve into the game this weekend.

Yeah, there's a bizarre amount of particles in the world. I guess I'll hear more about that later but combined with the usual busy Persona-style UI, I'm expecting to hear complaints, lol.

About 90 minutes in, I'm enjoying the gameplay so far (still super simple) and already 100% hooked by the story. English voice acting is also phenomenal. I think the people who haven't been thrilled with Persona's slow starts are going to like this.

I'm not sold on the visuals. The handcam-style screen drift in dialogue scenes is a bizarre choice, especially with this game being on consoles and more and more people playing on Steam Deck. The vast majority of players are going to have aliasing issues on their hardware, and that's not going to be pretty with constant screen movement on a static scene with an anime style (and then it's not in the animated scenes either). It just feels so weird to me in a game without a realistic style.

Steam reviews are also mixed right now complaining of frame drops, and I did get some bad performance in the very early outdoor area. Haven't been to an area with that kind of draw distance since, and even in town I was able to maintain 60 FPS, so that's a good sign if the expansive areas are few and far between in the game. A lot of little things are telling me it's unlikely we're going to see substantial performance improvements in the full game, and it's going to have to overcome the Denuvo performance hit there, too.

Edit: finished the demo just now. I'm a little more used to the visual quirks (and I have a strong hunch that an interesting explanation is coming for one of them) and think this is going to be really good. I'm understanding now why Atlus is investing so much marketing into it.

More details on the Playstation blog.

Considering it's Yoko, it'd worry me if it wasn't random!

Square Enix has had offerings in lower tiers. The Bravely series has been their AA-budget Final Fantasy, and the rest of the Asano division's output (such as HD-2D) specializes in that range. They have also gone even lower recently with The Voice of Cards. SQEX's new president recently laid out a new direction for the company, so it's hard to say what their lineups will look like going forward, but for now, there's a range for players to choose from.

Looks nice! Kickstarter games have been a little mixed lately, so I wonder what the appetite will be for the fundraising.

What stands out to me the most about the mainline series today is that it's gone nearly 30 years with a track record of having quality games. While the games have had flaws and, more recently, time in development hell, the overall product has been at or near top-tier production quality in the industry (with the sole exception of Final Fantasy XIV's 1.0). That's remarkable considering how many different producers, directors and ideas the series has had. The series has become more experimental as of late, which has ruffled some feathers in the fandom. If that's the direction they want to keep going in, I'm all for it amidst a sea of stale IPs in gaming that play it safe and churn out cookie-cutter productions.

My favorites in the main series are VI and X. It's interesting to look back on VI and see how it was among the first to drive cinematic techniques in video games, be in awe at what Uematsu squeezed out of the SNES sound chip, and appreciate its timeless qualities like its sprite art. X is one I like more and more as time passes. I've explored the genre a lot more since I first played the game in 2003, and while I tend to find gameplay systems elsewhere I like more than those in Final Fantasy, FFX's story remains one of my favorites in gaming. It's amazing how much replay value the story offers on a second run, too. Really well-crafted stuff.

I'd say the series is facing a transitional point now, but that feels redundant considering it's always changing. Sales have been on a major decline in Japan, and both Rebirth and XVI are going to need major showings on PC to stay ahead of breakout global performances from NieR, Dragon Quest, and growing competition from Atlus. I didn't like a lot of Remake, so I'm not eagerly anticipating a PC release for Rebirth, but I did love everything about the recent FFXVI demo. Hopefully I'll enjoy that one when I'm able to pick it up down the road; I've seen a lot of complaints.

In any case, Final Fantasy wasn't my entry point to the genre and it's not my favorite JRPG series now. Still, it's what made me fall in love with the genre in the 90's. I'll always appreciate it for that.

I'm gonna be hopelessly far behind on this series forever (currently on Ayesha).

To me the platform response is one of two things, either Falcom is 1) being evasive for Nintendo's sake due to an exclusive marketing arrangement, or 2) they are planning on outsourcing at least the PC port again. They haven't done PC development in-house for a while now. At this stage, that probably means it won't be a simultaneous release.

I don't know what to make of them possibly self-publishing. Could be a new direction for the company or it means they are shopping around.

It still exists!

As a side note, I'm amused that they had the footstep sounds in the trailer, feels like a shot at Eiyuden's complete lack of footfall sounds.

Glad I went back and looked at this, this trailer looked rough in the Nintendo Direct.