In all the excitement with various reviews, Yakuza news, and everything else this month, I almost forgot to announce that Parachronism: Order of Chaos now has a page on Steam.
For those of you who weren’t following my blog way back in 2015, Parachronism: Order of Chaos was the first video game project I was hired to work on.
Now, after many changes and updates, it is finally nearing completion with a whole new art style and other improvements.
Parachronism is an action RPG with life sim elements about a girl who finds herself transported back in time to a strange land where she is recognized as the fugitive princess of the Western Sea Kingdom, on the run after the Eastern Sea Kingdom attacked the palace.
The life sim elements include time management, relationship-building, a day/night cycle, and more.
This is one of the projects that really helped me get my start as a freelancer, so it’s a strange, wonderful feeling to see it finally nearing completion. If Parachronism: Order of Chaos sounds interesting to you, be sure to check it out on Steam.
After rumors that the Yakuza 3 remaster would be revealed for the West at Gamescom, yesterday’s Yakuza news was better than we could have imagined with the announcement of the Yakuza Remastered Collection.
Yes, the remasters of Yakuza 3, Yakuza 4, and Yakuza 5 have all been confirmed. The Yakuza Remastered Collection is available now digitally from the PlayStation Store. Not only that, but Yakuza 3 is out now, with Yakuza 4 to follow on October 29 and Yakuza 5 on February 11.
It seems there’s no way to purchase them individually, which is a bit odd. Maybe that will become possible in the future.
There was also excellent news for fans like me who prefer physical copies. Physical copies of the Yakuza Remastered Collection will be available on February 11 as well, and it even includes an empty Yakuza 5 PS3 case for collectors (as Yakuza 5 was originally digital-only in the west).
An Amazon page is up for the physical collection, but it’s not available to preorder yet.
Check out the trailer.
Now, are these remasters identical to the PS3 releases? No, it’s been confirmed that there are many improvements, including a redone localization (fixing odd translation/localization choices in the original) and the restoration of cut content.
I believe a couple of small things were cut for the remaster of Yakuza 3 itself, but basically the western version of the remaster will have all the content present in the Japanese version of the remaster, which is a lot more than was in the original western version.
Finally, localization of the spin-off Yakuza Ishin is reported to be “under consideration,” with the main holdup being that they don’t know if the West would be interested in the setting. All we have to do now is convince them that samurai games are popular.
So yesterday was a pretty exciting day for Yakuza fans, and don’t forget that information about Shin Yakuza will be revealed on August 29!
I’m waiting for the physical release of the Yakuza Remastered Collection, which is fine since I still need to finish Judgment and play Kiwami 2 before I’ll be ready for Yakuza 3 anyway. What about you? Will you be picking up the Yakuza remasters?
Over the weekend, I finished playing Shadows of Adam, an indie RPG I backed on Kickstarter.
It’s one of those games intended to feel like a throwback to classic JRPGs, and in a lot of ways, this one really does.
Shadows of Adam follows a boy named Kellan and a girl named Asrael who leave the small town of Adam in search of Kellan’s missing father when a dark power begins to stir. It’s a turn-based RPG with a few twists, such as a percentage-based AP system that is partly restored each round. Enemies appear on the field, and some of the battles can get fairly tough.
I’ve played a few of these JRPG-inspired games now, and Shadows of Adam is definitely one of the better ones. It has some of the heart and soul they often seem to lack. The soundtrack was also pretty catchy.
Now, the story was fairly simple and its nods to classic JRPGs might have gone a bit too far with one obviously-Kefka-inspired villain, but the plot was enjoyable enough and kept me interested. I cared about the main characters, and it took the time to give each of them backstory and make me want to care.
(And I have to admit, while Kefka’s influence on Malvil was blatant enough to take me by surprise, he did make me laugh.)
Shadows of Adam is a short game. I finished it in just under 16 hours, and that’s on the longer end. Most of that was fairly linear plot progression, which I found stronger than when it did open up near the end for a few side quests. Despite the fast pace, it felt complete and I enjoyed it.
We briefly discussed Shadows of Adam last month when the developers announced two new games, and now that I’ve finished it, I’m more interested than ever in seeing how their next games turn out.
Here’s hoping it retains or even improves on the classic JRPG feel of Shadows of Adam.
Shadows of Adam is available on Steam and recently saw a Switch release as well. If you’ve played it, what are your thoughts? How do you think it stacks up against similar indie games?
In all the excitement with various reviews, Yakuza news, and everything else this month, I almost forgot to announce that Parachronism: Order of Chaos now has a page on Steam.
