Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Suda51 Has a Partner Picked for a Flower, Sun, and Rain Remaster

 Video games  1 Response »  Tagged with: ,
Jul 092021
 

Remember back in 2018, when Suda51 and Grasshopper Manufacture discussed the possibility of remastering both Killer7 and Flower, Sun, and Rain?

In the time since then, Killer7 was remastered for PC, but we have yet to learn anything about the potential Flower, Sun, and Rain remaster.

Well, there was an AMA on Reddit with Suda51 yesterday, and one person asked if a Flower, Sun, and Rain remaster would include an updated story and new scenarios.

Suda 51 responded, “I would like to remaster this one day. I’ve already picked out a partner to do so, so the scenarios would really be up to our collaboration.”

There are a few things we can take from this. First, he still wants to remaster Flower, Sun, and Rain. Second, while it doesn’t sound like it’s happening yet, he actually has a partner picked out for the remaster – which suggests it’s a little bit further along than just a vague thought that maybe it could be remastered someday. Third, the possibility for additional content is there, but nothing has been decided yet.

I’d love to see a Flower, Sun, and Rain remaster, especially since I enjoyed The Silver Case and its sequel. Meanwhile, apparently Suda51 said in 2019 that an extended cut of Killer7 is also a possibility.

(In other news, the Yo-Kai Watch “major game-related announcement” that had me pleased that at least Level-5 would be announcing something? That turned out to be just a release date for the mobile port of the first game. That’s why we aren’t discussing that today, like I half-expected to.)

Anyway, what are your thoughts on the potential for a Flower, Sun, and Rain remaster?

Blue Reflection: Second Light New Trailer and Details

 Video games  No Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Jul 072021
 

The Gust news teased for yesterday turned out to be new details about the upcoming JRPG Blue Reflection Tie, which will be localized under the title Blue Reflection: Second Light.

Second Light sounds like it’s going in a very different direction from the first game, and I’m interested to see what they have planned for the story.

The first Blue Reflection was about a girl named Hinako who gains the power of a Reflector, allowing her to enter a world made up of people’s emotions to help her classmates resolve their personal struggles, while also fighting horrific entities that invade the real world.

Second Light, according to the details translated by Gematsu, is about a girl named Ao who finds herself in an isolated school with two other girls. All three of them have lost their memories.

They take a path that appears one day and find themselves in a new world with the power to fight monsters (gaining the power of Reflectors).

They meet other characters as well, including Hinako from the first game – and all of them have also lost their memories.

It appears that there is a school-building aspect to the game, as you build facilities to expand the school. Social interactions and crafting are also involved, and the trailer shows a glimpse of some of these systems in action.

No clear look at combat yet, but from the screenshots in the Gematsu article, my guess is that it’ll be similar to the first game’s system of turn-based combat with other characters providing support.

Anyway, the idea of the girls being trapped in this other world without their memories is such a different premise from the first game’s approach that I’m really curious about where they’re going for it. The game will be out on October 21 in Japan, with no western release date given yet.

While we wait for news about when Blue Reflection: Second Light will be released in the west, I’ll get back to watching Blue Reflection Ray, which also went in a different direction from both Blue Reflection and Second Light. What do you think about Second Light from what we’ve seen so far?

Tales of the Abyss: Another Excellent Tales Journey

 Reviews, Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Jul 052021
 

I’m a big fan of the Tales series, but there are still a lot of Tales games I haven’t played.

Among the most notable ones were Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Vesperia, often considered alongside Tales of Symphonia to be the best of the best.

Well, the winner of this year’s Celebrating All Things Romantic contest picked a game for me to play & review as his prize – Tales of the Abyss.

I played the 3DS port, although it looks like it might be easier to find the original PS2 version nowadays.

Tales of the Abyss is one of those games that comes up whenever people discuss protagonists who are unlikeable at first and change over time, because the main character is a young man named Luke who starts out as an obnoxious, self-centered jerk, but goes through a huge amount of character development as the game continues and ends up as a good person and a genuinely likeable protagonist.

The rest of the cast took a little while to grow on me as well (with the exception of Jade, whom I liked from the start and remains my favorite), but I ended up liking most of them.

Oh, and bonus points for having a mascot that didn’t annoy me. Mieu is actually cute.

The story is interesting and has some pretty intense moments, with a lot of humor throughout the game as well. It has a really well-developed world, with a lot of detailed worldbuilding and many little details I appreciated. There’s also a lot of side content and easily missable optional scenes – which I kind of like, aside from one side quest that let me get partway through even though I’d started it too late to finish it.

All of those little details, with optional scenes and mini-game and lore books about the world, make me think once more about how sometimes it feels like older games have more of a soul than their newer counterparts.

Combat has an interesting mechanic where elemental artes created essentially little elemental fields to appear briefly, and performing an arte within one of those can cause you to perform a more powerful arte instead. That confused me at first, but I liked it once I got used to it.

Now, the ending is a bit ambiguous, and apparently this is intentional. Instead of getting clarification when I looked it up, I discovered a massive debate among fans about it, so I’ll stick with my personal interpretation of the ending.

Anyway, Tales of the Abyss safely secured the #2 spot in my Tales rankings so far. It didn’t beat Symphonia for me, but what can? Tales of the Abyss is an excellent game with a great story, and I was happy to go on such an incredible journey with Luke and the other characters to watch them grow and change.

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