November 2024 - Samantha Lienhard

Best Gaming Deals I’ve Seen So Far

Nov 292024

You know what time of year it is – the time when excellent deals start popping up!

(Actually, I’ve been seeing Black Friday sales for over a week already, so I guess everyone decided to just pretend it was last week and get started early.)

So if you’ve been looking for some great video game deals, especially as we head toward the holidays, here are some that stand out to me the most.

First up, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is on sale for $24.99. Yes, I bought it at full price. No, I haven’t finished it yet. While I can’t give too many thoughts on it yet as a result, at a price like that it’s hard to go wrong.

Two more on sale for $24.99 or thereabouts are Persona 3 Reload and Final Fantasy XVI. I went for this deal myself, so here’s hoping 1) I don’t regret it, and 2) they don’t get an even deeper discount before I get around to playing them.

(I bought them alongside the Silent Hill 2 remake for $29.99, but that deal sold out very quickly.)

The Apollo Justice Trilogy, meanwhile, is on sale for $29.99. It still feels amazing that we now have (almost) all the Ace Attorney games on modern platforms, so be sure to check out this collection if you still need to play the 4th, 5th, and 6th mainline games.

Leaving Amazon and heading over to VGP, they’re having a 1-day blowout sale today only on Persona 5 Strikers, pricing it at $7.13 for the Switch version and $3.56 for the PS4 version. This is an absurdly good deal for a game I loved.

Play-Asia is also having a Black Friday sale, which makes it a great time to pick up any imports you’re interested in. Atelier Lydie & Suelle and Super Mario RPG especially stand out to me as being good deals.

I’m sure there are plenty of other great deals out there – last week, one retailer even had the 3DS Dragon Quest games on sale until they sold out almost immediately – but these are a few that stood out to me. What are the best deals you’ve seen?

Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian Confirmed to Be Offline & Non-Gacha

Nov 272024

It seems like we completely forgot to talk about this one, so let’s start at the beginning.

Back near the end of September, Gust and Koei Tecmo announced Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian for Switch, PS4, PS5, and PC.

(That name is a mouthful, but it looks like the official account shortens it to RW, so that’s what I’ve done in the tags.)

It will be released in 2025, which means we not only have Atelier Yumia coming next year, but this new game as well.

If the title “Resleriana” sounds familiar, it’s because this is an offline game with an original story set in the same universe as the gacha game Atelier Resleriana: Forgotten Alchemy and the Polar Night Liberator, which we discussed when its localization was announced.

I’m not especially interested in that one because of its nature, but an offline game? Now that has my attention.

A short teaser trailer shown at the time of the new game’s announcement revealed a bit of the world, but not much else.

Although it was widely assumed at the time due to it being an offline game, Koei Tecmo has now confirmed this game has no gacha system. They also said it can be enjoyed without knowledge of the other Atelier Resleriana.

It’s interesting that they have two Atelier games in development at once, and even more interesting that one is set in the same world as the gacha game, which is itself considered a mainline entry.

They still haven’t said anything about the combat system, which is what I’m most curious about. Atelier Ryza opted for a very fast-paced ATB system and Atelier Yumia is taking a step even beyond that into action combat, but Atelier Sophie 2 was turn-based (and so is the gacha game). A lot of fans think Atelier Resleriana RW might also be turn-based, and that’s why they’re working on both it and Yumia.

2025 is already shaping up to be a good year for JRPGs, although I’ve still got a backlog of Atelier games to play. What do you expect from Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian?

Ever 17 and Never 7 Remasters Announced and Coming West

Video games 2 Responses » Tagged with: ever 17, never 7, visual novel

Nov 252024

Over the weekend, remasters of Ever 17: The Out of Infinity and Never 7: The End of Infinity were announced for Switch, PS4, and PC, and today Spike Chunsoft confirmed that they’ll be coming west.

If you’ve never heard of them, these are the first two visual novels in the Infinity series, written by none other than Kotaro Uchikoshi before he did Zero Escape.

According to the official website, Ever 17 is about a group of people trapped in an underwater theme park, while Never 7 follows a protagonist having premonitions of a girl’s tragic death.

(Never 7 is the first game in the series, but all the information about the remastered collection lists them in the order of Ever 17 and Never 7. I’m not sure why.)

The Ever 17 / Never 7 Double Pack will be available on March 6, 2025. Only a digital release has been announced so far, although it looks like the physical Asia release of the double pack will include English.

Now, here’s where things get a little trickier when it comes to fan reception to the news. In 2011, Ever 17 was remade with 3D models and a rewritten script. This remake was only ever released in Japan. The new remaster appears to be based on that remake but with the 2D sprites restored. That means it will have the remake’s script, which some fans say is inferior and gives away the twists too soon (along with some criticism for marketing it as an Uchikoshi game when he wasn’t involved with the rewritten script). So some fans are encouraging new players to play the original Ever 17 before this version.

(While the original Ever 17 was translated, the English version is no longer available, so you’d need to get a Japanese copy and patch it with a fan translation.)

This has caused some consternation around what is otherwise excellent news, which is unfortunate. I’ve been curious about these games for a long time, so I was excited to see the announcement. I don’t know if I’ll try to find a way to play the original first or just dive in with the remaster and hope for the best.

There is also a third game in the series called Remember 11, which isn’t included here, as well as a spin-off and a reboot. Whether we’ll see any of those games again remains to be seen.

Are you interested in the Ever 17 and Never 7 remasters? How do you feel about the script controversy?

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