Operation Backlog Completion 2026

It’s the 23rd Anniversary of Final Fantasy IX

 Video games  6 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Jul 072023
 

Today is the 23rd anniversary of Final Fantasy IX.

While it wouldn’t be released in North America until November (and not in Europe until the next February), July 7, 2000 was the date Final Fantasy IX first came out in Japan.

Final Fantasy IX holds a special place in my heart. It was my first Final Fantasy game, as well as one of my first JRPGs, although I might have already played Paper Mario and Pokémon.

I fell in love with it as soon as I started playing, and it got me hooked on the genre.

It’s been so long since I played Final Fantasy IX, I’ve probably forgotten a lot of details. Still, the parts I do remember are wonderful memories. The “You’re Not Alone” scene is one of the most powerful scenes in the series to me, along with a certain scene where two characters fight side-by-side.

So I keep wondering if we’ll see Final Fantasy IX return someday.

Most attention has been on Final Fantasy XVI and the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, but there have been some whispers of Final Fantasy IX news. For one thing, there’s supposedly an animated series being made… although the total silence about it makes me wonder if it will ever exist.

There also have been rumors of a Final Fantasy IX remake for a while now. It was part of the Nvidia leak, and further rumors have followed since then. Even Gematsu says it’s in development. If the remake does exist, could it be set for 2025 for the game’s 25th anniversary?

I don’t often replay games since there are so many games I have yet to play in my backlog, but a Final Fantasy IX remake is one I’d play for sure.

Many fans think the rumored Final Fantasy IX remake will feature turn-based combat, as a love letter to the classics just like the original Final Fantasy IX was. I would love that. It would be amazing, especially with recent games in the series switching to action combat instead.

There’s no real news to discuss today or anything like that. But after seeing that it was the anniversary of the game that really got me into the genre, I wanted to make a post remembering it. Have you played Final Fantasy IX? Would you play a remake if one came out?

Winter’s Wish: Spirits of Edo – An Unexpected Rollercoaster of Emotions

 Reviews, Video games  1 Response »  Tagged with: ,
Jul 052023
 

Back when Winter’s Wish: Spirits of Edo was announced back in 2021 (alongside a ton of other exciting otome announcements), it was one of the newly-announced titles I was most excited for.

It’s a fantasy story with a historical setting that follows a young woman named Suzuno who has the ability to see people’s emotions. Although she lives an isolated life since the villagers are afraid of her, she’s recruited by the shogunate to join a secret group trained to fight demons/yokai known as blightfall.

That premise appeals to me, so I was looking forward to it, but I generally expected Winter’s Wish to just be “fine.” Something that would have some sweet moments, some nice routes, and nothing that would especially stand out… but I was surprised by just how much I ended up enjoying it!

Winter’s Wish has an interesting structure. Instead of a single common route that leads to the character routes, the common route itself splits into three branches.

There are six love interests who work in pairs, and after a short common route to set up the story and characters, you pick which pair to join. Then you have a common route focused on those two characters before your choices place you on one or the other’s route.

It also employs a clever means of locking routes without making it obvious from the start. Any character’s route can be started, but some will only let you play a certain amount before locking you out if you haven’t met the requirements yet. They’re effectively the same as locked routes, but a bit more subtle about it.

Anyway, each route focuses on a different central conflict related to the love interest of choice. It’s one of those games where drastically different events occur just based on who you’re working with, which always seems a bit unnatural to me from a narrative perspective, but since all the important details remain consistent across routes, it didn’t bother me too much.

In addition to the external conflict of each route, the romances have an additional element of drama due to the love interests being Vessels, artificial constructs created specifically to the fight the blightfall, who have their hearts sealed so they can’t feel emotion.

Click for Winter's Wish minor spoilers
They also make a big deal out of how if a Vessel regains his heart, he’ll need to be destroyed immediately, but since that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense (a Vessel with a heart is just like a regular human), it felt a bit forced. Fortunately, it took more of a back seat compared to the other conflicts.

The first few routes I played were indeed just “fine,” like I had expected. As a diehard fan of kuudere characters (the serious, seemingly-emotionless sort), Genjuro won my heart due to his personality and all the funny/cute moments in his route, and the others had some exciting moments. But the final two routes took me by surprise with how exciting they were! They ratcheted up the intensity and hit me with some twists and plot developments I never saw coming.

Overall, I quite enjoyed my time with Winter’s Wish: Spirits of Edo. While not every route was as memorable as others, some parts had me invested in the story much more than I expected.

Sympathy Kiss, My Next Life as a Villainess Otome, and Tsukihime Localizations Announced!

 Video games  3 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , ,
Jul 032023
 

We were hoping for exciting news from Anime Expo, and a few announcements certainly stand out to me as a visual novel fan.

While there was no live stream of Idea Factory’s panel, fortunately Twitter was working again so I could wait for tweets about the news, since they’d teased at least one otome announcement.

They turned out to have not one, but two otome localizations to announce. The first one announced was Sympathy Kiss, an office romance about a woman who starts working for a mobile app developer. Sympathy Kiss has gotten some criticism from fans because the protagonist has an eyeless design presumably intended to make self-insertion easier. She also has no written dialogue, only dialogue indicated through the narration.

Despite this, fans who have played it in Japanese says she does have her own personality instead of being a complete self-insert. It sounds interesting enough that I’ll probably try it.

Sympathy Kiss will be out in early 2024.

Idea Factory’s other announced otome title will be out even earlier, with a winter release window, and that is My Next Life As a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! – Pirates of the Disturbance.

This extremely long title is because it is based on the anime My Next Life As a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, which I know little about except that it’s a reincarnation isekai “otome” anime that has little to do with actual otome tropes, so it’s ironic that an actual otome was developed based on it.

I’ve seen people say the game is a good comedy, so I’ll be keeping an eye on it (and looking up whether or not I should have greater knowledge of the anime before playing it).

As I mentioned, it’s set for winter 2023, so the second half of this year is even more stacked than it was before. Idea Factory has Limited Edition pages up for both titles, so it seems both Sympathy Kiss and My Next Life As a Villainess will receive Limited Editions.

Meanwhile, let’s swing our attention away from Idea Factory and toward Type-Moon, as it was announced that Tsukihime: A Piece of Blue Glass Moon will be released in the west for PS4 and Switch in 2024.

The original Tsukihime came out in 2000, and this is the first half of a two-part remake. (That’s right, Final Fantasy VII isn’t the only game getting a multi-part remake.) Apparently it was rewritten for the remake, with new characters and additional content that brings it to 45+ hours despite being only the first half.

After Witch on the Holy Night received an official translation (which I quite enjoyed) last year, I wondered if more Type-Moon visual novels would follow… and it seems the answer is yes! Who knows, one of these days we could be discussing an official Fate/Stay Night localization.

There might be more exciting news yet to come, but as a visual novel fan, these three announcements already have my attention. Are you interested in any of the three?

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