A demo is now available for Reynatis, the upcoming action RPG from Furyu.
According to the demo announcement on Steam, progress is not carried over to the full game but you can get some bonuses if you’ve completed the demo.
The demo is available for all platforms Reynatis is coming to (PS4/5, Switch, PC).
We’ve talked about Reynatis quite a few times now, not only because it looks like my sort of game on its own but also because of its collaboration with The World Ends With You.
I’m interested enough in Reynatis that I already have it preordered, so I don’t know if I’ll try the demo or not, especially since progress doesn’t transfer. On the other hand, it might be good to check it out (especially to see if the Switch version has any performance concerns).
Reynatis is due out on September 27 in a year so stacked with great releases that I’m nowhere near caught up on them, but it’s one I definitely want to play sooner rather than later.
(In completely unrelated news, Voltage has a big announcement coming on September 20, so that could lead to yet another game added to my list. The upcoming weeks could be crazy.)
Are you interested in Reynatis? Are you planning to play the demo?
Heads-up: if you’re a blog subscriber, it may be a few days before you get email notifications again, as the service I was using shut down.
All right, now let’s get into today’s topic – Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land and the unanswered questions we had about it after its announcement trailer.
This morning, Gust and Koei Tecmo held a live stream at which they revealed new information about Atelier Yumia, followed by a 10-minute English trailer.
Now, the stream wasn’t translated, so I had to pick up what I could just by watching it and then fill in some details with the English trailer later. Fortunately, it wasn’t hard to see that the next trailer they showed was featuring party members. I don’t know if they saw fans jumping to conclusions that there wouldn’t be party members or if they always intended to introduce them during this live stream, but they showed off five party members.
Their next focus was on field exploration. It looks like you can shoot enemies and materials in the environment. They showed some crafting after that and then moved onto combat.
Combat was the other big question from the announcement, and I watched the combat section over and over to try to figure out if it’s action combat or very fast-paced ATB. They show the character moving right at the start, but for the most of it they stay more or less in one place aside from movement related to the attacks, and there’s a “range” button that changes what range you’re attacking at, so right now I’m leaning toward it being a highly fast-paced ATB system like in the Ryza games. You can also switch characters on the fly.
Base-building also looks like it’s going to be a big deal, as you not only can create and arrange furniture, but also construct entire buildings?? I’m really curious about how much that’s going to play into it.
The story does seem darker than usual for the series, but it also looks like a beautiful game. The environments they’ve shown so far have been breathtaking!
(Oh, and they’re definitely aiming for fanservice again with some of those designs. They know it worked with Ryza and want to keep that momentum.)
Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land will be out on March 21, 2025. I still have not played most of the Atelier games in my backlog. I promise to get on that! In the meantime, are you looking forward to Atelier Yumia?
How does Nintendo keep bringing out awesome showcases like this?
When we discussed the combined Indie World Showcase and Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase announced for yesterday on Monday, I hoped for “some good surprises.”
I got my wish and then some, even though there was no Professor Layton trailer like I’d been hoping for.
The indie showcase didn’t have too much that excited me, although Balatro getting a crossover with The Witcher ranks up there with the most unexpected crossovers, and seeing Sea of Stars DLC reminded me that I never did play that game.
As for Date Everything, the dating sim where you can date personified furniture, I’m still highly skeptical. I need to see more evidence that the stories have actual depth instead of deriving all their interest from the wackiness of dating whatever inanimate object the character happens to be. (Having 100 dateable characters is not proof; if anything, that makes me more concerned that the romances won’t have depth.)
But the Partner Showcase is where things really got interesting.
After a few announcements that didn’t interest me much, they went into a quick montage of upcoming games, starting with… excuse me, was that a Trails in the Sky remake??
Titled Trails in the Sky the First, this full 3D remake of the first Trails in the Sky game got all of 5 seconds despite being a major announcement that sent fans into chaos. Falcom has hinted and teased that they might remake Sky, but nothing had been announced until now. I was shocked when I recognized it, and it being revealed so casually only make it feel more surreal. Fortunately, the Japanese Direct included an actual trailer.
Since then, things have gotten a little strange. No other platforms have been announced yet, which flies in the face of the remake being intended to make Sky more accessible, and it seems they aren’t sure if they’ll even go with a western publisher or not. The translation appears to be the same as the Xseed-published versions currently on Steam.
But regardless of how they handle it, Trails in the Sky the First looks beautiful and it’s exciting to see this remake!
There were a few more announcements after that and then another JRPG announcement… and not just any JRPG, but the next Atelier game! Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories and the Envisioned Land looks a lot more intense than I’d expect from Atelier, but I’m intrigued.
Fans have already jumped to all sorts of conclusion about Atelier Yumia, from believing it’s an action RPG to assuming there are no party members, but further details are set to come on September 2 and will hopefully clear up this confusion.
Moving on, remember the Suikoden I & II HD Remaster announced in 2022? Konami finally remembered them too, as after the long stretch of silence, we got a new trailer, and it looks pretty good. Right on its heels was a new trailer for the Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, with a new job revealed.
While not a JRPG, I was also interested in the announcement that the three DS Castlevania games have now been released in a new collection called the Castlevania Dominus Collection.
The next announcement didn’t interest me, but then they moved on to a Tales remaster! Yes, they’re remastering Tales of… Graces? That’s right, it’s not the rumored Xillia remaster, but Tales of Graces f.
Tales of Graces f is being remastered with a bunch of quality-of-life improvements, so unless it turns out buggy, I’ll probably play this over my unplayed PS3 copy. Even more significant than this announcement alone is that the trailer begins with a “Tales of series Remastered Project” logo. It seems Graces f is only the first remaster planned to celebrate the 30th anniversary next year, and more will follow.
(It’s time to localize one of the untranslated games, Bandai Namco! It’s your turn!)
After a few more announcements, they caught my attention again with a new trailer for Rune Factory: Project Dragon, which now has the official title Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma. It looks even better than it did before!
Finally, they ended the Partner Showcase by announcing a port of Yakuza Kiwami for the Switch.
I was stunned. Yakuza on the Switch feels like the sort of announcement you’d see in a fake Direct leak. It’s coming out on October 24, and I’m tempted to get it just to support the series on the Switch. RGG Studio had previously claimed Yakuza didn’t fit the image of the Switch, which to me always sounded like an excuse. I personally believed the actual reason was because the original first two games were ported to the Wii U and sold poorly, and they didn’t want to just say that. Yakuza finally making it to the Switch only makes me believe that more.
All in all, it was a surprisingly exciting showcase, especially as a JRPG fan. Trails in the Sky the First, Atelier Yumia, Suikoden I & II HD Remaster, Tales of Graces f Remastered, and Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma are all set to be released in 2025, so next year is already looking stacked.
What announcements from the two Nintendo showcases are you most interested in?
A demo is now available for Reynatis, the upcoming action RPG from Furyu.
