Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Eiyuden Chronicle Delayed to 2024, New Final Fantasy XIV Expansion Announced

 Video Games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Jul 282023
 

Eiyuden Chronicle was one of my most-anticipated games of 2023, but it looks like I’ll have to push that to 2024.

Announced in 2020 with a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign, Eiyuden Chronicle is a spiritual successor to the Suikoden series.

Everything about it looks great, so I’m pretty excited for it. While it was originally planned for 2022 and then moved to 2023, however, it’s now been delayed to Q2 2024.

I’m a little disappointed in the delay, but I’m so mired in my backlog right now that I don’t mind as much. Maybe by the time it comes out in 2024, I’ll be all caught up!

…All right, so that’s an unrealistic goal. Maybe I’ll at least have finished enough of my must-play titles to be ready to dive into Eiyuden on day one.

(The actual Suikoden series is supposed to see the HD remaster of Suikoden and Suikoden II released this year, too, but there haven’t been any updates in a while.)

Meanwhile, the new Final Fantasy XIV expansion was announced today! Titled Dawntrail, it’s set for summer 2024. That’s as much as I’ve seen about it, because I still need to avoid spoilers. The winner of our last contest tasked me with playing Stormblood, so at least I’m making progress! Maybe I’ll be completely caught up in time for this new expansion?

2024 is already shaping up to be a fantastic year for RPGs. Are you planning to play either of these? What other 2024 RPGs are you looking forward to?

Could Breath of Fire Return?

 Video Games  3 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Jul 212023
 

Remember when Capcom had a turn-based JRPG series called Breath of Fire?

Breath of Fire feels like a forgotten series, with its last release being a 2016 Japan-exclusive mobile game that fans hated, and the last entry before that being from 2002.

But maybe we shouldn’t lose hope yet.

As part of its new “Capcom Town” feature, Capcom has been holding polls about various Capcom games.

The latest poll, which just ended on the 17th, asked fans if they wanted Sengoku Basara, Breath of Fire, or Capcom Arcade Stadium featured in the next Capcom Town museum exhibit.

Now the results are out (presented by Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey, just as the previous poll’s results were, and I love that Capcom apparently considers Ace Attorney iconic enough to give them this role), and… Sengoku Basara won. But the international breakdown shows that Breath of Fire got 71% of the vote in North America and Europe, as well as 56% of the vote from countries under “Others.”

After the voting ended, Capcom also posted an additional poll on Twitter asking fans which Breath of Fire game they played first. They did a similar poll for Sengoku Basara, although only in Japanese.

While celebrating Capcom history is a big focus of Capcom Town, even this much attention being given to Breath of Fire is more than the series has seen in a while. With fans showing their love for the series, maybe Capcom will realize it’s popular enough to deserve a collection or even a new entry.

Breath of Fire III is still the only Breath of Fire game I’ve played, so I might not be in the best position to ask for more. But I love JRPGs, and I’d love to see the series return. It’s been my hope for a while now that the success of Monster Hunter Stories will show them that they have a market for turn-based RPGs.

In the meantime, maybe I should get around to playing the other Breath of Fire games that are still in my backlog…

CyberConnect2 Wants Fans to Ask Bandai Namco About .hack Remakes

 Video Games  5 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Jul 192023
 

Remember a year ago when we got our hopes up unreasonably for a potential collection of the original .hack games, only for them to be dashed?

(“Last Recollection” turned out to be a Sword Art Online game.)

Well, .hack hopes are in the air once again – not because of any rumors, but because the developers would like to see it return as much as the fans would.

For a quick explanation if you’re unfamiliar with the series, .hack began with four games developed by CyberConnect2 for the PlayStation 2 set in a fictional MMORPG.

These four games are .hack//Infection, .hack//Mutation, .hack//Outbreak, and .hack//Quarantine. This is why you might sometimes see the original quadrilogy referred to as IMOQ, taking the first letter of each title.

The original four games were followed by an actual MMORPG adaptation in Japan, an anime series, manga, novel tie-ins, and other additions to the franchise, and eventually a sequel trilogy for the PlayStation 2 called .hack//G.U., along with even more spin-offs and tie-ins.

So while conversations about the series often focus on IMOQ and GU, there’s been a lot of .hack media over the years.

Anyway, 2017 saw the release of a remastered collection of the sequel trilogy, .hack//G.U. Last Recode, which also added a short fourth volume. The original four games, however, remain stranded on the PS2 without any ports or remasters in sight.

I played .hack//G.U. thanks to the Last Recode collection, and I enjoyed it! Although some parts were repetitive, the story was interesting enough to keep me invested. It came with a recap of the first four games that I watched, but I’d love to have a chance to play them.

In a recent interview with Noisy Pixel, the Vice President of CyberConnect 2 said they would love to bring back or remake the original .hack quadrilogy, but can’t do so without Bandai Namco’s permission. They “urge the readers to fire away all the requests to them so that we can get the green light from them to work on those titles.”

This has led to a new wave of fans tweeting with the hashtag #dothack and petitioning Bandai Namco in the hopes that the series will return.

Fan movements are nothing new – some of my earliest blog posts here are about trying to get Capcom to localize Ace Attorney Investigations 2 (which I still haven’t given up on) – but it’s less common for it to happen at the developer’s request. If enough .hack fans make their voices heard, maybe we’ll see the a .hack quadrilogy collection or even a brand-new .hack series after all!

 Older Entries  Newer Entries