CoH Final: The Transfer Student's a Princess?! (PSP remake of 3D)
New CoH
CoH1 Anniversary Edition
Adventure Academy
CoH2 Remaster
3D/Final were a direct sequel to 3, New CoH re-used the races and classes but was a Neptunia style game I think?
For fun, remember that CoH1 was a remake of Wizardry Xth Generation 2, with the Western-style Military Academy stuff ripped out for Anime stuff instead... You could count quite a bit further back if you included those. Wizardry Xth got a similar spiritual remake in Generation XTH, which would get a remake called Labyrinth Cross Blood, which would get a remake called... Operation Abyss. Similarly, while the connection isn't direct, there's a reason why Savior of Sapphire Wing's main character is named Xeth by default.
Random aside, I just noticed that the Nintendo Store page for CoH1 Anniversary Edition says... that it has procedurally generated maps? Did they add that to the remaster? That'd be crazy if so. (I'm all for a gridder with random maps, would be cool.)
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Ah. Speaking of the tragically lost CoH3 localization... the website and pictures are still there.
Yup, supposedly completely done, minus whatever "Vicisms" that they might want to do to the game's engine. (See also: Every other game Ireland ever touched.) Very tragic. If he had stuck around for a month or two more, he could have gotten it out.
Adventure Academia has me more excited for the possibility of Class of Heroes's remakes getting sent this direction than anything else, to be honest. The game style is cute (it's paper mario style cutouts, or perhaps those acryllic standies that they sell with some LEs now) in a Gridder Dungeon, but the dungeon tiles are divided into like 6x6 grids, so you can move around them. And you have a useless main character that you have to keep safe with the rest of the party. Sort of the reverse tower-defense gameplay of RE:Monster's retired mobile game.
Adventure Academia is getting localized via PQcube. PS4 / Steam / Switch. Interestingly, it sounds like the Switch port is only happening because PQube is helping them do it?
This is a DRPG/Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre (yes, both Ogre Battle AND Tactics Ogre) hybrid game. It takes place on a DRPG/Gridder map granulated down to a smaller tile based map and has DRPG positioning and real-time combat, similar to Ogre Battle.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Maybe they should talk with Victor Ireland about publishing CoH3 on other platforms? Can't be impossible to carry over what was basically a finished script.
Maybe they should talk with Victor Ireland about publishing CoH3 on other platforms? Can't be impossible to carry over what was basically a finished script.
I don't know how hard getting the old localization for CoH1 and CoH2 would be, but getting them would make localizing the switch ports trivial. CoH3 hasn't been ported to Switch yet.
Last I heard Ireland did an interview or something fairly recently. Not sure why he went dark for so many years.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Maybe they should talk with Victor Ireland about publishing CoH3 on other platforms? Can't be impossible to carry over what was basically a finished script.
I don't know how hard getting the old localization for CoH1 and CoH2 would be, but getting them would make localizing the switch ports trivial. CoH3 hasn't been ported to Switch yet.
Last I heard Ireland did an interview or something fairly recently. Not sure why he went dark for so many years.
He resurfaced in a Working Designs history video GameSack did(albeit in the comments), if only to address some discrepancies. The accepted theory is a combination of Summon Night 6 being a disaster and some health issues he had(though a relative said he was fine afterward, thankfully).
Maybe they should talk with Victor Ireland about publishing CoH3 on other platforms? Can't be impossible to carry over what was basically a finished script.
I don't know how hard getting the old localization for CoH1 and CoH2 would be, but getting them would make localizing the switch ports trivial. CoH3 hasn't been ported to Switch yet.
Last I heard Ireland did an interview or something fairly recently. Not sure why he went dark for so many years.
He resurfaced in a Working Designs history video GameSack did(albeit in the comments), if only to address some discrepancies. The accepted theory is a combination of Summon Night 6 being a disaster and some health issues he had(though a relative said he was fine afterward, thankfully).
I was never into the Summon Night series, in what way was it a disaster? Poor sales? Disaster of a port / localization job?
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Maybe they should talk with Victor Ireland about publishing CoH3 on other platforms? Can't be impossible to carry over what was basically a finished script.
I don't know how hard getting the old localization for CoH1 and CoH2 would be, but getting them would make localizing the switch ports trivial. CoH3 hasn't been ported to Switch yet.
Last I heard Ireland did an interview or something fairly recently. Not sure why he went dark for so many years.
He resurfaced in a Working Designs history video GameSack did(albeit in the comments), if only to address some discrepancies. The accepted theory is a combination of Summon Night 6 being a disaster and some health issues he had(though a relative said he was fine afterward, thankfully).
I was never into the Summon Night series, in what way was it a disaster? Poor sales? Disaster of a port / localization job?
Yes. It sold badly, had a huge marketing push behind it, a ton of VA, and was just generally a bad game and not worth all the time and effort they put into it, and the dub wasn't even very good. He also did a big LE of the game which probably sold poorly and cost a ton to make.
Wonder if Gaijinworks didn't make a license payment or something.
None that I know of, but I bet his deal with Namco went sour pretty fast after SN6 bombed. SN5's success is the only reason he was let in the door, and I really don't know why that series was the hill he wanted to die on(metaphorically speaking).
I bought Saviors of Sapphire Wings for Vita without realizing that it came with Stranger of Sword City Revisited (SoSC isn't mentioned on the cover of the Vita version). It also came with a surprise SoSW soundtrack CD.
I already have the base version of SoSC that I haven't gotten around to yet. Is there any reason that I would want to play both versions?
I bought Saviors of Sapphire Wings for Vita without realizing that it came with Stranger of Sword City Revisited (SoSC isn't mentioned on the cover of the Vita version). It also came with a surprise SoSW soundtrack CD.
I already have the base version of SoSC that I haven't gotten around to yet. Is there any reason that I would want to play both versions?
Class of Heroes spinoff came out. But it's not in English yet.
Edit: Bundle with DLC and Season pass at 25% off.
Season pass is 3 sets of DLC. DLC set 1 is already out, split across 4 items. 2 NPCs from the game as PCs, an extended side quest or epilogue, and a bonus boss.
Outside of the season pass are two generic versions of Dwarves and Felpurr from CoH3, using CoH3 style looks and unique starting gear, as well as three gear sets. Some weapons (likely mid game drops), some accessories (ditto), and your bog standard GP/XP/SP booster accessories.
Amusingly, this was the Japanese release, and as of this writing it's so early there's not even a JP Wiki up about the game.
Edit: ooo, initial reviews on steam aren't very good.
Edit: Nevermind, literally every one of them is complaining about no keyboard / mouse support except for one guy who didn't pay attention to the giant warning labels saying "English language isn't here yet."
Edit: Devs have responded. Keyboard / Mouse controls not working is a bug.
Initial negative reviews were all about the mouse and keyboard support. More recent reviews are a bit more spread around.
The UI is a bit challenging, and you can't rotate the camera, which is a problem if you get behind the sometimes very large bosses. You also have difficulty with precision (you can't just click a single square over or whatnot) and hunting down hidden switches is difficult due to the range that the main character can detect them in. That seems like something that could be adjusted with a patch, however, and one of the reviews mentions a fairy (as in, a NPC? Or are fairy classmates unlocked later on?) making this a lot easier. If a Fairy classmate is available right out of the gate and solves this problem, not taking one sounds like not taking a healer (or thief) in a DRPG -- i.e., this being harder is working as intended.
Some people saying the balancing / difficulty is bad, others saying that it's great. It sounds like despite it's cutesy appearance you can't just ignore class and party loadouts and the like in this. Apparently some of the challenge of later levels is making sure the main character isn't one shot with a boss's attack. One review mentions that the main character has a speed up spell that the game never tells you... stacks with itself. So two casts of that and you can move out of the way of AOEs while you learn the boss attack patterns. This lack of information on what stats / numbers / status effects / etc do in game is a reoccurring issue, apparently.
They might need to port some additional character art from older Class of Heroes (CoH) games as an update, some people are saying they couldn't run an all Gnome party for example due to not enough unique character art. (Although tbh I don't remember CoH having THAT many unique character portraits.) The non-user-created characters/NPCs apparently re-use the art the generated characters use, which adds to this feeling.
The story is good, but apparently unlike CoH the schools are more racially distinct, which means the main character's helpers are all humans. No, or almost no, teachers appear in game, either, which is an odd thing for a CoH-adjacent game. Latest review says he beat it in 20 hours, and could have gone quicker if he had powerleveled, another review specifically complains about the lack of any ability to powerlevel or XP grind?
Japanese reviews can be downright vicious at times, so I'm taking some of this with a grain of salt, but it sounds like the game does have some moderate problems with presentation. It sounds like it's nothing that can't be fixed with a patch or a PDF manual or Wiki or whatnot tho.
Adventure Academia, the Class of Heroes spinoff that's a Real Time SRPG that plays out in a DRPG map with DRPG classes and settings and whatnot, is getting an English release on Dec 9th. Demo is up, if you're curious, on consoles and steam.
Edit: LOL, I can't download the demo cause I already bought the game + the season pass. So someone should tell me how it is. I hear it takes a bit of getting used to due to presentation issues.
Wouldn't have described myself as "a fan of dungeon crawlers", however looking through this thread and thinking back on my own gaming, I guess I am: Legend of Grimrock, Labyrinth of Refrain, Zanki Zero (which at the time it never crossed my mind that this was actually a dungeon crawler), Vaporum - all played, all enjoyed, none finished (almost did with ZZ, though I had to turn off the encounters in that one and just do the puzzles myself because I was treating it as a Visual Novel first with "this weird combat gameplay" in between).
I was looking at getting MARY SKELTER after playing this LABRYTNTH game on console (about a witch and you manage puppets, and the story is absolutely batshit insane - including, I'm pretty sure, some physical assault by a nun) and MARY SKELTER looks like it has a bit better presentation and game systems (I mostly like the named characters instead of just a group of disposable soldiers). I will say, after the icky stuff in the previous game mentioned, I was kind of eye-rolling at this "lick" mechanic; for anyone that has played does that bit of fan service detract from the overall game (reminds me of the stuff in ZZ - which had some really heavy themes in its stories, but presented them in an adult way - but then they have this stuff where the characters are in mildly sexual cutscenes with each other during various "phases" of their lives).
I played the first Mary Skelter and wasn't terribly impressed. Normal is very easy and hard is an absolute slog, it isn't very interesting mechanically or in character building, and the dungeon design is fucking awful. maybe the sequels are better, but I'm not inclined to give them a look.
The original version of Mary Skelter 1 apparantly had enormous dungeon maps and poor skill balancing where just spamming Hits All Enemies skills was the way to go. The actual sequels fix both those things somewhat, the remake of 1 bundled in with 2 compresses the dungeon sizes but doesn't quite fix the clunky combat.
Content-wise, if you can handle Labyrinth of Refrain, you can probably handle Mary Skelter, but this says more about Refrain than anything else. They're both about surviving through a bleak and ugly world and coming out the other side a bit better, but Mary Skelter's probably at about a 7/10 on the scale of those things as opposed to Refrain's 11.
"Mildly sexual situations" is about right. There's skimpy outfits on Anime Teens, cute-to-saucy artwork when maxing out a girl's relationship points, and a "massage the girls while they're in swimsuits for marginal gameplay benefits" mechanic that I've completely ignored and never needed.
The official Suggested Playing Order is 2 first, the remake of 1 that's included in 2, and then Finale.
This looks pretty neat, coming out on PC and Switch. Whole game's done in Japanese ink and watercolor style.
Today I learned (remembered?) Zangetsu is getting an English release. Nice.
By the Acquire team, who were making those Wizardry games until the mobile game company grabbed up the IP. (Rage and or Relief pending, watch this space.)
Labyrinth of Galleria should ship any day now. Hope it's every bit as screwed up as Refrain, which was definitely my game of the year when it came out.
Right after that, void* tRrLM2(); for those who like roguelikes and the crushing despair of living in a godless uncaring void.
I'm trying to place a old Windows gridder, back from the era of pop-up dialog boxes. I remember it being sharewareish with a demo consisting of two levels. It was mostly plotless and fairly generic. The biggest thing that stands out in my memory was that there was an entire school of insta-death spells based on rolling "damage" over the enemy's current hp. I think there may have been tomes that buffed but also aged your character(s?) if you read them?
Ditto Switch, and again, buy the bundle for $80 or each game individually for $40. They basically are giving away one of the games if you get the bundle.
If they're doing it this way (three individually priced games in a bundle), then I'm gonna wager there will be an Asia-English physical trilogy on one cart for $90 popping up on Play-Asia in the future. As is tradition.
Someone just pointed out the remakes of 1 and 2 are missing the Untold remake content. Maybe in the future, that seems like a no brainer to port to the new engine since they've already done 95% of the work.
Someone just pointed out the remakes of 1 and 2 are missing the Untold remake content. Maybe in the future, that seems like a no brainer to port to the new engine since they've already done 95% of the work.
Not sure they have. These could be high-level DS emulators for all we know.
Like a key thing is they have used high-res source art to spruce up the 2D enemies. Which are very much 3D animated enemies in the 3DS games. Improving that would be a completely different skillset and process.
Posts
Class of Heroes games:
3D/Final were a direct sequel to 3, New CoH re-used the races and classes but was a Neptunia style game I think?
For fun, remember that CoH1 was a remake of Wizardry Xth Generation 2, with the Western-style Military Academy stuff ripped out for Anime stuff instead... You could count quite a bit further back if you included those. Wizardry Xth got a similar spiritual remake in Generation XTH, which would get a remake called Labyrinth Cross Blood, which would get a remake called... Operation Abyss. Similarly, while the connection isn't direct, there's a reason why Savior of Sapphire Wing's main character is named Xeth by default.
Random aside, I just noticed that the Nintendo Store page for CoH1 Anniversary Edition says... that it has procedurally generated maps? Did they add that to the remaster? That'd be crazy if so. (I'm all for a gridder with random maps, would be cool.)
http://www.gaijinworks.com/about/psp-on-psn/class-of-heroes-3/
Yup, supposedly completely done, minus whatever "Vicisms" that they might want to do to the game's engine. (See also: Every other game Ireland ever touched.) Very tragic. If he had stuck around for a month or two more, he could have gotten it out.
Second Trailer of Adventure Academia:
Adventure Academia has me more excited for the possibility of Class of Heroes's remakes getting sent this direction than anything else, to be honest. The game style is cute (it's paper mario style cutouts, or perhaps those acryllic standies that they sell with some LEs now) in a Gridder Dungeon, but the dungeon tiles are divided into like 6x6 grids, so you can move around them. And you have a useless main character that you have to keep safe with the rest of the party. Sort of the reverse tower-defense gameplay of RE:Monster's retired mobile game.
Adventure Academia is getting localized via PQcube. PS4 / Steam / Switch. Interestingly, it sounds like the Switch port is only happening because PQube is helping them do it?
This is a DRPG/Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre (yes, both Ogre Battle AND Tactics Ogre) hybrid game. It takes place on a DRPG/Gridder map granulated down to a smaller tile based map and has DRPG positioning and real-time combat, similar to Ogre Battle.
I don't know how hard getting the old localization for CoH1 and CoH2 would be, but getting them would make localizing the switch ports trivial. CoH3 hasn't been ported to Switch yet.
Last I heard Ireland did an interview or something fairly recently. Not sure why he went dark for so many years.
He resurfaced in a Working Designs history video GameSack did(albeit in the comments), if only to address some discrepancies. The accepted theory is a combination of Summon Night 6 being a disaster and some health issues he had(though a relative said he was fine afterward, thankfully).
I was never into the Summon Night series, in what way was it a disaster? Poor sales? Disaster of a port / localization job?
Yes. It sold badly, had a huge marketing push behind it, a ton of VA, and was just generally a bad game and not worth all the time and effort they put into it, and the dub wasn't even very good. He also did a big LE of the game which probably sold poorly and cost a ton to make.
I think he just put his chips in the wrong pile.
He also says it was the biggest localization he's ever done, and by all accounts, it's a very cookie cutter predictable plot at that.
Of course, the real question is: What boneheaded "balance" changes -- Vicisms -- did he shove into Summon Night 6?
Edit: Oh wow, they removed it from the digital store, too:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/691087-playstation-4/79890813
Wonder if Gaijinworks didn't make a license payment or something.
None that I know of, but I bet his deal with Namco went sour pretty fast after SN6 bombed. SN5's success is the only reason he was let in the door, and I really don't know why that series was the hill he wanted to die on(metaphorically speaking).
I already have the base version of SoSC that I haven't gotten around to yet. Is there any reason that I would want to play both versions?
https://www.gematsu.com/2022/08/wizardry-the-five-ordeals-major-update-now-available-adds-english-translation-for-official-scenarios
No. SoSCRE pretty much replaces SoSC completely.
Class of Heroes spinoff came out. But it's not in English yet.
Edit: Bundle with DLC and Season pass at 25% off.
Season pass is 3 sets of DLC. DLC set 1 is already out, split across 4 items. 2 NPCs from the game as PCs, an extended side quest or epilogue, and a bonus boss.
Outside of the season pass are two generic versions of Dwarves and Felpurr from CoH3, using CoH3 style looks and unique starting gear, as well as three gear sets. Some weapons (likely mid game drops), some accessories (ditto), and your bog standard GP/XP/SP booster accessories.
Amusingly, this was the Japanese release, and as of this writing it's so early there's not even a JP Wiki up about the game.
Edit: ooo, initial reviews on steam aren't very good.
Edit: Nevermind, literally every one of them is complaining about no keyboard / mouse support except for one guy who didn't pay attention to the giant warning labels saying "English language isn't here yet."
Edit: Devs have responded. Keyboard / Mouse controls not working is a bug.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1904730/view/3298345868497867584
English Demo soon.
Twitch | Blizzard: Ianator#1479 | 3DS: Ianator - 1779 2336 5317 | FFXIV: Iana Ateliere (NA Sarg)
Backlog Challenge List
Initial negative reviews were all about the mouse and keyboard support. More recent reviews are a bit more spread around.
The UI is a bit challenging, and you can't rotate the camera, which is a problem if you get behind the sometimes very large bosses. You also have difficulty with precision (you can't just click a single square over or whatnot) and hunting down hidden switches is difficult due to the range that the main character can detect them in. That seems like something that could be adjusted with a patch, however, and one of the reviews mentions a fairy (as in, a NPC? Or are fairy classmates unlocked later on?) making this a lot easier. If a Fairy classmate is available right out of the gate and solves this problem, not taking one sounds like not taking a healer (or thief) in a DRPG -- i.e., this being harder is working as intended.
Some people saying the balancing / difficulty is bad, others saying that it's great. It sounds like despite it's cutesy appearance you can't just ignore class and party loadouts and the like in this. Apparently some of the challenge of later levels is making sure the main character isn't one shot with a boss's attack. One review mentions that the main character has a speed up spell that the game never tells you... stacks with itself. So two casts of that and you can move out of the way of AOEs while you learn the boss attack patterns. This lack of information on what stats / numbers / status effects / etc do in game is a reoccurring issue, apparently.
They might need to port some additional character art from older Class of Heroes (CoH) games as an update, some people are saying they couldn't run an all Gnome party for example due to not enough unique character art. (Although tbh I don't remember CoH having THAT many unique character portraits.) The non-user-created characters/NPCs apparently re-use the art the generated characters use, which adds to this feeling.
The story is good, but apparently unlike CoH the schools are more racially distinct, which means the main character's helpers are all humans. No, or almost no, teachers appear in game, either, which is an odd thing for a CoH-adjacent game. Latest review says he beat it in 20 hours, and could have gone quicker if he had powerleveled, another review specifically complains about the lack of any ability to powerlevel or XP grind?
Japanese reviews can be downright vicious at times, so I'm taking some of this with a grain of salt, but it sounds like the game does have some moderate problems with presentation. It sounds like it's nothing that can't be fixed with a patch or a PDF manual or Wiki or whatnot tho.
Also, new trailer for this:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2023440/Jettatura/
Someone made an indy DRPG.
That looks very classic Wizardry.
I know fighting capybaras is a thing in classic Wizardry, but now that I know what those are, it makes me sad
https://www.gematsu.com/2022/11/adventure-academia-the-fractured-continent-launches-december-9-in-the-west-demo-now-available
Adventure Academia, the Class of Heroes spinoff that's a Real Time SRPG that plays out in a DRPG map with DRPG classes and settings and whatnot, is getting an English release on Dec 9th. Demo is up, if you're curious, on consoles and steam.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1904730/eventcomments/3553931489689653380?snr=2_9_100000_
Edit: LOL, I can't download the demo cause I already bought the game + the season pass. So someone should tell me how it is. I hear it takes a bit of getting used to due to presentation issues.
I was looking at getting MARY SKELTER after playing this LABRYTNTH game on console (about a witch and you manage puppets, and the story is absolutely batshit insane - including, I'm pretty sure, some physical assault by a nun) and MARY SKELTER looks like it has a bit better presentation and game systems (I mostly like the named characters instead of just a group of disposable soldiers). I will say, after the icky stuff in the previous game mentioned, I was kind of eye-rolling at this "lick" mechanic; for anyone that has played does that bit of fan service detract from the overall game (reminds me of the stuff in ZZ - which had some really heavy themes in its stories, but presented them in an adult way - but then they have this stuff where the characters are in mildly sexual cutscenes with each other during various "phases" of their lives).
This looks pretty neat, coming out on PC and Switch. Whole game's done in Japanese ink and watercolor style.
Interesting, kind of has an Oreshika vibe.
Content-wise, if you can handle Labyrinth of Refrain, you can probably handle Mary Skelter, but this says more about Refrain than anything else. They're both about surviving through a bleak and ugly world and coming out the other side a bit better, but Mary Skelter's probably at about a 7/10 on the scale of those things as opposed to Refrain's 11.
"Mildly sexual situations" is about right. There's skimpy outfits on Anime Teens, cute-to-saucy artwork when maxing out a girl's relationship points, and a "massage the girls while they're in swimsuits for marginal gameplay benefits" mechanic that I've completely ignored and never needed.
The official Suggested Playing Order is 2 first, the remake of 1 that's included in 2, and then Finale.
Today I learned (remembered?) Zangetsu is getting an English release. Nice.
By the Acquire team, who were making those Wizardry games until the mobile game company grabbed up the IP. (Rage and or Relief pending, watch this space.)
Right after that, void* tRrLM2(); for those who like roguelikes and the crushing despair of living in a godless uncaring void.
I'm trying to place a old Windows gridder, back from the era of pop-up dialog boxes. I remember it being sharewareish with a demo consisting of two levels. It was mostly plotless and fairly generic. The biggest thing that stands out in my memory was that there was an entire school of insta-death spells based on rolling "damage" over the enemy's current hp. I think there may have been tomes that buffed but also aged your character(s?) if you read them?
GabeN's not safe either, F. O. E.
June 1st, EO1-3 as a bundle or individual, HD remake, Switch and Steam. Only thing that surprised me more today was Fantasy Life being resurrected.
I think Baten Kaitos surprised me more than Fantasy Life.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Steam preorders are up. $40 each, you get 1 free if you buy all 3.
https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/etrian-odyssey-origins-collection-switch/
Ditto Switch, and again, buy the bundle for $80 or each game individually for $40. They basically are giving away one of the games if you get the bundle.
Not sure they have. These could be high-level DS emulators for all we know.
Like a key thing is they have used high-res source art to spruce up the 2D enemies. Which are very much 3D animated enemies in the 3DS games. Improving that would be a completely different skillset and process.
I still own all three on the DS, but really neat to see.
Not the Untolds? That's pretty surprising too.