So little Akiba's Trip love.That was one of my favorite games I've worked on at XSEED to date. Its gameplay is simple but fun, the story and characters are engaging and shockingly well-written, and the sense of humor is absolutely unbeatable. It's a fantastic game that manages to do tongue-in-cheek humor RIGHT, and is fun to play as well.
It's not groundbreaking, and its gameplay isn't going to wow you with its complexity or anything, but it's a game that the developers clearly put a lot of their heart and soul into -- it feels very genuine, like a love letter from Acquire to the district they live and work in, and to all the fans who appreciate them. It's easily the best Acquire game I've ever played, and was one of my top five favorite releases of 2014 (if you count it as a 2014 release, anyway, since it came out in Japan in 2013!).
It's also our best English dub of all time, and the most fun I've ever had at voice recording.
And has my personal best voice-acting in it. Though that's not saying much.![]()
Only the PS2 version has that. That part was added by Konami.
Our version has a whole new gameplay mode, warp features and widescreen instead.
I think it's a fair tradeoff.
-Tom
Thank you SO MUCH. XSEED and co. always go above and beyond my expectations for their localizations. I always knew that AoN wasn't on par with OiF and Origin, yet I always wanted to check it out. Modernizing it and making it similar to the ones I mentioned feels like Christmas (not the biggest fan of party system Ys). You guys rock!Just thought I'd add some extra clarity here: Catastrophe Mode is a separate thing rather than a "difficulty" per se. It is selected after difficulty, and completely eliminates all traces of most of the game's useable items (including the healing items of course). Even the menus in that mode show no real signs that stockable healing items ever existed. You can see a small bit of this in the announcement trailer, as footage from Catastrophe Mode has no sign of the stock item slot.
Enemy drop healing items are used on pick-up in Catastrophe Mode, but that's exactly the same way Oath in Felghana and Origin work, after all. It's just less obvious there, since the items never existed in a menu-useable form there in the first place.
(Edit: Also, Catastrophe Mode has its own leaderboards, before anyone asks.)
The warping system is a "Warp Map" very similar to Oath in Felghana's. I've made the old behavior (only warping out of a dungeon to its entrance) available as a hidden INI option for purists, so hopefully everyone should be happy.
Yup, quite some time back.
...And yeah, I personally don't feel the Konami stuff not being there is a loss. Especially the character models and voice acting. Even the Japanese voice acting was grating to me...
They only have one PC programmer, and she's been super busy.
It was billed as Ys 8 but from the one trailer released it's seems to be set between 5 and 6.Do we know if the new Ys is going to be Ys 8 or a proper Ys 5?
It was billed as Ys 8 but from the one trailer released it's seems to be set between 5 and 6.
Catastrophe mode will be interesting with Nightmare mode for a couple of bosses. Specificallythe optional plant boss[/b] and.Ernst
It makes me wonder if the push for 6 on PC was just from Xseed or a push from Falcom as well since every game that's come after it has all tied into the ideas it put forth (except perhaps Chronicles). Hmmm.
Just thought I'd add some extra clarity here: Catastrophe Mode is a separate thing rather than a "difficulty" per se. It is selected after difficulty, and completely eliminates all traces of most of the game's useable items (including the healing items of course). Even the menus in that mode show no real signs that stockable healing items ever existed. You can see a small bit of this in the announcement trailer, as footage from Catastrophe Mode has no sign of the stock item slot.
Enemy drop healing items are used on pick-up in Catastrophe Mode, but that's exactly the same way Oath in Felghana and Origin work, after all. It's just less obvious there, since the items never existed in a menu-useable form there in the first place.
(Edit: Also, Catastrophe Mode has its own leaderboards, before anyone asks.)
The warping system is a "Warp Map" very similar to Oath in Felghana's. I've made the old behavior (only warping out of a dungeon to its entrance) available as a hidden INI option for purists, so hopefully everyone should be happy.
Yup, quite some time back.
...And yeah, I personally don't feel the Konami stuff not being there is a loss. Especially the character models and voice acting. Even the Japanese voice acting was grating to me...
Take me to the classiest, most expensive hostess clubs in Ginza and we can talk.
Anyway... We'll most likely never have the OSTs officially up on Steam because that would directly compete with Falcoms soundtrack sales. They put up their full soundracks on the North American itunes store. I have them all, they're completely worth it.
Man I feel conflicted, part of me wants to experience the game the way it was originally released with stock able healing items (not with no warping F that), but having played Memories of Celceta and Ys 5 I see how over powered stock able healing items are in these games. Does Ys 6 feel like it was designed around stock able items or if someone didn't know any different and played Ys 6 on this new catastrophe mode after playing Ys Origins/Oath In Felghana it wouldn't be a difficulty spike.
Spring: Ys: The Ark of Napishtim.
Summer: Xanadu Next?
Fall: Dinosaur Resurrection.
Very, very, very low.So, moving forward, any chance of Ys 7 coming to PC in English? I heard it had a PC version in China, but something like the codebase for it was really bad.
Does Ys 6 feel like it was designed around stock able items or if someone didn't know any different and played Ys 6 on this new catastrophe mode after playing Ys Origins/Oath In Felghana it wouldn't be a difficulty spike.
It's not a good game. It's a pretty poor brawler combined with a not very good visual novel.Oh nice, maybe just maybe the recent Ys games could come to PC also?
And is Akiba's Trip good? I only really seen a bunch of the first one mostly, which look pretty hilarious. The visual tweaks you can mess around with in the PS4 of the sequel sounds pretty niffy.
And is Akiba's Trip good? I only really seen a bunch of the first one mostly, which look pretty hilarious. The visual tweaks you can mess around with in the PS4 of the sequel sounds pretty niffy.
It's not a good game. It's a pretty poor brawler combined with a not very good visual novel.
Is the PC port of Akiba's Trip based off the PS3 or PS4 version?
It's based off of the PS4 version, so programming-wise, it's very solid but also a bit more demanding in terms of PC stats than the Ys games or Trails (though, really, what isn't?).
It also doesn't quite have all the same features as the PS4 version -- no Toybox Mode, and no livestreaming -- though the DLC items and Visual Editor are present and accounted for.
All in all, the PS4 version is still what I would personally rank as the definitive Akiba experience, though the PC version is a close second.
-Tom
Is there some online functionality that would stop Akiba's Trip being on GOG? It seems weird for XSEED to ignore it when they're releasing Ys on it.
It's based off of the PS4 version, so programming-wise, it's very solid but also a bit more demanding in terms of PC stats than the Ys games or Trails (though, really, what isn't?).
It also doesn't quite have all the same features as the PS4 version -- no Toybox Mode, and no livestreaming -- though the DLC items and Visual Editor are present and accounted for.
All in all, the PS4 version is still what I would personally rank as the definitive Akiba experience, though the PC version is a close second.
-Tom
So, uh, I just browse what's the deal with toybox mode... is that an official cheat engine?
Why no Toybox mode? Seems like a weird omission from what I just read about it.
Is there some online functionality that would stop Akiba's Trip being on GOG? It seems weird for XSEED to ignore it when they're releasing Ys on it.
gonna get akiba on ps4, but can't wait to play Ys, tried to make it through the Konami version but it didn't end up happening, guessing the voices won't be redone?
Honestly, I don't know the answer to that. We were just told by the developers that it couldn't be ported over.
Basileus clearly doesn't think so:
But I beg to differ. It was one of my favorite games of 2014 (again, if it counts as a 2014 release; if not, then it was one of my favorite games of 2013!). I found the brawler gameplay to be actually quite fun, if only because of the HUGE variety of weapons you could use, each of which controls completely differently. The gameplay is fairly simple, but it's fun enough (especially when you get into massive street brawls with 20+ people at a time!), and when you can switch to a different weapon and suddenly have an ENTIRELY new set of moves at your disposal, it's even better!
The real reason I loved the game so much, though, was the visual novel portion, which I couldn't disagree with Basileus more about. It's exceptionally well-written, absolutely hilarious, filled with great characters who get lots of development and backstory, and just self-aware enough to really tie everything together. Again, like the gameplay, it's very simple and straight-forward, but you can tell the game was created by nerds, for nerds, and that a lot of passion and soul went into it. If it strikes a chord with you, you'll absolutely love it -- and it definitely struck a chord with me, and with all of us at XSEED for that matter (it's one of the only times we've ever unanimously voted to work on a game, with not a single person in the company voting against it -- and we had so much faith in the title, we even set about dubbing it in what was to be and remains our longest and most complicated recording session in XSEED history, with -- perhaps ironically -- over 9,000 lines of dialogue to record!).
So YMMV, but if the game looks or sounds good to you, I'd say give it a try.
-Tom
Off topic but who do I gotta get drunk up their ass in a hostess bar to get Brandish 2: THE PLANET BUSTER PC Engine ver. released in English?
I don't agree about the quality of writing. Some of it was humorous, but the scenario/characters are incredibly basic. The character routes were really underwhelming, with Shion's route being the only one I would even really call worth playing. There are so many other VNs that I'd recommend reading before coming to Akiba's Trip. It doesn't really have a whole lot going for it other than the novelty of the setting. Being created by nerds for nerds is a pretty empty bit of rhetoric, that's true of a lot of games, and certainly almost every visual novel ever made.
Though maybe Steam pricing might change the equation, because some of my ire at the game was the $50 price tag, which I felt pretty ripped off having spent on it.
But I'm not employed by the company selling the game, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Were the item drop rates left as-is or were they tweaked in any way? Drops seemed plentiful from what I remember playing, to the point where unless you were really bad or playing Nightmare you never really needed to buy any health-replenishing items at the shop. Speaking of: I take it you can't buy health items there anymore, or do they just insta-heal you now? Latter would be useless, since you get free healing from the save checkpoints.Enemy drop healing items are used on pick-up in Catastrophe Mode, but that's exactly the same way Oath in Felghana and Origin work, after all. It's just less obvious there, since the items never existed in a menu-useable form there in the first place.
Take me to the classiest, most expensive hostess clubs in Ginza and we can talk.
(that background)