timoneous

Something to keep in mind is that decisions about actually going forward with products are always in flux. A lot of these documents are dated from years and years ago...needless to say, a lot has changed in the world and in the game market in the past 3-4 years. R&D departments at these companies are constantly "funded" to look into product lines. Some get all the way to the prototype phase and then killed...some even about to be thrown to manufacturing, but then something happens the price or availability of a key component and the whole project is scrapped.

That being said, take a lot of this with giant grains of salt. It's always interesting to get a peek behind the curtain and see things that they don't want you to see, but ultimately it doesn't matter unless they're actually going to ship these products. Things like the Vitality Sensor from Nintendo was a joke for years and never came out. Same thing with the boomerang PS3 controller. It's why companies try not to announce things until they're about ready to hit the market.

I'll add one more thing, but I'll put the spoiler tag on it just in case...

I know they're paying homage to Chrono Trigger when it comes to the "true ending" and I might have even shed a tear to the Garl story bits, but locking that up behind all of the pseudo loyalty missions, plus getting all 60 of the conches seems like unnecessary busy-work to pad out the game.

And as long as I'm under the spoiler tag, it would be an understatement to say that I did not expect the final battle to be partially a vertical shooter sequence.

Also, I really appreciate the artifact system that you can turn on/off on the fly. More games should include such things and not worry about penalizing the player by disabling trophies and whatnot. Let people enjoy their games how they want!

@csl316: You're spot on with the Bloodstained comparison. It's a new game made to feel like an old game while having its own identify.

Trying not to spoil things here, but by the time I'm done, I'll have about 35 hours into it. As of now, I'm in their "endgame" wrap up mode with just a couple more things to do before I go fight the end boss.

Coming from me, a 38-year-old with a deep history with the two games Sea of Stars is heavily cribbing from (namely Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger), I'm really enjoying myself. Yes, there are concepts and lines stolen directly from those games as a wink and nod, but it's done in a way that, if you didn't get the reference, it doesn't detract from the experience.

The combat is a brilliant mix of the Mario RPG timed-hits mechanics married to the dual/triple team-up attack system taken from Chrono Trigger. Adding on top of that, they also introduce their own concept of enhanced attacks that add an additional layer of strategy and choice to every fight. Even taken from later Mario RPGs, enemies are on the field and you can choose to get in an early hit to have an advantage.

Probably my favorite part of this game is its soundtrack. Like any good RPG, you need good battle music if you're going to be hearing it over and over again. These tracks will get burned in your brain in the best way. Each main area has its own theme and I swear one of the towns you visit has a distinct Gilligan's Island theme song vibe. Best tracks are the boss encounters, though. Got me super hyped.

Graphically, it's what you'd expect from a game like this, but the character portraits shown in dialog provide added emotion to each scene. The animations are top notch and the added cutscenes give it that much extra style. The environments are colorful, if not lacking in a little life. I just wished they had more hidden or interactable elements.

Clearly this game was made for people like me who have nostalgia for this era of gaming and I can only give my perspective, so I understand if others aren't into the aesthetic. That being said, it's a solid game for me that came out at a time when there are so many games demanding people's attention that I can see how it might get missed. That said, if you enjoy the old turn-based RPG look and feel, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

We will get new versions of the consoles, but not upgraded hardware. I think of this generation like the PS3/360 generation: iterations on the same concept and higher storage options. In fact, we just got a new model of the Series S with a different color and higher storage. Nintendo is making money hand over fist with their hardware and all they've done in over 6 years is update the screen tech (for more money) and slap some designs on the shell (also for more money).

Sony and Microsoft want to do the same with their consoles. They'll continue to update the internals to use cheaper and cheaper parts (already seen with PS5 cooling revisions), but the performance will remain the same. Inflation and supply chain constraints have already limited the margins on these boxes and putting a whole lot more money into R&D for higher end systems when there is little to no demand for it (from consumers or developers) doesn't make a lot of financial sense.

When it comes to the Bombcast itself, it's about as good as it's going to be considering the makeup of the staff. But honestly, it's kinda turned into a longer version of Grubb's morning show, but with more than just two people. We have the standard intros, talking about what people have been up to, some news and then the only different thing is the emails at the end. Yeah, they go into a bit more detail about games they're playing, but I would rather they do more QuickLooks and do the "show, don't tell" thing. But that's more of a conversation about the direction of the site in general.

Working for a large company is a scary thing, especially when your group is just a small fish in a large pond. Waypoint was just a piece of the larger Vice Media Group. Much like GB was a part of CBSi, which was a part of CBS, which was a part of Viacom (and similar at Whiskey Media, too). Vice has actually been looking to get bought recently, but the way the winds have been blowing in digital media, they couldn't get their asking price. I don't think Waypoint as a brand was valuable enough to sell off buy itself, so rather than forcing it in with the whole media group, they shut it down to attract buyers to the larger company.

There’s no rhyme or reason for videos playing or not. Sometimes I can just refresh the page once and it’ll work, but other times it doesn’t work at all. Randomly started in the middle of the Deadly Premonition ER. The first could worked fine, but the rest I had to hit the download button and watch it through the Chrome browser player. Really frustrating.

In the current games media market, it just wouldn't work. The Nextlander guys left because they didn't want to be a part of another corporate transition. I think Jeff wanted to leave years ago, but the pandemic scared him off of doing that until he got resettled. These guys have their own brands and a following that will support them without having to be someone's employee. I don't see this staff being able to all come together to collaborate and share a pool of resources when really what they're trying to do is build their personal brand, rather than the brand of the website they work for.

Everyone sees the lack of output as it is. Games media is really tough right now and if you have something that's yours, you don't share. I do like that GB brings in Abby, Patrick, Ben and the Nextlander crew, but it's only a treat for the audience. They're not providing more content for the site than what would already be here. And if GB were to host a new series with regulars who aren't staff (much like Arcade Pit), that's yet another expense they may not be able to afford.

Long story short, these buyouts have really hurt. If Jeff and the gang could do it over again, I'm sure they would have gone the Kinda Funny route and be owners rather than employees. But that's long in the past. What Giant Bomb is now is not what it was and it's not what it will be. What I want from the site is for the current staff to be fans of the website they work for. Stop planning so much and turn on the damn cameras and have fun. It's a website about video games!

It really depends on what side of the industry you're asking about.

Overall, console makers are feeling pretty good right now. They only wish they could have kept up with hardware demand during the pandemic. Software continues to sell and the services side is providing a nice cash cushion without having to spend a lot of that cash to maintain it.

Except for Microsoft, that is. Game Pass seems to be the way they want things to go, but they need to continue to grow those numbers faster than what they currently are if they hope to eventually make a profit. They need software to hit big this year and not just in sales numbers. They have to garner a kind of desire for their exclusive games to inspire a console purchase that their offerings so far haven't been able to do. Why play Halo when all your friends are playing CoD or Fortnite for free? Starfield needs to have a big splash because I don't know what else they could hang their hat on to entice more people to take the plunge for an Xbox because Game Pass itself apparently isn't enough.

Sony is back to their arrogant selves and for good reason. They're still selling more hardware and software and at higher prices. Bolstered by solid 3rd party support, I think Sony is poised to win this generation yet again...if only they could get out of their own way. Since they came out at the reveal of the PS4 to say that used games were still an option, they haven't made a single consumer-friendly move. Their cross-generation games are still a mess, the PS5 UI is wildly unintuitive and their newer PS+ offerings are incomprehensible to a casual observer. If they could somehow engineer a backwards compatible offering of PS1, PS2 and PS3 software, they would garner a lot of goodwill across the board...but it won't happen.

Nintendo seems content with the pace at which their company is churning, but to the dismay of pixel hungry gamers. But they are still selling this 6-year old portable system that happens to also be a console at a profit along with software that rarely drops in price. I would love to see a Super Switch with backwards compatible software at its core, but Nintendo moves slow and isn't reactionary. They have a good thing going and they don't want a repeat of the Wii U: a backwards compatible system that didn't know what it was.

As far as my general feelings are concerned, gaming is in a good place. We have an embarrassment of variety right now. Between all of the remakes being released on modern systems and Nintendo's classic game catalog offerings, my 38-year-old nostalgia-addled brain is content not to always have to keep up with whatever is new and popular. As I've written before, I just don't spend a lot of money on gaming anymore. Game Pass keeps me busy and my backlog of cheap and free PS+ games I've acquired over the years will keep me busy for years to come.