I’m in the same boat - we finally got our ballots in the mail today, we’re filling them in and dropping them off tomorrow. Nothing in this debate could’ve possibly changed my opinion after the last four years of neverending bullshit with this absolute fucking clown. Anyone who’s undecided at this point is either…

I agree with many of the other comments so far that this is a complicated issue. On one hand, yes, it’s not great from a healthy work/life balance point of view, as crunch never is. And it’s very unfortunate that one of the largest developers that had publicly made a stance against crunch now has to go against that…

I was in high school when Sunshine first came out and absolutely loved it at the time, but in retrospect (and looking at the games I put a lot of time into back then) my tolerance for mediocrity was much higher since I had infinite time and little expendable income.

Even as a man, I was angry at that. We don’t have kids yet so I know I can’t exactly speak from experience, but if my wife wrote that paragraph about me at any point I’d feel incredibly guilty and need to reevaluate. I really hope it’s just awkwardly worded and we’re missing lots of important context, but considering…

I actually really enjoyed the game when it came out, but you’re right, as a teenage boy I probably didn’t get as much from it as you for that reason. I’m glad it was important to you. However, while the photographic journalism portion of the gameplay was interesting at the time, there was still a lot of beating the…

One of my least favorite aspects of modern Square Enix is their constant reinvention of the wheel, rather than mastering an engine or system and iterating upon it as they used to. Instead we’ve had every game since XII go in a wildly different direction with little overlap, while other JRPGs such as Persona and DQ…

Yeah, that really muted greyness and darkness feels very PS3-era, and very strange. If this would have been revealed a couple seasons into Game of Thrones, I’d have been much more impressed at that time. We know games with serious storylines don’t have to be so visually muted, especially in a world full of magic. Last…

Don’t get me wrong, I’m intrigued by the overarching concept of taking control of humanity’s destiny back from the Eidolons / Eikons, assassinating summoners, etc...on paper. That has a ton of potential, and can create some really interesting commentary on the series’ history, interesting character dynamics, etc.…

I also love Yoshida’s art and wish they would take a chance on stylized visuals. I absolutely think that you could balance artistic stylization with realism, I’d argue that FFVIIR falls into this category with fantastic results. Each character is stylized and exaggerated just enough to have a very distinct identity,…

I played well over a hundred hours of XIV, and I’m still in the “ugh” column. XIV’s a fine game, but it was barely even a looker when it first released, let alone years later.

And I think that’s where I’m struggling to get excited - the initial reveal trailers for at least XIII and XV (and maybe also X and XII, but I don’t remember those) are incredibly intriguing and make you want to dive into the world and come to grips with the unique conflicts (A fantasy based in reality, where a lone…

All fair, and the statements he’s put out since I wrote my comment have helped my concerns a bit. I’m still not terribly optimistic about the game as a whole, but that’s as much just baggage from the series as a whole as it is reflective of the trailer and his work on XIV.

I agree, I’m not feeling any urgency to pick up either of them, especially since I’m torn on which system I’m more interested in. But all of this really reminds me of the PS2 launch, where you not only got the new hotness but also significant performance improvements for PS1 games to help sweeten the deal.

Thanks, that really threw me for a moment, but my sense of time is totally broken as it is so I just kind of accepted it.

I somewhat agree, but in my mind Ardyn was actually the most interesting character outside of Noctis himself (and even more so, at times). The other bros had very well-rounded and believable personalities, but very little in terms of growth, character arcs, motivations, or backstory. They hardly acknowledge grief when…

Are you thinking of the same trailer??? The one where Noctis seems to be fighting an internal fall into darkness through an escalating struggle that separates him from those he depends on and wears him down, only for the trailer to end with a red-eyed evil Noctis losing himself to the darkness and stabbing Lunafreya?…

Yeah, just me and half the gaming internet having the same thought. And you say that like modern game character models improve radically from reveal to release, but these still look subpar compared to FFVIIR’s initial game engine trailers. And that’s not an issue that any of the other game teasers in the PS5 showcase…

J-Pop lead singer: “I am Joshua’s shield”
Slightly older and angstier J-Pop lead singer: “I WILL KILL YOU”

While I appreciate them not showing just a mysterious CG teaser and using in-game footage instead, and I think the core premise is interesting enough, I think the bland visual design of the characters and environments is really tempering my expectations, and not in the way they were hoping for. I’m certainly not one…

100%. The Omen trailer they released a month or two before the game came out is still one of my favorite trailers of all time, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the plot of the game, even from an abstract thematic level. It’s bizarre, and set expectations up in a strange way.