Fellow Game Publishers' Guild member Imaginary Empire's latest release is Instruments of the Chrysanthemum Throne. In this setting set in Japan, heroes must take up Tsukumogami, evil artifacts with sentience unsealed in desperation, to fight against monsters and a series of natural disasters that threatens the continued existence of Japan and the Chrysanthemum Throne. Can the player characters force the Tsukumogami to help save them or will unlocking them quicken the demise of Japan?
Fellow Game Publishers' Guild member Mystical Throne Entertainment's latest release is Tabletop Gaming Guide to Pirates and Privateers. This guide is Savage Worlds (SWADE), Entropic Gaming System (EGS), and Legend System compatible. For Savage Worlds, it makes an excellent companion to 50 Fathoms, Pirates of the Spanish Main, and Solomon Kane settings that focus on pirates or have a lot of ocean travel between continents.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/388856/Tabletop-Gaming-Guide-to-Pirates-and-Privateers?affiliate_Id=12615
Fellow Game Publishers' Guild member Just Insert Imagination released Winter Eternal: Darkness and Ice for TriCube Tales this week. This is a micro setting that can be used in the TriCube Tales system.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/397099/Winter-Eternal-Darkness-and-Ice--Tricube-Tales-OnePage-RPG?affiliate_id=12615
Fellow Game Publishers' Guild member Arcanum Syndicate has released Demon Gate: Beyond the Sea of Falling Skies. This expansion to Demon Gate takes it to the Far East with new chi abilities, new armor and weapons, new classes, new species and more.
I finally finished the FFVII Remake that I got with PS Plus.
Pros: This game focuses on the Midgar chapter of the game only which allows for Biggs, Jessie, and Wedge to get more characterization. Jessie is by far the best performance of the three.
Mixed: The combat. I tried playing
the Classic version in the demo and did not like it. So I set it on Easy. I
figured the combat out after I played Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2. FFVII Remake
literally uses the same system but with an active battle system. In HNmk2, you
use AP points to attack and do combos to increase an SP meter which can then be
used with a combination of AP and SP to activate abilities and items. This
usually means you won't be able to use items or abilities until your second
turn. In FFVIIR, you do the same thing in real time to increase the ATB meter
to get ATB bars to perform commands. With MP being another limiting factor. It
is hack and slash with command interrupts. Once I understood the combat it was
much more enjoyable, but it took a long time to get there, like Chapter 8 or
so.
I don't understand the need to make every weapon have its own sphere grid. Materia alone was where you spent a lot of time in the original. We didn't need more fiddly bits. On the plus side, I figured out late you can select all the materia up abilities then just set the weapon to auto to speed things up. I just wish I saw that way earlier in the game.
Cons: Mini-game-itis. This starts with drunken darts simulator in 7th Heaven and continues with a brutal sequence of mini-games in Sector 6 Wall Market. Some of my least favorite sequences are the squat and armlift exercises. And the rhythm mini-game which ended with Aerith saying, "Well at least you tried." I was so tired of these mini-games I just stopped playing for a year.
This game is long, like I spent 50 hours but it felt like 100 hours with 18 different chapters and a lot of padding in terms of mini-games and extra side quests.
I hate, hate, hate the fight with the giant 6 wheeler car while Cloud is on the motorbike. No healing at all from the truck. Meanwhile you need to dodge and weave and try to slash the tires of the six wheeler with a limited armor pool on the bike. I died like two or three times in a row before I finally won.
The story adds in the whispers and a free will versus fate/destiny subplot that it just did not need. It feels like every side story, every movie, and every retelling of this tale just makes the plot even murkier and less interesting.
I am glad I paid like 2.50 for this rather than 60 (PS Plus subscription is like 60/12 = 5 dollars a month, so each game is 2.50. Don't lie to yourself and say it was free, it was not). I have no desire to buy a PS5 to continue the tale.
