You gotta love seeing indie studios doing good.
The game is available on both Game Pass and PS Plus and still manages to reach those numbers. That’s impressive.
For context, just 100k is historically a good showing for a JRPG, especially one with this production size. Atelier Ryza hitting 500k back in 2020 was a big surprise. This is well on its way to that mark.
I think there’s an argument to be made that JRPGs haven’t been this mainstream since 1997, and even then it was just Final Fantasy in the west. The genre is much more diverse today. Amazing times.
I don’t know about them never being this mainstream this century.
Golden Sun sold over a million globally in the early 2000s, and the Fire Emblem series had their best selling games in the millions in the 2010s.
Granted, these are rookie numbers compared to the juggernaut that is Final Fantasy, but still respectable.
Sure, Fire Emblem had its breakout in the west with Awakening, but there were real discussions being had about the viability of the genre back in 2013. It was at the tail end of a really bad time (arguably the nadir) for JRPGs on consoles.
Persona 5, NieR: Automata, Dragon Quest XI, and Three Houses all being multi-million sellers is what sparked off the current, unprecedented era for the genre.
Sure, let’s just say Final Fantasy was the only popular JRPG around 1997 and we can forget about Pokemon, Earthbound/Mother, Super Mario RPG, Zelda, Dragon Quest…
Is Zelda a JRPG? I thought one of the defining aspects of the genre was turn- and statistics-based combat. Any Zelda game I’m aware of has real-time combat where hit/miss is based on hit boxes instead of stats.
I didn’t say popular, I said mainstream. Zelda isn’t often claimed by the genre, and Pokémon was literally the only other multi-million seller in the genre in the west.
Earthbound is the very definition of a cult classic, and Dragon Quest wasn’t even getting localized at that time.
I know that stupid rich CEOs and shareholders don’t understand this, but… “heart”. You make a game with heart, and it’s immediately apparent to the audience. You can try to break down what it is that gives it away, but that’s unnecessary.
If a work of art has heart, it will probably sell well. As long as people can clearly see what it is, and as long as it doesn’t do anything alienating.
I love this sentiment, and it can be true, but it also creates this idea that ‘heart’ alone has a high bearing on whether or not a product of any kind (book, film, statue, game) will be successful in its market ambitions.
It doesn’t always correlate. I would argue if often doesn’t correlate. Any indie film or game fest is chock full of projects with a ton of heart. Few of them graduate to success in the market place.
I’m not saying heart is a bad thing. It’s a damn great thing. But strong business fundamentals are a good thing too. And sometimes, you also just need that extra bit of luck or uncontrollable virality too. To find success, you stack the deck with as many good plays as you can, and heart is one of them.
Success is not a recipe, and if it was, everybody would be doing it…
I agree with you completely. I just wasn’t about to write an essay on potential contributing factors that can help one succeed, plus luck. I just wanted to say that these days, there are a lot of indie smash hits out there that succeed in part because people saw a whole lot of love in them, when a lot of the more cynical corporate creators would never have made such things in such ways. Hell, it’s not just indies. It’s why many Nintendo games are so beloved, even “forgotten” ones like Earthbound. ^^
I realized pretty early on as a developer that my projects motivated because I wanted the thing I was making were far better than projects motivated because I wanted a project to work on.
A lot of the large companies are now run by business majors who are primarily there to make money rather than make video games.
Though you do need the skills and dedication in addition to the vision, because I’ve also got a bunch of projects that started as something I was very interested in but then stalled because I didn’t have the skills or focus to stick with it.
So happy to hear this! I bought it on release and finished it yesterday. Then I went back and bought the soundtrack.
Loved the main characters, and loved that it knew exactly how long it needed to be without making it a grindfest. Reminds me very much of my time with Chrono Trigger.
I’ve been watching some streams of it and Chrono Trigger was absolutely what came to mind for me. The art is gorgeous and the music is awesome too. Game’s got good vibes for sure.
I’m playing through it, and my house mate described it as a love letter to Chrono Trigger.
Also it’s gorgeous. Play it just for the eye candy if nothing else.
How long did it take you?
I did a semi-completionist run (without a guide) and it took me about 38h start to finish! I played it on my school/work commutes and sank some evenings into it, the game is pretty generous with save points.
If you have a Switch or a Steam deck, I would highly recommend getting it on there, the game really lends itself to portability and has natural stop points that reminds me of how DS/3DS games were structured back in the day
I finished it yesterday as well! Lots of things I loved about this. For me, third act kind of fell on its face a little bit, but that wasn’t enough to put me off, I still really enjoyed it.
Yeah I kind of agree with you there, the villain’s motivations were pretty weak imo. But the rest of the game was so charming that I really didn’t mind that much. It was the perfect breather to play in between Baldur’s Gate and Starfield for me.
I definitely have some nostalgia bias, don’t get me wrong, people that didn’t live through the Gameboy/DS/PSP era of RPGs might not be as forgiving. But it really made me miss the days of sitting on the train or the bus playing my DS on the way to school haha. Mobile gaming just doesn’t have the same feeling for me.
Yeah, I got the sense they had to cut some of the story out late in development to make a deadline or something. I dunno.
But it’s hard to get very specific what I mean without giving away a boatload of spoilers.
It’s “free” on ps plus at the highest tier. That likely helped
Wouldn’t that hurt instead of help? Those players usually will not buy the game and won’t be counted as sales.
Mid tier. I only have extra and got it.
This game is so hyped. How good is it really?
I just finished it yesterday. Verdict? Super fun, gameplay is great, looks beautiful, has a retro vibe. The story… is okay.
22 hours in. Still really fun. Don’t expect anything groundbreaking in terms of story though.
Honestly? It’s enjoyable. Some of its predictable, some of the dialogue is brilliant, and sometimes the combat is a slog (or just not balanced well - especially early on when you don’t have a lot of options). I do wish it had branching dialogue options but that’s just me. Oh and the art is top notch.
2 hours in. It is quite good. I have no regrets buying it.
1hr and some change in. I’m loving it so far
8 hours in, it’s pretty good. I think it’s one of those games that just came out at the right time.
It would have been a lot better with 3d graphics and cutscenes, and a full voice acted cast of NPCs. That’s basically the baseline now.
I’m about 8 hours into this game and it’s so refreshing.
I will pick it up eventually, but I’ve got too many games to play already!
Good, this game is great and Sabotage did an amazing job! They deserve the success, and I’m happy that so many people are playing it.
They definitely deserve it. The game is awesome.
Good for them
This is beautiful!!!
Is the game good?
If you like the genre, it is very good. I’d go as far as saying it’s really special. For me, it’s very comforting and just plain good vibes. Fantastic pixelart and tasteful, sensible improvements on the format.
Yes I would really love an old style game with QoL improvements that the modern era had bought for us like better controls, auto-saves, skip dialogue, etc.
It’s shockingly become one of my favourite RPGs and that’s saying a lot. The story is quite original with a few really good twists but the characters are also all excellent.
Soundtrack is most excellent.
High praise! I’ll be looking forward to trying this out then
I really liked the first 10 hours,but then it became really repetitive. I couldn’t bring myself to finish it. Maybe it’s just me though
Maybe the charm got old. You could play it in-between big games
