There is this tiny company called Nihon Falcom. They make this game series called Trails that I adore. they have like three programmers work on each entry.

In the time since Star Citizen was announced they have released:

The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails 2012
Ys: Memories of Celceta 2012
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2013
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II 2014
Tokyo Xanadu 2015
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana 2016
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV
Ys IX: Monstrum Nox 2019
The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie
The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak
The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II
Ys X: Nordics

as well as a bunch of ports of older games to modern platforms and localizing them to the west. All of these are worth playing and some of these were GOTY material for me.

Its good to quantify how much time has passed, and how much you can get done with a smaller budget and focused scope.

[–] zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Trails into Reverie is not worth playing. Cold Steel was iffy. Trails is a shadow of its former self.

[–] whereBeWaldo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 months ago

Call me shallow but I enjoy the fanservice ( not the naughty type, I mean when characters from the previous entries come back/get mentioned) so I enjoyed them thoroughly, Kuro 1 and 2 are also great, they bring a lot of new ideas to the table.

[–] rigatti@lemmy.world 31 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Do you play indie games? They seem to be exactly what you're describing.

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago

I play mostly smaller games, and am very patient with my gaming habits. Haven't bought a AAA game in a very long while. Still follow these kind of news because they trend set the whole industry and encroach everywhere with bad practice as big publishers represent the majority of the industry releases and also the grossest revenue.

[–] TIMMAY@lemmy.world 19 points 11 months ago (1 children)

that's a fucking thing?!

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 22 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

It's now a season bundle. But it was $10 per fatality x 3. One for Halloween, one for Thanksgiving, and one for Christmas. That was a total of $30 for a whole minute of cut-scenes. They successfully Overton it, apologized and now it's $10 for the three scenes. But yeah, now buying Fatalities is a thing, look forward for your Easter Fatality edition and an extra Bunny skin version for only $4.99.

[–] verysoft@kbin.social 8 points 11 months ago

People will buy fucking anything, it's hopeless.

[–] Rokk@feddit.uk 7 points 11 months ago

I'm all for having both. I personally prefer 'AAA' games over indie games but I think there's just different flavours for different folks.

That said, SC is a mega scam at this point and I can't believe people are still continuing to fund it to this level.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Yeah, Underrail is pretty good.

[–] orrk@lemmy.world -3 points 11 months ago

imagine a bigger game with great graphics and a whole ton of technical innovation, AND have people be paid well, that is for chumps