Re: fandom, I've come across many older Falcom (and Japanese PC game) fans on Twitter who talk about the newer Falcom games here and there, rarely in a negative way. The actual long-time fans in Japan are probably too busy to play something like Ys VIII or Sen no Kiseki III these days, but they could offer more nuanced responses on the subject than just words put in their mouths.
Around 10 years ago was the time when Falcom abandoned the PC as a platform. Screw them forever for that. They also hadn't yet released Ys Seven which shat all over the series.
As bad as it is, I really want them to fail.
Falcom only abandoned PC development because SoftBank dropped their physical PC game distribution. President Kondo mentioned before how much Falcom depends on physical sales of products in Japan. Going digital-only would still have put them in the red well before spending way too much on a new distribution contract or self-publishing infrastructure. They made a difficult commercial decision that ended up saving the company after games like Zwei!! II bombed (neither Ys Origin nor Trails 3rd sold as well as mid-2000s games either); meanwhile things were promising on the PSP side. Ys Seven, for better or worse, succeeded and made the platform transition clear, but I don't think Falcom's development culture and priorities are irreversibly ruined just looking at the quality put into Ys VIII.
Please reconsider wanting "them to fail." Some people have worked at Falcom so long it's become their life's work, and it's never cool to want financial/job-related problems on people you've never met (who probably work their asses off to make huge games in such a small team). Previous startup developers formed by ex-Falcom employees (Quintet and Gruppo1) didn't last too long on their lonesome, either, and the market's even riskier now should Falcom disband and its employees want to start a new developer.
That's interesting, since I argued that the The Ark of Napishtim changes are among the most pointless. Warping among checkpoints...I don't care about that, and am actually happier without it. For me, it's one of those additions for the lazy gamer who can't be bothered to run through certain regions again and appreciate the world.
”Catastrophe Mode" is just a simple rule change. No effort taken, not interested to play through the game again (I 100%'ed it the first time) just for that as it offers nothing new.
I've played through Ark two times (one on Nightmare) using Catastrophe. Remembering distinct and fly-over areas of the game is less of a problem than I expected, and warping didn't spoil my appreciation of the game world. And I'm not sure how any of this makes me or most others "the lazy gamer" when it really just saves time and fixes the game's pacing, which wasn't that great to begin with.
I understand it can be annoying to see Falcom adopting high school settings and waifus with Tokyo Xanadu and Cold Steel, but the games are still far from hate-worthy.
This would be actually annoying if Ys VIII didn't come out and show that old Falcom's still around where it counts. I'm also disappointed in their recent direction with Kiseki, but there's still much of the series to go.
It depends on what you define as "as warmly". It ranged from slightly negative to pretty negative (I'm obviously more on the latter's side, especially looking back at it and being able to see where it went from there). Only outside the "community" I've really seen more neutral or positive mentions.
Even the Ys community thread's neutral on Seven, and elsewhere I've seen lots of positive reception in addition to a vocal audience criticizing it. True hyperbole comes from someone saying Seven or Celceta's the worst game in the whole series, often ignoring Ys V or Mask of the Sun out of convenience. The most useful conversations about a game's quality come from complex argument, but even without that I think most people enjoyed and like Seven, though fewer love it. Same goes with Celceta in a lesser sense (I just played through the PC version, patched, and had a better time than I expected).
Overall, I'd love for XSEED and Falcom to do another survey like the one done in 2007 (not that I'm expecting Falcom to make games based on poll results again) just to see metrics for their audience in public.
