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[Augemitbutter]

you can't beat xseed. dinosaur next pls.

 

[Glitter and Gold]

In this day and age they should probably still call it Zwei II, or pull a Monster Hunter Tri and leave it in the logo "just in case" even if it's not actually being called that in any press material and is buried under the subtitle.

Still, awesome news! Definitely grabbing it ASAP.

EDIT: Though I also guess adding the subtitle means that they can release the original game and just call it Zwei. And be smartasses and go "it's still II, because it's the Illvard Insurrection. Really." Though following the link kind of shows they made up a whole new logo already anyway.

I imagine if they do release the original Zwei it'll also have its own unique subtitle vs numbering them sequentially

I think they wanted to avoid that as to not have people worry about which to play first or be obligated to release the original game first

 

[Grim Patron]

It's goddamn 2017 and XSEED announces a Windows only Falcom game? Come on XSEED, porting these to Mac is much easier and cheaper than to port anywhere else.

I stopped expecting this a while back. Just get the gog version and wine it.

 

[andymcc]

That looks precisely what I imagined it would look like from the name

???

 

[Usobuko]

Falcom? Bought.

 

[Eusis]

???

Because clearly German innately means cutesy anime game.

Well, publisher and developer combo would probably incline one to think that anyway regardless of title, but you have someone like Paradox announce it and you'd probably expect some European-style strategy game (though why is it using the word 2 as a name?)

 

[SpaceDrake]

Oh, and man, I hope they can eventually go for the long shot and get games ported to PC then released here. They're starting with Cold Steel, but it'd definitely be neat to get games like Nayuta in English afterall. Or just more eyes on Brandish.

If nothing else, being on a platform that has actual 32-bit color would improve Nayuta's dithering problems. :v

As for Dinosaur, OG Zwei!!, and Sorcerian, I think at least 2 out of 3 could work well for XSEED. They'd have to price Zwei!! more aggressively because the sequel's coming first, but Dinosaur can appeal to the first-person dungeon crawler niche as well as fans of VNs. Sorcerian's probably doomed to a fan translation because it already targeted a specific, reliable but small audience in Japan to begin with, and it's not a looker or particularly great game. Gagharv won't get over the commercial barrier until Falcom remakes that series, if ever, but fan patches are all but guaranteed now that we're getting Legend of Xanadu (II), Brandish 2 (then 3, and the WIP 4 patch), and other older games.

Yeah, it kills me, but the Gagharv games are a non-starter at this point. Of course, second remakes might well be in the offing given that more time has passed between the PSP versions and now as passed between the original games and the PSP versions...

I guess I could see Zwei!! and Dinosaur working. The real problem is that they're way more aggressively built around the assumption of 640x480. They would, in ways, be difficult to modernize. People put up with the lo-fi for Ys Chronicles partly because of the series, but for standalone things it's a bit harder to justify it.

 

[John Kowalski]

Yay

 

[Eusis]

I guess I could see Zwei!! and Dinosaur working. The real problem is that they're way more aggressively built around the assumption of 640x480. They would, in ways, be difficult to modernize. People put up with the lo-fi for Ys Chronicles partly because of the series, but for standalone things it's a bit harder to justify it.

Zwei would probably be fine due to being a 2D game, there's kind of an appeal for a pixelated look after all and really wouldn't be too out of place with a lot of throwback games, which funnily enough tend to aim for a lower end look if anything. Dinosaur on the other hand having 3D visuals would probably be pretty annoying to deal with.

EDIT: Although, looking at it again the look Zwei has is a kind of look that hasn't really been used for many games, ending up more evocative of something like Ragnarok Online, PS2 Atelier, and perhaps even Princess Maker 2 than a full on throwback, but that has a charm for some of us still I suspect.

 

[Parsnip]

Awesome news.

 

[Aselith]

That looks highly anime

 

[Tizoc]

That looks highly anime

Falcom's always been anime

 

[KainXVIII]

Looks pretty bad, even for Falcom game 😄

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

Define "pretty bad".

Dinosaur on the other hand having 3D visuals would probably be pretty annoying to deal with.

Maybe at first, but I can see Sara getting it to run at higher resolutions and with AA since it's a polygonal game that would upscale much better than Zwei!!. Then she'd have to get HD assets (if possible) for character/monster graphics and the UI. I think XSEED could release a nice upgrade of it, but it depends on whether they feel it's viable.

 

[Eila]

Wait a sec this plays like Nayuta no Kiseki? Wasn't a huge fan of that game myself. Then again I played the machine translation so that didn't help.

 

[PixyJunket]

Oh hey, it's Gurumin 2.

Yes, yes, this will be bought.

 

[Psxphile]

Oh no...

 

[Pellegri Testament]

Oh no...

Expected, the salt is just too strong.

 

[Cqef]

Oh no...

I guess our favourite neurotic pal got triggered

 

[GoldandBlue]

Oh no...

Can I get some context here.

 

[Basileus777]

Can I get some context here.

NightWolve is a crazy person who was involved in the Ys fan translation community that hates XSeed in a really comical fashion. He's convinced that XSeed steals the work of the translations that they pay to license.

 

[Aselith]

NightWolve is a crazy person who was involved in the Ys fan translation community that hates XSeed in a really comical fashion. He's convinced that XSeed steals the work of the translations that they pay to license.

I like how he continues on in a conversation that no other person is participating in. Some legends say he's still having that conversation!

 

[Thud]

Expected, the salt is just too strong.

I thought the salt pale wasn't real, but apparently it exists on twitter.

 

[GoldandBlue]

NightWolve is a crazy person who was involved in the Ys fan translation community that hates XSeed in a really comical fashion. He's convinced that XSeed steals the work of the translations that they pay to license.

Ah okay, I remember seeing some stuff about the guy before but wasn't aware of how bad it was.

 

[JoeyJungle]

Is this a Gurumin sequel? Or is Zwei a different series?

 

[Parsnip]

I've never actually seen what Zwei looks like, just have come across the various music albums over the years. Can't really say I'm a fan of the general look of the characters right of the bat, but the map in the upper right corner reminds me of Xanadu Next so that's a plus I guess?!

Confirmed for GOG. Tom @ XSEED has other comments in the post regarding their smaller slate this year.

Huh.
Honestly surprised that Tom is still there after the most recent... thing.

 

[Aeana]

Is this a Gurumin sequel? Or is Zwei a different series?

It's not a Gurumin sequel. The above poster called it Gurumin 2 because it's the same kind of simplistic/cute action game.

 

[purseowner]

Oh no...

Like clockwork.

 

[Big Nikus]

Can I get some context here.

I discovered this guy when I was looking for the fan-trad of Ys IV (he worked directly on it, or on the dub, idk), and apparently one of his friends started to work for XSEED, and they had a falling out. I don't know the details, but this Nightwolve guy seems completely unhinged, he made a FB page to boycott XSEED and wants to send the other guy to prison or whatever. His website started to become a little Trump land too.
edit: ah, beaten

edit2:

Yes please !

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

lol, Even NightWolve can't actually complain about this announcement now that he's been told the fan translator's splitting her cut of the deal with all the other contributors. Seems like XSEED's figured out how to handle this without controversy.

Wait a sec this plays like Nayuta no Kiseki? Wasn't a huge fan of that game myself. Then again I played the machine translation so that didn't help.

If Nayuta's story was a bother. Then don't worry about this game. It's got a lot more humor and irreverence than usual for Falcom, and certainly more than Nayuta. But it's still a rather detailed and well thought-out tale despite this.

The game plays fairly different from Nayuta and doesn't have that game's huge variety in locations, but there's fun combat and bosses for sure.

 

[Theswweet]

Huh.
Honestly surprised that Tom is still there after the most recent... thing.

Well, NeoGAF like any community is in a bubble. Tom himself better explained the situation surrounding Akiba's Beat on the XSEED forums.

 

[GoldandBlue]

I discovered this guy when I was looking for the fan-trad of Ys IV (he worked directly on it, or on the dub, idk), and apparently one of his friends started to work for XSEED, and they had a falling out. I don't know the details, but this Nightwolve guy seems completely unhinged, he made a FB page to boycott XSEED and wants to send the other guy to prison or whatever. His website started to become a little Trump land too.
edit: ah, beaten

Yeesh, yeah. I took a look at his twitter and saw a tweet taunting Xseed for not getting to translate Ys 8 and adding a "make Ys great again" quote at the end.

Pretty embarrassing.

 

[Augemitbutter]

Oh no...

this guy is still alive. i remember the salt from the original oath fan translation and some other leaks.

 

[Continental 0p]

So many Falcom games coming west this year. It's like an entire year of Christmas.

 

[arigato]

I am so happy with all of the Falcom love we have been getting.

I feel the same, soundtrack and gameplay of this looks fantastic. Will definitely buy this day one.

 

[Oreiller]

It's kinda crazy that Zwei 2, Tokyo Xanadu and Ys 8 are releasing so close to each other. So much Falcom goodness in so little time. Can't wait.

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

Tom's got more details on the game for those who don't know it:

Think of it kind of like the '90s anime "Slayers" in action RPG form -- it's irreverent, snarky, funny, and over-the-top, but also really charming due to its awesome characters, snappy dialogue, and surprisingly great story (a story that I've always said sounds kind of ludicrous on paper, but somehow really works due to the extreme care taken in its writing).

The gameplay is very Ys-like, but the experience system is fairly unique: you only gain experience by eating the food dropped by enemies. If you instead save that food, however, you can take it to the Chinese restaurant in town (and yes, it's totally a Chinese restaurant for some reason) and exchange 10 of one type of food for 1 of an exponentially better type of food.

So for example, if you have 10 pieces of cheese that give you 10 experience each, you can either eat all 10 of them and gain 100 total experience, or trade them in at the restaurant for 1 pizza that gives you 1,000 experience. (Note: These are not the actual food items and experience values; I'm merely using cheese and pizza to provide a generic example of how the system works.)

This encourages you to stay low-level as long as possible, since the longer you're able to hold out at lower levels, the faster you'll ultimately be able to level-up.

And there's no difficulty select -- instead, you make your own challenge by seeing how long you can remain underleveled. Theoretically, it *is* possible to beat this game at level 1, so if you're super-hardcore, you can totally attempt that! Which makes this the ultimate "anti-grind" game.

The charm of Zwei:II comes less from its INTENSE CHALLENGE, and more from the cool story and characters, the fast-paced and super-fun (oftentimes chaotic, but in the best possible way) gameplay, and the sheer amount of things there are to do, as this is a game with a LOT of hidden stuff in it. Hidden items, hidden scenes, hidden dialogue... even hidden bosses! Additionally, each and every NPC in the game (with the exception of a small handful of ninja) has a name, a distinctive personality, and exactly three facts you can learn about them. And no matter what point in the story you're at, each NPC will be *somewhere* -- if not in his/her usual spot, then maybe hanging out in a dungeon clearing or something! A lot of times, you'll need to track these NPCs down at these unusual spots in order to learn particular facts about them and fill out your character notebook.

In that sense, it very much follows in the footsteps of games like Ys and Trails, even inasmuch as the "extended lore" is optional here. So if you want to really get to know the land and its people, you can, but if you'd rather just go about adventuring, you can do that too. And you could either have an easy time with it all, or torture yourself mercilessly by fasting your way to success.

I mean, it was a PC game originally, and while it actually required some reeeeelatively decent specs back in 2008 to run smoothly (nothing super-high, but higher than usual for Falcom, on account of the fact that this was their very last original PC title they ever made, and easily their most technically advanced PC title by far), that was nine years ago. Chances are, your computer can run it just fine -- and while yes, Sara is making the standard improvements to it, she's not rewriting the source code wholesale or anything, so it should still be pretty resource-light by 2017 standards.

He's also given a non-answer about the Japanese and/or Englisj VA in this game.

 

[isamu]

At this point I'm just going to buy every game XSEED puts out just to support them and say thanks for localizing so many JPRGs. It's the right thing to do. This game in particular looks pretty cool so I'm all in.

 

[Durante]

I've had this in my Steam library ever since working with XSEED on LKS.

It was fun to watch the discussions on whether it could happen.

 

[GhostTrick]

Shiiit i'm here day one then.

I've had this in my Steam library ever since working with XSEED on LKS.

It was fun to watch the discussions on whether it could happen.

Speaking of LKS... Cloud steam support someday ? :"3
Also... About Zwei... Could you try it on your GPD Win ?

 

[purseowner]

I've had this in my Steam library ever since working with XSEED on LKS.

It was fun to watch the discussions on whether it could happen.

!!!

Shiiit i'm here day one then.







Speaking of LKS... Cloud steam support someday ? :"3
Also... About Zwei... Could you try it on your GPD Win ?

This I would also like to know.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

And there's no difficulty select -- instead, you make your own challenge by seeing how long you can remain underleveled. Theoretically, it *is* possible to beat this game at level 1, so if you're super-hardcore, you can totally attempt that! Which makes this the ultimate "anti-grind" game.

It's the Dark Souls of Ys

Spoiler

Serious talk though, is this one of the first games to do this sorta thing?

 

[Eusis]

It's the Dark Souls of Ys

Spoiler

Serious talk though, is this one of the first games to do this sorta thing?

You could just never click level up in D&D games. Not that you'd survive I'd think.

 

[epmode]

I've had this in my Steam library ever since working with XSEED on LKS.

It was fun to watch the discussions on whether it could happen.

I'm looking forward to a Crossbell version of this post in a year or two.

 

[Mivey]

I'm looking forward to a Crossbell version of this post in a year or two.

Isn't the issue there financing the translation? There is a JP PC version, and getting at least a bare bones port of Zero would probably not cost them much. But with prospects of barely selling 10K, that's not exactly encouraging investments of time or money.

 

[RRockman]

So is this a Grumin spiritual successor? That drill and style look awfully familiar. It's that is the case this is a day one purchase.

 

[Thoraxes]

I've had this in my Steam library ever since working with XSEED on LKS.

It was fun to watch the discussions on whether it could happen.

Oh, neat. Make it a good'un.

 

[preta]

So is this a Grumin spiritual successor? That drill and style look awfully familiar. It's that is the case this is a day one purchase.

It's a sequel to the game that Gurumin was kind of, sort of a spiritual successor to. So more or less, yes.

(It's not actually a drill here though, more of a telescoping sword-whip-gauntlet.)

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

It's the Dark Souls of Ys

Spoiler

Serious talk though, is this one of the first games to do this sorta thing?

Naw, there are plenty of games with manual level-ups.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

You could just never click level up in D&D games. Not that you'd survive I'd think.

Naw, there are plenty of games with manual level-ups.

Naw, I'm talking about this thing this and Shovel Knight sorta share with the withholding of upgrades for greater upgrades for fluid difficulty. Im probably not informed or forgetting an earlier one.