#turn-based-jrpg

#turn-based-jrpg

As I grew into a pretentious young adult in the early 00s, I started to want more from games, and I wasn't finding it. So many of them were mindless, or juvenile, or needlessly violent. So few seemed to have anything to say.

Studio Kai has accumulated a total net loss of 565 million yen, approximately $3.5 million, over seven years, indicating a state of insolvency.

Last year changed the way many of us thought about software. It certainly changed the way I did. I spent much of 2025 building, probing, and questioning how to build software, and in many more ways what I want to do.

The study, published in the Current Psychology journal, was conducted by researchers from SWPS University and the Stefan Batory Academy of Applied Sciences, who set out to measure the 'sense of emptiness that arises after completing a deeply immersive game.' Post-Game Depression, or P-DGS, was measured across two separate studies, with a total of 373 participants.

Square Enix is partnering with Google to integrate its AI large language model Gemini into Dragon Quest X, creating a Slime character that players can chat with. This character will respond with AI-generated text, offering tips, tricks, and advice as players navigate the game.

According to the trailer, the game takes place in a land called Philabieldia that's overrun by beasts, where humans must use a spell of safekeeping to keep their only remaining city, the Kingdom of Huther, safe from invasion. The titular Elliot is tasked with exploring a set of newfound ruins beyond the walls alongside his fairy companion Faie. Unknown to them, though, they will come across a door that will take them on a journey that spans thousands of years.

When a video game series goes on for a long time, it raises a question for newcomers: Just where is the best place to jump in? In the case of Dragon Quest, there are nearly a dozen mainline titles, not to mention copious spinoffs and ports that span four decades of history. Of late, though, publisher Square Enix has been releasing a number of remakes that serve as almost ideal entry points for beginners who are intimidated by all of that baggage.

Square has decided to muddy things up further by giving us Dragon Quest VII Reimagined before the expected Dragon Quest IV HD-2D Remake. What's more, Dragon Quest VII Reimagined utilizes bright, cartoony 3D character models instead of the HD-2D pixel art style of the earlier remakes. Thankfully, the models animate well, and they look particularly cool in battle. Ooooh, let me say that again: Dragon Quest fans are "spoiled for choice these days." Shiver Reimagine Dragons

From the trailer alone, there are quite a few other noticeable differences from the previous games, like the lack of character names on the combat screen, as well as the whopping eight party members in combat at once. In previous games, while you have a full party of eight as the name would imply, you'd only select four of them to actually fight at once.

"Hermen Hulst, head of SIE, joked that 'Please do not kill [a] Tallneck (a giraffe-shaped machine),' and insisted 'Please take good care of Aloy. It feels like I am sending off my daughter at the aisle,'" Lee Seong-gu told Inven, based on a translation by Kotaku. Aloy seemingly won't be playable in the game but it's possible she could still appear in cutscenes.

Shaking up what fans have come to expect from the series, it tosses out the old formulas of straightforward missions and replaces them with an open-world twist that works shockingly well. In the midst of wandering the hidden corners of Japan, players will find fantastic secrets and evocative battles, but what's gained from this ambitious scope is just as often hampered by a surprising lack of challenge and a deadweight story that completely overstays its welcome.