with the kingdom hearts games finally getting ported to steam, something I'm curious about is what the reception in japan was to the series only having cloud streaming versions available on switch. they've got better infrastructure for cloud gaming, so I don't know if sentiment is more positive to it compared to the west

I've had an ongoing theory that square-enix has had a good deal of autonomy about what projects their leadership actually wanted to work on, and no one wanted to spend any more time with those older kh games. so they let epic handle most of the work for the pc versions, and the switch versions are likely just a modified build from another platform which are configured to run off a server rack

now that they've got a more bullish leadership, I'm expecting fewer half-measures when it comes to money lying on the table. I'd be surprised if they didn't make some sort of trilogy collection available at switch 2's launch along with confirmation that kh4 will be on the system

it's bizarre to me that this is a company that has continued making games inclusive of a japanese audience, while frequently missing out on releasing these games on the platform that has eaten everyone else's market share in that country

Just wanted to jot down some thoughts on demos.

B.C. Piezophile
Underwater mech exploration game for mech freaks. No, seriously, go check it out. I really like the look and atmosphere, but the controls were hard to parse and/or having some issues for me. Mouse and keyboard only, but the controls are complex to the point that I think thats probably the way to go. There also doesn't seem to be any stated goals (Other than ascend?), and the game is in desperate need of a basic tutorial. The dev mentioned checking the encyclopedia for that, but the only way I found that out was by completely exiting the game (also unintentionally difficult) and checking the steam discussions to see if they had mentioned anything about it.

Lets Minesweeper
Multiplayer minesweeper, but it doesn't really punish you for revealing a mine. It also punishes you for invalid flags, so you can't really mark things to check out. Once you realize you can't really fail it kind of loses any appeal. I suppose its good that you can't collectively fail 1000 players at once, but it also has no real stakes since a mistake just makes you wait 6 seconds.

Arranger: A role-puzzling adventure
This both kept failing to download, and also blue screened my computer after I got it working. I'm fairly certain it was writing to a failing part of my HDD and thats what happened, but I didn't get to see too much of it. The tutorial in the wizard's basement was alright, and had a final bit that was actually kind of challenging. But then I got lost since I hadn't turned on the quest waypoints and couldn't find the Mayor's house. That was when it crashed and I didn't feel like continuing. It's kind of set up like wrap-around sliding tile puzzles as the core mechanic, with most objects that can move and trying to navigate objects or holes that won't move.

Yar's Rising
Tech based Magical Girl Metroidvania made by Waypoint based off of Yar's Revenge for the Atari. You hack terminals that play out as the Atari Yar's Revenge game, or at least parts of it. And the rest of the game is a metroidvania. It seems fine, if a little slow. Though that seems to be on purpose as there is built in stealth mechanics/sections. One control downside is that Yar will cling to walls when you jump at them, but sometimes when navigating narrow jumping sections you will wall cling, then jump back down where you were.

I'll probably check out more, but thats just what I've tried so far.

Revisiting the PS2 for the summer and holy shit, I'm so glad I popped in Rygar. This feels like the prototype for Ninja Gaiden in addition to being one of the numerous B-tier Action Games in the PS2's vast library. And voice acting, well I think it speaks for itself:

I think Team Ninja has carved a nice niche for themselves with their recent release of Action RPGs. I'm all for them using Rygar as a means to dip back into the Action game side of things. I don't think we'll be seeing a new Ninja Gaiden anytime soon either.

Rejoice, perverts