Zeik

@lyndbako: There really shouldn't be any debate here that the Chinese government sucks. That's not necessarily the same thing as conforming to western values or condemning the people that live there, but the amount of authority and control the government wields over their citizens and their ability to have their own thoughts is beyond what any country should find acceptable.

@asylumrunner: When they start censoring the names of people who merely mention Taiwan in completely unrelated context to the game that's when I start to question their motives. Again, I don't actually know how much of it is by their choice or outside pressure (I admit censoring "Taiwan" itself is probably unavoidable), so I'm not willing to outright condemn them, but it's sketch enough to make me uncomfortable. Especially when I don't know how far they are willing or required to go to shut down any mention of Taiwan.

Considering they apparently also censored Kiryu Coco's name (the Vtuber) because she merely mentioned the existence of Taiwan in a completely non-political context I can't say I'm surprised. I half expect to start hearing they are banning streamers who happen to mention Taiwan before long.

I don't know how much of it is by their own choice vs pressure by the government, but it definitely feels gross and off-putting enough that I don't really blame anyone for being turned off by it.

Minecraft has never done anything for me, so this announcement gets a big shrug out of me, but that's fine. I could say the same thing about dozens of other characters in the game, while a dozen others are my jam. That's the good thing about having such a huge and eclectic roster of characters. There's bound to be at least one character you like among them, and any character you don't like is probably exciting to someone else.

@theonewhoplays: The combat is as much of a reason I enjoy Persona as the rest of it. P3's dungeons were repetitive, but I still enjoyed it because I enjoyed the combat.

@schindigg: Atlus has been carrying that torch more than anyone. From Persona to SMT to Etrian Odyssey to Radiant Historian. All good in their own ways.

The Trails series has also continues to maintain its take on turn-based combat and I've quite enjoyed the combat in the more recent ones.

Dragon Quest is still doing Dragon Quest things. DQ11 is coming to all platforms soon if you have yet to play it.

Octopath Traveler fell short in some ways, but the combat was really good.

I absolutely prefer turn-based combat when done right, but I can't really say I care that Final Fantasy has decided to go in this direction. Probably because it's something they've been gradually moving toward for decades, so it didn't exactly come out of nowhere.

And to be brutally honest, I don't think Final Fantasy's turn-based combat was ever particularly great. Especially once they introduced active time battles, which was an obvious early attempt to make turn-based combat feel more active and action-y, but I never felt like it added anything to the combat. And with the exception of X the series has gradually moved more and more into being a real-time action game. If that's what they want to do I'd rather they just go all in and make a good real-time action battle system then try to tack a bunch of superfluous mechanics to make it kinda feel like one.

And I still get my fix for turn-based combat elsewhere. There's still plenty of JRPGs out there that do turn-based combat better than Final Fantasy ever did.

At this point I don't really care to be honest. They will both do their thing and both will get plenty of sales. I sincerely doubt either will "win" to such a degree that it would seriously harm the competition, so the only people who have anything to gain from one being recognized as the "winner" is the stockholders. As a consumer it's largely irrelevant to me.

@mezmero: The Dragon Prince is one of the best shows on Netflix actually. S2 and S3 are amazing.